The Dovekeepers: A Novel

"Dovekeepers" is the first book I've read of Alice Hoffmans'. In fact, one evening my wife looked at the book while I was reading in bed and said: "You're reading Alice Hoffman? I've read Alice Hoffman. But you don't read Alice Hoffman!"

And so I DID read Alice Hoffman and I liked Alice Hoffman. This is a very good book. It's real deep and very weighty.

"Dovekeepers" orbits around the real life events of the early 70s A.D. in ancient Judea. Rome was large and in charge and in the midst of shattering a Judean rebellion (seen commemorated in the famous Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum only a few hundred yards from the Colosseum in Italy). Several hundred Jews fled Jerusalem to the desert near the Dead Sea and moved into the former mountain fortress of King Herod at Masada. While the proud Jewish rebels held off a Roman legion for several years, Rome ultimately prevailed and all but two women and five children killed themselves rather than allow themselves to be overrun.

Hoffman's novel follows the lives of four women who all find themselves on Masada. Each woman has a dedicated 100-150 pages that weave in and out of each other's stories with the collective whole building a comprehensive picture of their mutual plight. The stories connect the women together in ways that are obvious and follow the primary arc of the novel, but also in ways that are surprising and poignantly fulfilling. The connections build and develop on many levels: physically, emotionally, and symbolically.

The book is full of characters who are broken and hurt; affected by some deep trauma catalyzed by the Roman attacks on Jerusalem; driving each, by their own will or otherwise, to the fortress in the desert. One of Hoffman's women is Yael, a deeply fractured and self actualizing individual who sums up the disparate journeys that brought the women to Masada: "We came like doves across the desert. In a time when there was nothing but death, we were grateful for anything, and most grateful of all when we awoke to another day."

You'll feel the weight of each character's pain and sorrow increase as the novel progresses. There are few happy endings. Hoffman's themes cover the gamut from fate and destiny, to religion and love, and the depths of devotion.

Faith is a thread that runs throughout Hoffman's carefully woven tapestry. It's not just a religious entity, but something that binds individuals, family units, as well as the entire rebel community. In Revka, Hoffman ponders the rebel Jews: "If we lost our faith, we would become like the clouds that swell across the western sky when the wind pushes them into the desert promising rain but empty inside." It's through Revka also that Hoffman finally (about half-way through he book) provides a heart-wrenchingly warm and genuinely surprising treat at the end of her particular novella. For the first time the furrow on my brow melted into a smile on my face (note: it didn't last very long).

Hoffman's Judean world is one of religion and tradition, of myth and magic: a world where everything in it has significance...symbolic or real. Some vignettes read almost as something out of a fantasy novel, but there's no melodrama to their weight.

In looking for a good way to summarize the books' tone, I found a couple of strong quotes. This first comes from Shirah, `The Witch of Moab': "Being human means losing everything we love best in the world. But would you ask to be anything else?" This second is from Revka: "...our waking life is formed by our sorrow. " In each character is anchored a heavy weight.

In this misogynistic society, few men come across in a truly positive light. Though Hoffman writes very sparingly, in her few words, she's able to expresses a multiplicity of ideas and thoughts. Characters are never solely what they seem to be and there is very little that is purely black or white. Hoffman's world is filled with shades of gray.

This book is going to resonate strongly for a lot of readers. It may be a bit polarizing because of its very serious nature. But as a first time reader of Hoffman, and a male, I feel fuller for having read this novel. I highly recommend it.

I'm afraid this review of Alice Hoffman's latest novel, "The Dovekeepers", is going to be unpopular with her fans. I understand because I'm also a fan of Hoffman's novels - usually. But I think that in "The Dovekeepers", readers are just going to be overwhelmed with too much of the things that we usually like about Hoffman's novels. I'll try to explain:

"The Dovekeepers" is the story of the Roman defeat of the Jews at Masada ~70 C.E. told from the perspectives of four women who had sought refuge there in the stronghold built by King Herod. Each narrator's section of the story is quite long and detailed. Each contains much much much Hoffman-trademarked magic, omens, superstitions, potions, spells, witches, angels, demons,ghosts, amulets, symbols, beasts...you get the idea. I think if each of these stories had been shortened and had less of the "other-world"-ness it would have moved along better.

But, maybe that's just me. Maybe readers who really get into the magical, spiritual, ethereal stuff will just ADORE this novel. For me it was too much of what should be "just enough"; an avalanche of what should have been a sprinkling. However, I'm still a Hoffman fan, and will certainly look forward to her next offering.

