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In the Image
A young woman's coming of age, a romantic love story, and a spiritual journey—each infused with the lessons of history.
In the Image is an extraordinary first novel illuminated by spiritual exploration, one that remembers "a language, a literature, a held hand, an entire world lived and breathed in the image of God."
Bill Landsmann, an elderly Jewish refugee in a New Jersey suburb with a passion for travel, is obsessed with building his slide collection of images from the Bible that he finds scattered throughout the world. The novel begins when he crosses paths with his granddaughter's friend, Leora, and continues by moving forward through her life and backward through his, revealing the unexpected links between his family's past and her family's future.
Not just a first novel but a cultural event—a wedding of secular and religious forms of literature—In the Image neither lives in the past nor seeks to escape it, but rather assimilates it, in the best sense of the word, honoring what is lost and finding, among the lost things, the treasures that can renew the present.
In the Image is an extraordinary first novel illuminated by spiritual exploration, one that remembers "a language, a literature, a held hand, an entire world lived and breathed in the image of God."
Bill Landsmann, an elderly Jewish refugee in a New Jersey suburb with a passion for travel, is obsessed with building his slide collection of images from the Bible that he finds scattered throughout the world. The novel begins when he crosses paths with his granddaughter's friend, Leora, and continues by moving forward through her life and backward through his, revealing the unexpected links between his family's past and her family's future.
Not just a first novel but a cultural event—a wedding of secular and religious forms of literature—In the Image neither lives in the past nor seeks to escape it, but rather assimilates it, in the best sense of the word, honoring what is lost and finding, among the lost things, the treasures that can renew the present.
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2002
45 people are currently reading
1142 people want to read
About the author
Dara Horn
24 books811 followersDara Horn is the award-winning author of six books. One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists (2007), she is the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among other honors, and she was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the Wingate Prize, the Simpson Family Literary Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s 25 Best Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into twelve languages.
Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Tablet, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications.
Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia.
She currently serves as Creative Adviser for The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.
Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Tablet, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications.
Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia.
She currently serves as Creative Adviser for The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.
She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 126 reviews
August 25, 2014
The most successful novel of 2002, indeed the most successful debut novel in many years, began with the murder of a teenage girl. To a nation bathed in grief from Sept. 11 and terrorized by stories of child abductions, "The Lovely Bones" offered a voice of bittersweet reassurance about the immortality of our loved ones.
Is there room, at this moment, for another intensely spiritual novel that opens with the murder of a teenage girl? If not, make room. "In the Image," by Dara Horn, is a work of raw genius.
Whereas "The Lovely Bones" glimmers with New Age faith in the ongoing presence of our dearly departed, Horn's novel storms with the crosscurrents of the Old Testament: the trials of exile, the burdens of orthodoxy, the inexplicable nature of evil, and the awesome power of God.
What interests Horn most, though, is the perplexing function of images -- from the divine image that the Hebrew Scriptures first sanctify as man to the graven images later forbidden in the Commandments.
When a young man hits Naomi Landsmann in the first paragraph of "In the Image," she and her killer vanish from the pages of this novel. Her parents move away before we learn anything about them. If the driver suffers the effects of guilt or receives punishment, we never hear. If Naomi's parents find comfort in their faith or sever their marriage on the razor of grief, we never know. If Naomi awakens in heaven or returns to haunt her murderer, we never see. This is not a novel about them.
Instead, Naomi's death brings together an unlikely pair: her best friend, Leora, who reacts by becoming mute, and Naomi's grandfather, Bill, who attempts to capture everything on earth, past and present, in thousands and thousands of carefully organized slides.
Eleven months after his granddaughter's murder, Bill calls Leora and asks her to come see his photos of the Holy Land. It's a peculiar invitation -- young Leora, after all, has never met this old man -- but she and her parents go along for a pleasant if somewhat boring evening at the Landsmanns' house.
Later, he invites her alone, and she feels strangely inclined to keep viewing his well-narrated travelogues. Leora and Bill are both tourists, after all. Naomi's death has dislodged them from the continuum of normal life and forced them to look at their surroundings as a series of separate frames or panels in a long, foreign journey. But their mutual loss never develops into mutual affection, and eventually, Leora grows uneasy with his attempts to cast her as his missing granddaughter. In response to his increasingly uncomfortable revelations of past disappointments, she finally tells him off and they never meet again.
But their stories continue to mingle in this remarkable narrative that's by turns tragic and inspiring. Leora moves on to a lonely college experience and then a meaningless job as a magazine writer, where she can continue to treat life as something to be observed and described from afar.
