Free PDF The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner
Obtain the connect to download this The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner and begin downloading. You could desire the download soft documents of guide The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner by undergoing other activities. Which's all done. Now, your rely on read a book is not always taking and also bring guide The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner anywhere you go. You can conserve the soft documents in your device that will certainly never ever be far away and read it as you such as. It resembles reading story tale from your device after that. Now, start to enjoy reading The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner as well as get your new life!
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner
Free PDF The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner
The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner. It is the time to boost and refresh your skill, expertise as well as encounter consisted of some entertainment for you after very long time with monotone things. Working in the workplace, visiting research, picking up from examination and even more activities may be completed and also you have to start new things. If you really feel so worn down, why don't you try new point? An extremely easy point? Reading The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner is what our company offer to you will know. And the book with the title The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner is the referral now.
When some people considering you while reading The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner, you could feel so honored. However, rather than other people feels you must instil in on your own that you are reading The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner not because of that reasons. Reading this The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner will give you greater than individuals admire. It will guide to understand greater than individuals looking at you. Already, there are many sources to understanding, reviewing a publication The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner still becomes the front runner as an excellent way.
Why ought to be reading The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner Once more, it will depend on how you really feel and also think of it. It is surely that people of the perk to take when reading this The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner; you could take more lessons straight. Also you have actually not undergone it in your life; you could get the experience by checking out The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner And currently, we will present you with the online book The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner in this website.
What kind of book The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner you will prefer to? Currently, you will not take the printed publication. It is your time to obtain soft file book The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner instead the printed records. You could enjoy this soft data The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner in at any time you expect. Also it is in expected place as the various other do, you can check out guide The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner in your device. Or if you want a lot more, you can read on your computer or laptop to get full display leading. Juts discover it here by downloading and install the soft data The Witch Of Cologne, By Tobsha Learner in web link web page.
A Time of Peril
The Inquisitor, Carlos Vicente Solitario, charges a young Jewish midwife, Ruth bas Elazar Saul, with heresy. Ruth may be the daughter of the city's chief rabbi, but this is no protection against the Inquisition's accusations.
A Quest for Justice
Detlef von Tennen, nobleman and canon, cousin to the Archbishop, suspects that something other than religion drives Solitario to persecute Ruth. Determined to ensure that justice is done, Detlef joins the investigation-and finds his passions fully aroused by Ruth's impressive intelligence and darkly exotic beauty.
Two Hearts' Desires
All her life, Ruth bas Elazar Saul has thirsted for knowledge, despite the price she paid by concealing her gender and being cast out of her father's house. Her faith sustained her through all, even the attentions of the Inquisition. Then, in the very heart of danger, God blessed her with the greatest love she had ever known.
- Sales Rank: #494843 in Books
- Published on: 2005-08-01
- Released on: 2005-07-28
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.00" h x 1.06" w x 6.00" l, 1.14 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 480 pages
- charges a young Jewish midwife with heresy
From Publishers Weekly