First I admit to being a huge Alice Hoffman fan. This book, however, is not Hoffman's typical book. It is as the book description says very ambitious. For me, Hoffman's ambitions succeeded beyond my imagination. I loved this book, the characters, the setting, the debates it caused in my own mind over faith and religion.

Still, I think this book requires a lot of patience to read. It isn't a genre fiction novel and is long because it was designed to be that way in order to give the characters and the history involved as much space as possible. This is not a book to sit down with and try to read during commercials while watching television. It's a book that requires time and effort--but that time and effor will be well worth it! Just don't expect an average Alice Hoffman book and read it for what it is--a great literary fiction novel. Few writers could bring off this book at all and certainly not with Hoffman's writing expertise. Parts of the book are just brilliantly written and worth reading just for that beauty alone.

Overall, fantastic read. Already wishing there was a new Alice Hoffman book on the horizon!

Let me start by saying that the author is obviously an excellent writer. My review takes nothing away from her obvious talents.

Last year I visited Masada. I've always been interested in the lives of the people who died there but never thought I would get to see it in person. I sat there looking over to the beautiful view of the Dead Sea and wondered how many times the people of Masada sat and looked at that same view. I wondered what they thought about, how they worshipped, if they fell in love, had weddings, babies, etc. Since spending some time there, I've been researching and studying it even further. That's why I bought this book, in an effort to put faces and stories to the tragic event.

However, I was disappointed to see the character and religious beliefs of the people of Masada represented in a way that was dramatically different from what they practiced. Some treasured scrolls were hidden well enough that they actually survived and have recently been found, so we know much about what they did believe and how important it was to them.

The novel is full of mysticism: bad fortune, demons, spirits, secret chants, charms, omens, mystical dreams, oracles, ghosts, medicines, love potions, and spells.

I would have known that it wasn't for me if I had been more careful to research the book before buying it.

My visit to Masada last year was a moving experience. People go there to honor those brave people who, rightly or wrongly, chose to die rather than to live in slavery. Their memory is traditionally honored with dignity befitting their own strong religious beliefs and customs.

I was looking for a novel more faithful to the historical facts, so this was not a good choice for me.

Let me start by saying that Alice Hoffman is a tremendously gifted writer. I love the magic and magical realism of her stories, and I think she has a good sense of people and emotions. At what she does, there are none better.

Still, when I grabbed a galley of The Dovekeepers at BEA, it definitely seemed like a departure from her typical work. In fact, the jacket copy made it seem as though The Dovekeepers was a passion project, "over five years in the writing." I have no doubt that Ms. Hoffman's heart was in the right place, but this reader is left with the thought that Masada didn't need the Alice Hoffman treatment.

Set in 70 C.E., this is the story of the Roman siege of the Jewish settlement at Masada, a mountain stronghold. Ms. Hoffman has humanized the historic events by telling the story in four parts through the first-person narration of four very different women. I went into this novel with the highest of expectations, but my ultimate response was quite negative.

I had several issues with the book, but probably the biggest was this--the tragedy at Masada is one of the most dramatic tales in all of history. There was no need to add witchcraft and fantastic elements. It's clear that Ms. Hoffman did a ton of research, and I don't expect that ancient Jews were just like contemporary ones, but I didn't even recognize the people she was writing about as Jews. They were like some kind of weird, superstitious pagans. And this is coming from a woman with absolutely no religious faith--but apparently I have strong feelings of connection to my Jewish history. And I felt she took tremendous liberties with a story that shouldn't have been altered out of respect. I was kind of offended.

For instance, the Jewish faith doesn't tend to dwell on any kind of afterlife. It's a vague concept at best. We focus on this life. However, Hoffman uses the phrase "world-to-come" 44 times in this novel! These people are obsessed with the afterlife. And there are plentiful references to ghosts, demons, magic, spells, witches, etc. I realize there is mysticism in Judaism--real Kabbalah, not the nonsense practiced by Christian celebrities--but it's a tiny part of the religion. And yet it seems to be all Alice Hoffman is able to write about.

Obviously, a lot of the issues above have more to do with me and my Jewish identity than the quality of the novel, strictly speaking. Beyond all that, the novel still has some problems. As noted above, the story is told through the voices and experiences of four different female narrators. I found the first narrator to be unlikable and unsympathetic in the extreme. I understand that redemption was a major theme of the novel, but it made getting into the story challenging. In general, I had a lot of trouble connecting to these women.