Though not devout, she finds herself tutoring her boyfriend in the traditions and practices of their Jewish faith, until, ironically, he abandons her as insufficiently orthodox.
While telling Leora's story, the novel keeps looping back to describe the struggles of Bill's childhood and even further back to his ancestors. We move through the archetypal experiences of 20th century European Jews: the panic of roaming the continent, the search for opportunity in America, and the challenge of retaining one's culture in a consumerist melting pot. From the beauty of Vienna to the cramped streets of Amsterdam, from the trenches of World War I to the garment district of New York City, Horn creates such compelling stories that my reluctance to leave each behind was quelled only by my fascination with new revelations about Bill's family.
Moving alternately along these two paths -- Leora's present life and Bill's past -- sounds annoyingly complex, but Horn handles this structure with such dexterity that it never seems arduous. Indeed, she crosses events in these stories and links them symbolically in ways that are wonderfully evocative.
Perhaps the most striking images are the tefillin that catch Leora's eye and capture her heart in an antique shop in New York City. Tefillin are small leather boxes containing lines from the Hebrew Scriptures about the unity and supremacy of God. They're strapped to the arm and around the head in obedience to instructions in Deuteronomy.
During another scene, from another time, new immigrants arrive at the Port of New York after a horrendous voyage. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, they begin throwing their tefillin into the ocean, covering the surface of the water with these symbols of devotion.
It's a typically unsettling image in a novel as capable of sorrow as joy, as ready to ponder the essence of God as to swoon over a new romance. Horn can satirize easy subjects like super-sized grocery stores or dangerous ones like Holocaust movies. She can pull off sweet romantic comedy or an unsettling imitation of the book of Job.
Book clubs done with "The Lovely Bones" -- or shying away from its grisly subject matter -- would do well to consider this exuberant novel about the tenacity and mystery of faith. With its enormous emotional range, its whirlwind of Hebrew legend, Yiddish folklore, modern tragedy, and tender romance, this is a book to press into other people's hands and pester them to finish so you can talk about it together.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0912/p1...
Is there room, at this moment, for another intensely spiritual novel that opens with the murder of a teenage girl? If not, make room. "In the Image," by Dara Horn, is a work of raw genius.
Whereas "The Lovely Bones" glimmers with New Age faith in the ongoing presence of our dearly departed, Horn's novel storms with the crosscurrents of the Old Testament: the trials of exile, the burdens of orthodoxy, the inexplicable nature of evil, and the awesome power of God.
What interests Horn most, though, is the perplexing function of images -- from the divine image that the Hebrew Scriptures first sanctify as man to the graven images later forbidden in the Commandments.
When a young man hits Naomi Landsmann in the first paragraph of "In the Image," she and her killer vanish from the pages of this novel. Her parents move away before we learn anything about them. If the driver suffers the effects of guilt or receives punishment, we never hear. If Naomi's parents find comfort in their faith or sever their marriage on the razor of grief, we never know. If Naomi awakens in heaven or returns to haunt her murderer, we never see. This is not a novel about them.
Instead, Naomi's death brings together an unlikely pair: her best friend, Leora, who reacts by becoming mute, and Naomi's grandfather, Bill, who attempts to capture everything on earth, past and present, in thousands and thousands of carefully organized slides.
Eleven months after his granddaughter's murder, Bill calls Leora and asks her to come see his photos of the Holy Land. It's a peculiar invitation -- young Leora, after all, has never met this old man -- but she and her parents go along for a pleasant if somewhat boring evening at the Landsmanns' house.
Later, he invites her alone, and she feels strangely inclined to keep viewing his well-narrated travelogues. Leora and Bill are both tourists, after all. Naomi's death has dislodged them from the continuum of normal life and forced them to look at their surroundings as a series of separate frames or panels in a long, foreign journey. But their mutual loss never develops into mutual affection, and eventually, Leora grows uneasy with his attempts to cast her as his missing granddaughter. In response to his increasingly uncomfortable revelations of past disappointments, she finally tells him off and they never meet again.
But their stories continue to mingle in this remarkable narrative that's by turns tragic and inspiring. Leora moves on to a lonely college experience and then a meaningless job as a magazine writer, where she can continue to treat life as something to be observed and described from afar.
Though not devout, she finds herself tutoring her boyfriend in the traditions and practices of their Jewish faith, until, ironically, he abandons her as insufficiently orthodox.