In a sensuous 17th-century saga set in German Catholic Cologne, Learner (Quiver) transports readers to a time when studying the ancient Kabbalah could prove deadly for a young Jewish midwife. Ruth bas Elazar Saul is the headstrong daughter of the chief rabbi of Deutz, Cologne's Jewish ghetto. She undertakes the forbidden course of mystical study, her Sephardic mother's legacy, before absconding to Amsterdam to escape an arranged marriage. There, Ruth acquires the contemporary midwifery skills she will combine with her sacred learning, and upon her return to Cologne she delivers wealthy burghers' babies using new lifesaving methods, earning a reputation for more than medical genius. Word of her skills travels quickly, and as the Spanish Inquisition stretches its tentacles to the Rhineland, Ruth is arrested for sorcery by the sadistic archbishop Carlos Vicente Solitario, whose persecution of her is fueled by a stymied youthful obsession with her mother. Ruth's keen intelligence and bravery in prison win her an ally, Canon Detlef von Tennen, who falls passionately in love with the "Jewess." The two marry, and Learner has readers rooting for the survival of their unlikely alliance. This steamy, riveting page-turner is also a paean to the triumph of a woman's spirit. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
In the tradition of books about strong Jewish women, which includes The Red Tent (1997)and Sarah (2004), comes this story of Ruth, a woman of the Middle Ages who fights against the prejudice that surrounds her gender and religion. The daughter of an influential rabbi in Cologne, 23-year-old Ruth is a highly skilled midwife, but she is also the obsession of Solitario, a Dominican inquisitor. Spurned by Ruth's mother, he is determined to destroy the daughter and uses Ruth's practice of kabbalah--seen as a form of Jewish magic--to launch his attack. Ruth is even more vulnerable to the inquisitor after she falls in love with Detlef von Tennan, a churchman struggling with his loyalty to Catholicism. Fans of sweeping historical dramas will be enthralled by Ruth's story; remarkably, Learner writes with equal power about the intensity of Ruth's spirituality, the passion of her forbidden love for Detlef, and the horror of the torture she suffers at Solitario's hands. This is the kind of all-consuming novel that readers hate to see end. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“An historical romance that transcends its genre with meticulous attention to detail and wonderful visual sense.” ―Vogue (Australia)
“A rich historical novel with a contemporary feel.” ―Marie Claire (Australia)
“If you like juicy historical novels with richly-drawn Jewish characters living interesting lives, then this is a novel you must read. [The] characters, both Jewish and Christian, are surprising in their depth of personality and by their believability. The story is a real page turner. Ruth is noble and honest; a modern woman set in a far-off time.” ―Australian Jewish News
“Like a tapestry, the setting is meticulously detailed [and] carefully woven. Learner has a rich historical palette to play with and uses it to create a plot that gains pace as it progresses. The novel will appeal to reader who delight in the worlds conjured in Anne Rice's dark historical romances. Like Rice, Learner writes with a leaning toward eroticism.” ―Australian Bookseller & Publisher
Most helpful customer reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful.
A novel of contrasts
By litteacher
I, too was sceptical of this novel due to the cover; it was actually recommended to me by students of mine, who enjoy historical fiction. All facets of the characters and their very human struggles, including the long-standing vendetta of the Inquisitor against the daughter of Sara Navarro are believable from the perspective of the reader. The novel is charged with energy; characters are dynamic and credible, especially the romance between Alphonse and Ferdinand. The clergy are conflicted and realistically trapped in the politics of the Inquisition, the rise of Protestantism and the burgeoning Age of Enlightment of which Ruth is the talisman. A major effort for the novelist as the text remains true and solid until the very final pages of the novel. All characters, except the fanatics, question the rationale of their time and even the Count at the end of the text and his life, reconciles himself to the fact that his heir is of mixed blood, yet during his life he could not publically reconcile himself to his sham marriage and hidden homosexuality.
A rare jewel of a glimpse into the period of Charles II, Benedict Spinoza and the Holy Roman Emperor just before the turn of the eighteenth century.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful.
Review by Caroline Tully
By Caroline Tully
The story of a Jewish midwife, Ruth Bas Elazar Saul, who lives and works in the German city of Cologne in the 1660's. Unlike the average midwife of the time Ruth is also trained in medicine but, despite her scientific approach to healing, she frequently finds herself resorting to traditional Jewish birth charms. Ruth does not see herself as a Witch, but rather as a follower of 'Scientia Nova' (new science), yet despite this, she is unfairly accused of Witchcraft and suffers greatly at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition. This is a thought provoking, sometimes horrifying story which inspires much musing about the historical relationship between Judaism and Witchcraft. The book is divided into ten sections named for the ten Kabbalistic Sephiroth, and Ruth owns an old copy of the Zohar: a key Kabbalistic text, written in Aramaic and sometimes referred to as the 'Bible' of the Kabbalists, however we don't really get to hear much in the way of Kabbalistic secrets and the Zohar is more a silent decorative prop - although Ruth does base some of her mysticism and spells on its contents. Nevertheless, it is interesting to be reminded that the Kabbalah, which is so heavily associated with Western Ceremonial Magick, is actually a Jewish tool. Highly recommended.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful.
