The Seventh Heaven
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15
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Average rating5
"Internationally renowned essayist and cultural commentator Ilan Stavans spent five years traveling across a dozen countries in Latin America, in search of what defines the Jewish communities in the region, whose roots date back to Christopher Columbus's arrival. In the tradition of V.S. Naipaul's exploration of India, the Caribbean, and the Arab world, he came back with an extraordinarily vivid travelogue. Stavans talks to families of the desaparecidos in Buenos Aries, to 'Indian Jews,' and to people affiliated with neo-Nazi groups in Patagonia. He also visits Spain to understand the long-term effects of the Inquisition, the American Southwest habitat of 'secret Jews,' and Israel, where immigrants from Latin America have reshaped the Jewish state. Along the way, he looks for the proverbial 'seventh heaven,' which, according to the Talmud, out of proximity with the divine, the meaning of life in general, and Jewish life in particular, becomes clearer. The Seventh Heaven is a masterful work in Stavans's ongoing quest to find a convergence between the personal and the historical."
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An introspective, idiosyncratic, emotional travelogue-cum-memoir that explores the author's personal identity as a Latin American (and US American) Jew as much as it explores the Jewish histories of various Latin American countries. I found by turns deeply moving, circuitous, and sometimes funny. It was deeply immersive, as well - I really feel, having read it, that I've somehow visited all the places Stavans describes alongside the author, and been physically present for the conversations he has with his many, many interlocutors throughout the text. The diversion toward Europe at the very end of the book was surprising and very effective in disturbing the reader, jolting me from the complacency I felt upon reaching the end of the book, which - up until the last few pages - was wrapping up in a satisfying and unsurprising way. I don't know if Stavans intended to upset the expectations of the reader, but I thought that this choice was very effective in complicating the narrative of the book up until that point (as though it wasn't already complicated enough!). A great read, on the whole.
There are a couple criticisms; there was an oddly large number of typos that should have been caught by a copy-editor (minor misspellings, forgotten prepositions, etc.). This was annoying to me, because Stavans is both an engaging storyteller and a reputable scholar, and a book by such an author should not be riddled with so many typographical errors that it puts the reader in mind of a self-published novelette on Amazon.