While telling Leora's story, the novel keeps looping back to describe the struggles of Bill's childhood and even further back to his ancestors. We move through the archetypal experiences of 20th century European Jews: the panic of roaming the continent, the search for opportunity in America, and the challenge of retaining one's culture in a consumerist melting pot. From the beauty of Vienna to the cramped streets of Amsterdam, from the trenches of World War I to the garment district of New York City, Horn creates such compelling stories that my reluctance to leave each behind was quelled only by my fascination with new revelations about Bill's family.
Moving alternately along these two paths -- Leora's present life and Bill's past -- sounds annoyingly complex, but Horn handles this structure with such dexterity that it never seems arduous. Indeed, she crosses events in these stories and links them symbolically in ways that are wonderfully evocative.
Perhaps the most striking images are the tefillin that catch Leora's eye and capture her heart in an antique shop in New York City. Tefillin are small leather boxes containing lines from the Hebrew Scriptures about the unity and supremacy of God. They're strapped to the arm and around the head in obedience to instructions in Deuteronomy.
During another scene, from another time, new immigrants arrive at the Port of New York after a horrendous voyage. Seeing the Statue of Liberty, they begin throwing their tefillin into the ocean, covering the surface of the water with these symbols of devotion.
It's a typically unsettling image in a novel as capable of sorrow as joy, as ready to ponder the essence of God as to swoon over a new romance. Horn can satirize easy subjects like super-sized grocery stores or dangerous ones like Holocaust movies. She can pull off sweet romantic comedy or an unsettling imitation of the book of Job.
Book clubs done with "The Lovely Bones" -- or shying away from its grisly subject matter -- would do well to consider this exuberant novel about the tenacity and mystery of faith. With its enormous emotional range, its whirlwind of Hebrew legend, Yiddish folklore, modern tragedy, and tender romance, this is a book to press into other people's hands and pester them to finish so you can talk about it together.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0912/p1...
October 5, 2009
I love the language of this book, although the story is a bit convoluted. I finished feeling like I missed something, and I feel as though I need to read it again.
Two of my favorite lines:
"Funny, Leora thought to herself as she listened to the story, how both babies and old people have such unbelievably tight grips with their hands, on the edges of life, everyone is afraid to let go."
"An ordinary person, she theorized, was one who could easily divide her life into groups of years so predictable that they could almost be named after different types of cheese. The cheddar cheese years, for a start, during which life is something encased in shrink-wrapped packages decoratd with superheroes in brown paper bags, opened only at assigned moments of freedom, when freedom is a burden that forces you to decide where you belong - at the lunch table with the cool kids, or with the nerds? Then there are the mozzarella years, quick years when life comes delivered in a box to your door, as hot and fresh as if you had made it yourself, and you enjoy it in tremendous quantities, and dozens of others eat with you. Much later, some people enter the Brie of Camembert, life served in cultured slices, or brought out only for important guests. But in between come the Parmesan years: years when life comes out just a dash at a time, not a thing-in-itself but something to season the unseasoned seasons as you eat through them alone. One could argue that she was assigning too much meaning to cheese..."
Two of my favorite lines:
"Funny, Leora thought to herself as she listened to the story, how both babies and old people have such unbelievably tight grips with their hands, on the edges of life, everyone is afraid to let go."
"An ordinary person, she theorized, was one who could easily divide her life into groups of years so predictable that they could almost be named after different types of cheese. The cheddar cheese years, for a start, during which life is something encased in shrink-wrapped packages decoratd with superheroes in brown paper bags, opened only at assigned moments of freedom, when freedom is a burden that forces you to decide where you belong - at the lunch table with the cool kids, or with the nerds? Then there are the mozzarella years, quick years when life comes delivered in a box to your door, as hot and fresh as if you had made it yourself, and you enjoy it in tremendous quantities, and dozens of others eat with you. Much later, some people enter the Brie of Camembert, life served in cultured slices, or brought out only for important guests. But in between come the Parmesan years: years when life comes out just a dash at a time, not a thing-in-itself but something to season the unseasoned seasons as you eat through them alone. One could argue that she was assigning too much meaning to cheese..."
June 26, 2016
A well crafted book of substance. Not that easy to get into at first but well worth persisting. I loved the rich language and the parallel experiences of Bill and Leora visiting the Rijksmuseum and discovering the dolls houses.
October 20, 2021
wow… this book made me understand how different people understand the magical synchronicities of life. i couldn’t put it down, loved every character and every plot line, I still think about this book often
August 7, 2007
This is a fantastic book -- I call it Jewish magical realism. There's a modern interpretation on the Book of Job in there as well. It's all about connections we don't always see.
February 21, 2013
After reading and loving Horn’s second novel The World to Come, I decided to read her other two novels. In the Image is her first effort, published in 2002, when Horn was in the midst of her graduate studies in comparative literature, with a focus on Yiddish literature. This first published novel clearly shows the talent of this writer. Not only does she know how to tell a good story (her knowledge of Yiddish literature serves her, and us, very well), but she also is a beautiful writer of English.
The novel begins with the freak accidental death of seventeen year-old Naomi, the best friend of Leora. After Naomi’s death, her grandfather, the obsessive Bill Landsmann, connects with Leora and her family in order to show them slides from his monumental collection of photos from his trips around the world searching out elements of Jewish life wherever he could find them. Leora hangs in for a while, but eventually does not want to see another slide from Mr. Landsmann’s collection. After all, she is a high school student and has other interests. At this point in the novel, Horn alternates her chapters by tracing two different narratives: one follows Leora forward in her life and the other retraces Mr. Landsmann’s family history backwards. This split structure works quite well as both narratives are filled with wonderful stories. The alternation creates mini-cliffhangers as the reader wants to know what happens next in that thread of the story. Instantly as the other narrative begins again, Horn reminds the reader of that “cliffhanger” and we read eagerly again. (I remember that Charles Frazier used such a strategy effectively in his novel Cold Mountain.) Even though the narratives move apart chronologically, Horn finds interesting ways to keep them connected. In the Image is definitely a good read.
The novel begins with the freak accidental death of seventeen year-old Naomi, the best friend of Leora. After Naomi’s death, her grandfather, the obsessive Bill Landsmann, connects with Leora and her family in order to show them slides from his monumental collection of photos from his trips around the world searching out elements of Jewish life wherever he could find them. Leora hangs in for a while, but eventually does not want to see another slide from Mr. Landsmann’s collection. After all, she is a high school student and has other interests. At this point in the novel, Horn alternates her chapters by tracing two different narratives: one follows Leora forward in her life and the other retraces Mr. Landsmann’s family history backwards. This split structure works quite well as both narratives are filled with wonderful stories. The alternation creates mini-cliffhangers as the reader wants to know what happens next in that thread of the story. Instantly as the other narrative begins again, Horn reminds the reader of that “cliffhanger” and we read eagerly again. (I remember that Charles Frazier used such a strategy effectively in his novel Cold Mountain.) Even though the narratives move apart chronologically, Horn finds interesting ways to keep them connected. In the Image is definitely a good read.
May 27, 2015
One of those "we-are-all-connected" books, but with a Jewish slant...and actually not annoying the way that might sound. I would think that Leora is our protagonist, with her blunt semi-secular ways, but there are whole chapters dedicated to her dead best friend's grandfather, an ex-boyfriend, and distant relatives of the late 1800s.
February 1, 2008
Ik las het in het Nederlands: Evenbeeld van Dara Horn
Een magisch-realistische mix van geschiedenis, generaties, Joods leven, switch tussen 20e eeuws Amsterdam en 21ste eeuws New York én romantisch verhaal in mooie bewoordingen.
Een magisch-realistische mix van geschiedenis, generaties, Joods leven, switch tussen 20e eeuws Amsterdam en 21ste eeuws New York én romantisch verhaal in mooie bewoordingen.
Read
March 5, 2013This actually accomplishes everything the execrable Family Orchard claims it does. It's a wonderful first novel.
October 5, 2016
See the post over on the Fig Tree Books blog: https://figtreebooks.net/wallant-winn....
September 24, 2024
I liked it much better than The World to Come. I really don’t like her style of endings but it’s hard to end a book well. Can’t think of a good one, really. Maybe No Country for Old Men? The Hobbit? Seems like if you take the pomo turn you have to forsake endings, unfortunately.
August 24, 2020
I read this book because it was selected for my synagogue book club — I’m not sure I would have chosen it on my own — but it was a pleasant surprise.
I liked this book a lot more than I had expected. Although it was slow going at the beginning, it picked up toward the end.
What it’s about: Leora is a young Jewish woman from New Jersey whose life, like everyone’s, is affected by a series of random events. Her story is intertwined thematically with vignettes from the history of her friend Naomi’s family. Many stories and themes are connected to questions of religious observance. The ultra-Orthodox characters and value system are portrayed honestly, but not particularly sympathetically.