Finally, OMG, I can't believe how badly the endless exposition was handled! Truly dreadful. I could give you any number of examples, but here are a few:

"The settlement had been destroyed by the Romans. It was intended to be a paradise built by the Yahad, a group of believers from the Essene sect, Jews who practiced strict codes with fixed hours of prayer. It was said that our people had been cut into four quarters, each with their own philosophy, and then cut up four more times for good measure. Truly righteous, the Essenes has indeed cut themselves off from all others."

"My father came up to me and asked if it was my desire to be a zonah. I felt that he had slapped me. He compared me to the prostitutes who lived at the edge of Jerusalem and were willing to pull off their cloaks for anyone who would pay them, even Roman soldiers."

"Shirah was a practitioner of keshaphim, initiated into the secrets of magic. Our people believed that any item with a sun and a moon upon it must be taken to the Salt Sea and thrown into the water, but several women claimed to have seen such figures worn at the witch's throat."

I don't know that any other reader would respond to this novel the way that I have. In fact, I welcome comments from other readers about the points I raised. I see that, in general, The Dovekeepers has gotten extremely positive reviews. I'd much rather praise than criticize, but I just can't join the majority on this one. I will look forward to Ms. Hoffman's next effort. I am confident that it will be more to my liking.

I had high hopes for The Dovekeepers, and purchased it without first reading a sample. Big mistake. The book is almost laughably bad, so bad that I felt compelled to submit this review via my Kindle Fire while on vacation. The narrative is breathless, contrived, incoherent and silly. Yael, the uneducated, neglected and unwanted daughter of an assassin, emerges from the womb possessing the vocabulary, insight and wisdom of a grown woman. Every narrative utterance is overwrought and ridiculous - only when her section ended did I realize that it was not an elaborate flashback.

Hoffman is a wonderful author, and she took on a difficult and ambitious task with this book. Unfortunately, she tried too hard, and failed to make the women of her story come to life.

Alice Hoffman has taken the story of the Roman siege of Masada and turned it into an epic told in the voices of four strong, similar women. Each woman has taken a different path to the ancient doomed rebel Jewish stronghold, whose story has been corroborated by both ancient historians and modern archeologists. Here, according to the Roman Jewish writer Josephus who lived at the time of the siege, warrior zealots used the site of Herod's former castle and fort as a hideout from Roman legions and as a base to attack Roman villages.The women who narrate the novel meet and bond as they care for a large flock of doves, which, according to legend and this story, were kept in Masada first as a source of dung fertilizer for the fruits and vegetables that sustained the enclave, and, later, as food when the Roman siege made harvesting too dangerous.

Hoffman has done much historical research: she has clearly visited the site, since the stronghold on Masada becomes an important aspect of the novel; she has read The Jewish War by Josephus; and, as she states in her acknowledgments, she has interviewed and relied on scholars who have studied the siege and the ultimate mass suicide of the zealot warriors. Knowing that specific bones were found in a certain site during the excavation, she even places a death scene in that site. With all that work, it's a shame that The Dovekeepers devolves into little more than a romance novel embellished with historical facts. (One puzzle: recent studies indicate that the "dovecote" at Masada had holes too small for doves or pigeons. Hoffman must have known this, but chose to stay with the dovekeeper conceit anyway.)

The context of The Dovekeepers is reminiscent of Anita Diamant's successful novel of some years back, The Red Tent: take real Jewish/Biblical history, invent dialogue, story arc, and interpersonal conflict, throw in significant amounts of sex and violence, and the result is a bodice-ripping best seller that, if judged uncritically, could pass for a semi-intellectual historical study. Hoffman's limited skills as a writer hold the novel back: while she has developed her story arc well, she is repetitive, using similar phrases and images too frequently; she is so weak in character development that the four women often seem interchangeable; she uses awkward, stilted language for her narrators, which blunts the impact of the tension the characters experience. Hoffman is known for her attention to magical elements, and two of her main characters are "witches" who use spells in addition to prayers to influence fate and God's will. These sequences are long and involved, and sadly unconvincing: the spells are used and are effective only in some circumstances, and certainly don't influence the ultimate destiny of the Jews at Masada.

Hoffman focuses on many graphically violent scenes, perhaps to enliven the novel. We know how the story ends, and it ends very badly indeed, so the detailed violence seems gratuitous at best, and does nothing to raise the book to the level of literature. It's a fascinating tale, and could have been gripping rather than what it is: just a good read.

I am a huge Hoffman fan and bought this site unseen, but I was so disappointed. I couldn't finish it and I was more than half way through it. I think I would have preferred it be written in third person. The narrator's view got on my nerves. Too much of "it is a custom among my people" type stuff. Really annoying. Just tell the story.