How everyday people learned to think for themselves
By John L Murphy
A mass-market epic romance combines philosophical radicalism (Spinoza's secularism), political upheaval (Dutch rebellion against the monarchy), and Catholic suppression (the Inquisition extends its long bony hands towards the German frontier). The later 17th century's full of power, lust, and greed, and Learner intersperses erotic scenes that make her characters seem much more like contemporaries than our ancestors, if their uninhibited tastes were indulged.
Reviewers appeared shocked or unsettled by Learner's ambitious tale. However, as the author of "Quiver: a book of erotic tales," one might expect her application of steamier interludes into an often sobering dramatization of how liberal ideals were hunted down by enforcers of Church and State. I sought this out curious about the portrayal of Sephardic Judaism in a modernizing Europe, and this element, especially in the earlier sections, enriches this story. The question of whether she's a witch, interestingly or annoyingly, appears understated: we see evidence of such, but details soon get skimmed over and obscured, perhaps reflecting the way Ruth would wish to distract others from her acquaintance with amulets and spells.
The novel's chapters are named for kabbalistic levels, but as the story goes on, the actual connections between the Zohar and the plot seem to recede and vanish. Later chapters find Ruth, once with her lover, a Catholic canon who turns Protestant preacher, seemingly abandoning her Jewish heritage, if understandably due to clerical and judicial persecutions which never seem to end. This grim tone of oppression permeates the whole novel. Judaism and skepticism both seem thought crimes. I felt the pressure upon freethinkers that must have terrorized so many who dared to consider revolutionary conceptions in such an oppressive climate.
For me, that struggle to articulate humanist ideals proved the most memorable aspect of this narrative. Learner also writes for the stage and screen, and the cinematic perspective of many scenes enlivens her novel. Here is a plague hospital: "Oblivious to the human agony below, a swallow tends to the mud nest she has wedged precariously between two wooden rafters. Beneath the industrious bird lie row after row of the infirm. Thrown on the dirty straw, the sick are contorted and delirious, like the victims of some massive shipwreck, their eyes already flooding with the resignation of the drowning. Nuns in the brown habit of their order scurry between their patients, removing pails of diseased slops, many wearing cotton masks packed with herbs in a desperate attempt to ward off the extraordinary stench of disease." (284)
She takes time to characterize even walk-on figures, and you glimpse their complexity. Her skill at rendering scenes (as what I've quoted) enlivens her novel. Her research generally works smoothly. Perhaps inevitably some dialogue lags didactically given what we must comprehend about the machinations of Austria, Holland, and the German entities. Towards the end, the narrative energy flags as some main characters weary; passages tell us rather than show us the progress of the pursued, hunted characters. (One aside: I don't think Kaddish for the dead would have been recited in "perfect Hebrew"; it's traditionally in a literary Aramaic.) Given our unfamiliarity with 17th-century history, there's a few notes appended, a list of characters (many taken from real life) with annotations, and a helpful glossary.
Learner's learning's generally blended well, but this may be a daunting read for the squeamish, the prim, or the easily distracted reader. It takes about a third of the way into the plot for the key players to square off, but after that, the pace steadies. The conclusion did not wrap up the way I thought, while the fate of one foe and the general denouement seemed too hasty after so long a story. I suspected a sequel either was altered and edited into this novel, or that the character triumphant at the conclusion may earn another tale to come.
So, it's recommended for an adventurous reader. The lively couplings and gruesome tortures jibe with Learner's wish to make us feel the fleshly fates of her characters, as moments of grace and depth enter nearly every figure she introduces. She's nimble at telegraphing traits to help us identify with these distant people and their thoughts and fears. Our protagonist seems by the end overwhelmed by it all, and we may be too, but that's the force of the encounter between frail humans and ideological forces that try to crush, rather than liberate, everyday folks who dare question what seems to have always been true.
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner PDF
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner EPub
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner Doc
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner iBooks
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner rtf
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner Mobipocket
The Witch of Cologne, by Tobsha Learner Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar