a tour-de-force examination of the role death plays in a meaningful life; of love — both maternal and romantic — that endures beyond time; and of the relevance of religion in a changing universe. These are weighty topics, indeed, but author Dara Horn navigates them with a light touch, creating a tale that is both page turner and philosophical treatise on humanity’s timeless quest for meaning ... while there is plenty of sorrow in this sometimes-harrowing novel, it is also a slyly funny and ultimately hopeful take on the human condition and our ability as a species to find joy, even amid the ashes.
Rachel’s isn’t a simple story about a ghoulish pursuer and a victimized woman. She constantly yearns for him, waits impatiently for his arrival, kisses him with relief when he finally appears. There’s a pathology about it … Eternal Life is resolutely forward-looking — it even features a crucial plot point that involves a cryptocurrency mining rig. At the end of the book, Rachel finds herself holding a newborn in one hand and a smartphone — that symbol of our age — in the other, awash in an unusual sense of peace and possibility.
The origins of Rachel’s predicament date back to the days of the Roman occupation of Jerusalem, a world Horn recreates with a deft and convincing touch ... the question at the heart of this wise and appealing novel is finally not how Rachel finds meaning in her eternal life. It is how we, despite our portions of sorrow, tedium and disaster, persist in finding meaning in ours.
Horn dexterously leaps across time, following various of Rachel’s many lives and allowing us to see her agony build through the centuries. As Elazar, who betrayed Rachel but with whom she shares an unbreakable bond and unquenchable love, explains, 'It will never stop happening, Rachel. . . . Whether it’s next spring or ten thousand years from now—with every single child, you are going to watch that child die. And your husbands and lovers, too. All of them.' And yet—there is always an 'and yet' in Horn’s novels—the pull of life and of love is nearly as strong as the lure of death. In that tension, Horn constructs a deeply satisfying novel, rich not only in history and the great philosophical conundrums of living and dying but also in humor and passion.
... a tour-de-force examination of the role death plays in a meaningful life ... Dara Horn navigates [weighty topics] with a light touch, creating a tale that is both page turner and philosophical treatise on humanity’s timeless quest for meaning ... But while there is plenty of sorrow in this sometimes-harrowing novel, it is also a slyly funny and ultimately hopeful take on the human condition and our ability as a species to find joy, even amid the ashes.
...all these temporal excursions resonate with Rachel’s present—which is also the reader’s present. As for the actual mechanics of how Rachel and Elazar become immortal….Some readers are likely to feel there’s not enough explanation, while others might feel that there’s not enough mystery. And there are moments when dialogue, character development, and storytelling are subordinate to the novel's conceit. These are difficulties any writer of speculative fiction will understand, of course, and this novel succeeds on so many levels that these are minor complaints. Poignant and thoughtful.
...[a] funny and compassionate novel ... Horn weaves historical detail and down-to-earth humor into this charming Jewish Groundhog Day spanning two millennia.
