Book Review: The World and All That It Holds

There are many unique takes of The World and All That It Holds, the latest book by Bosnian-American author Aleksandar Hemon. Set on a long timeline from the outburst of the WWI in Sarajevo to the WWII episodes in Asia, this is mostly a book about refugees. Those born without knowing any other condition but being a refugee, those turned into one overnight.

I don´t remember too many books using frequently expressions and references to Ladino, a language I started to be interested in in the last years. Hemon´s book has regular mentions in a way that makes you think about how this language used to be part of the everyday language only one century ago. For a language still looking to get a better voice within the realm of languages, it is a noteworthy contribution.

Another important detail, unique in my opinion, is the mention of Uighurs, as individuals crossing paths with the characters of the book: Pinto, a Jew from Sarajevo and his daughter Rahela, in fact the result of a relationship between Pinto´s lover Osman and a woman. As Osman eventually dies, Pinto, following the refugee path carrying Rahela with him through the desert until Shanghai. 

I entered relatively slowly into the ambiance of the book - as it usually happens with me in the case of historical fiction - , but after the first 50 pages, I was charmed by the story and the intertwined layers of talmudic stories with everyday life passions and cruelty.

The traces of all those experiences reflects in the language: a mirror of the worlds they lived in. ´(...) they spoke a language that no one in the world spoke other than the two of them, because no one had gone through the things they had´.

In addition to the fictional story, the novel was inspired by real events and real people, thus the references to memoirs and testimonies about persons mentioned in the story. The author is getting closer to us by inserting his own opinion about a specific event, feeling or character. The presence of the ´I´ into the course of the story may be unexpected but a creative distraction from the story. 

I also appreciated the ending, which closes a story and disclose the origin of the story itself, a meditation about the literary sources and the genesis of creative ideas. 

My only critique about the book is to have been assigned to the 1930s an expression that we use nowadays, that do not have any substance to those times: ´leaving both of them to their devices´. An error that nevertheless does not negatively affect the overall quality of the book which qualifies is among one of the best works of fiction I got to know this year.

Rating: 4.5 stars