The first 50 pages of this book are amazing. Cliché as it sounds, I felt transported to the land of Judea in 70 C.E., brought vividly to life from the streets of Jerusalem to the harsh desert (reflecting the harshness of the narrator's life). And it was fascinating to see how much history had already transpired, even though the book is set over 1900 years ago.

Sadly, The Dovekeepers didn't live up to that initial promise. It's a decent story with a lot of inherent drama: about 1000 Jews fled to the nearly-inaccessible fortress of Masada, which became the last stronghold against the Roman invasion of their land. It's a slice of history I knew almost nothing about, which is one of the reasons I read historical fiction. The book is narrated alternately by four resilient, determined women, whose job is caring for Masada's doves (which provide eggs, fertilizer and eventually meat for the fortress). But it starts to feel more conventional once the women arrive in the fortress, and more and more problems with the writing crop up. Among them:

- Bloat. Here's one character musing on her people's chances against the Romans:

"In truth our people were no match for Roman soldiers, who had been trained for one thing, to be a machine of death. Our warriors were best when they slunk about like wolves, striking enemies in the dark. The rebels' only hope of success was an attack that was unexpected, when thanks to God's grace, their quickness and ferocity might win out over might. Against well-armored, organized troops, who had so much experience of warfare, our people were woefully unprepared. Our fathers and brothers were freedom fighters, not trained soldiers. Unlike my sister's father, the men at Masada had not been warriors from the moment of their birth, each with a horse already chosen and a knife in hand. They had been priests and bakers and scholars, their weapons knives and arrows and rocks, not bronze and iron. We were nothing against the relentless power of the Roman Empire."

In other words, lacking the Roman soldiers' training and experience, Masada's fighters depended on stealth? If Hoffman didn't consistently use 150 words where 15 would do, this book would probably have had 300 pages.

- Repetition. Another form of bloat. For instance, on one page, Shirah tells Revka that Revka will find the last ingredient she needs for a charm on the day when Event X happens. On the very next page, we get Event X. Says Revka: "I knew this was the day when the incantation bowl would be complete, for Shirah had vowed the missing ingredient could be added only when [Event X happened.]"

- Trying really hard to be weighty and talk about What It Means To Be Human. This means a lot of florid language. Hoffman has apparently never met a simile she didn't like, and her characters never let pass an opportunity to spout platitudes about the human condition, often with references to lions, leopards etc. The story can speak for itself, so why not let readers draw their own conclusions about what it means to be human?

- Identical voices. The four women all think the same way. Multiple narrators are notoriously difficult for one author to pull off, and the problem is that when everyone sounds the same, it's difficult to distinguish between them as people. Especially when, despite their different preoccupations, they all share so many traits to begin with (determination, self-doubt, etc.).

- Characters knowing things they shouldn't. Hoffman clearly felt constrained by the first-person POV, preferring to tell the stories of all four women throughout. So when Revka, who only met Yael and her family a couple months before, witnesses an interaction between Yael and her father, she describes it as follows: "The assassin kept his head bowed as he waited for Yael's decision, a sign of respect he had never offered to his daughter in the past." Which is something Yael might say, or an omniscient narrator might say, but when a third party makes such a sweeping statement with such confidence, it's jarring. And then there's Shirah's statement that Aziza at birth looked exactly like Shirah herself at birth. That's funny, because no one was there to tell her that--does she have a photograph? And so on.

By about 200 pages in, I was finding this book tiresome. I did finish it, and it was.... decent. It has great history and a strong sense of place. It handily avoids painting individuals or groups as pure good or evil. It's clearly well-researched and the characters are moderately interesting. But it's a bit of a slog. Readers more tolerant of florid language than I am will likely enjoy it more. But I can't help thinking that a more disciplined writer might have done so much better, especially with such fascinating material to work with.

I truly don't know how to begin to convey the spellbinding artistry that is Hoffman's writing. Based on the true story of how 900 Jews in ancient Judea held out against invading Romans bent on their destruction, Hoffman gives life to four extraordinary women, two of whom survive annihilation with five children when all others do not. Shirah, the Witch of Moab is just one of the fully realized characters that are imbued with life and longing in this mesmerizing tale. Yael, the bold daughter of an assassin; Revka, the gentle wife of a baker who is forced to commit unspeakable acts; and Aziza, a fierce warrior masquerading as a man tell their own stories and those of others in the most beautiful, evocative prose. As in the best historical novels, there is much basis in fact and fascinating details about life and lore during that time. You are transported as if you are spying these characters in the plaza and in the shadows of the settlement as they try to keep their secrets. This work is her best, a magnum opus, and not to be missed!