What I liked: The stories about Naomi’s ancestors make history come alive. In particular:
Her great-great grandmother, Leah, worked in a New York sweatshop at the turn of the (previous) century and was victimized by Orthodox sensibilities. Her unconventional responses to her circumstances showed us the limited choices available to women at that time. This was one of my favourite parts of the book.
Her great-grandfather, Nadav, grew up in Europe under difficult circumstances in a single-parent home. This was interesting because of the insight into Jewish life in small town in pre-WW1 Europe.
Her grandfather, Bill, was several times a refugee, who had to keep adapting to his changing circumstances. The stories of his early life were interesting, but his later self, described at the beginning of the book, was nearly as irritating to me as it was to Leora.
I found these characters more interesting than Leora, who was kind of bland.
As the book jumps between different times and characters, it’s sometimes difficult to follow. The family tree at the end of the book helps keep the characters in Naomi’s family straight.
The end of the book examines the role of chance in life. It was very interesting, but not fully developed. I understand that this idea is developed further in Dara Horn’s next book, “The World to Come.” I look forward to reading that.
What I didn’t like
Although this book was popular at the book club, many people pointed out its shortcomings:
* wooden, underdeveloped characters
* linkages of the different stories were too contrived, and felt forced
* use of certain literary devices and themes were overdone
* sometimes interesting ideas were introduced, but not fully developed
I wasn’t as bothered as some of the others by these issues, but they do detract overall from the book, especially from a literary perspective. Still, not bad for a first novel by a 25-year old.
Should you read this book?
If you are looking for great literature with strong character development, then this is not the book for you. Horn emulates some of the same techniques as Margaret Atwood, but she’s not as skilled, at least not yet.
If you are interested in recent Jewish history, you will enjoy the stories of Naomi’s ancestors.
If you like some religious content in your fiction, then try this out.
I liked this book a lot more than I had expected. Although it was slow going at the beginning, it picked up toward the end.
What it’s about: Leora is a young Jewish woman from New Jersey whose life, like everyone’s, is affected by a series of random events. Her story is intertwined thematically with vignettes from the history of her friend Naomi’s family. Many stories and themes are connected to questions of religious observance. The ultra-Orthodox characters and value system are portrayed honestly, but not particularly sympathetically.
What I liked: The stories about Naomi’s ancestors make history come alive. In particular:
Her great-great grandmother, Leah, worked in a New York sweatshop at the turn of the (previous) century and was victimized by Orthodox sensibilities. Her unconventional responses to her circumstances showed us the limited choices available to women at that time. This was one of my favourite parts of the book.
Her great-grandfather, Nadav, grew up in Europe under difficult circumstances in a single-parent home. This was interesting because of the insight into Jewish life in small town in pre-WW1 Europe.
Her grandfather, Bill, was several times a refugee, who had to keep adapting to his changing circumstances. The stories of his early life were interesting, but his later self, described at the beginning of the book, was nearly as irritating to me as it was to Leora.
I found these characters more interesting than Leora, who was kind of bland.
As the book jumps between different times and characters, it’s sometimes difficult to follow. The family tree at the end of the book helps keep the characters in Naomi’s family straight.
The end of the book examines the role of chance in life. It was very interesting, but not fully developed. I understand that this idea is developed further in Dara Horn’s next book, “The World to Come.” I look forward to reading that.
What I didn’t like
Although this book was popular at the book club, many people pointed out its shortcomings:
* wooden, underdeveloped characters
* linkages of the different stories were too contrived, and felt forced
* use of certain literary devices and themes were overdone
* sometimes interesting ideas were introduced, but not fully developed
I wasn’t as bothered as some of the others by these issues, but they do detract overall from the book, especially from a literary perspective. Still, not bad for a first novel by a 25-year old.
Should you read this book?
If you are looking for great literature with strong character development, then this is not the book for you. Horn emulates some of the same techniques as Margaret Atwood, but she’s not as skilled, at least not yet.
If you are interested in recent Jewish history, you will enjoy the stories of Naomi’s ancestors.
If you like some religious content in your fiction, then try this out.
April 28, 2022
Dara Horn's debut novel…and what a beginning!! From the back cover: "Seamlessly weaving its deeper preoccupations into a narrative thoroughly absorbing and satisfying. In the Image follows a young New Jersey woman Leora through the death of a friend in high school and on to college, career, and falling in love. Simultaneously, it traces the story of Bill Landsmann, her lost friend's grandfather, back through several generations of experience in Amsterdam, Austria, and New York's Lower East Side. Each dramatic episode of their lives is also a foray into the nature of good and evil [even trying Bill as Job], of the significance of tradition and the law, of the presence or absence of God. Not just a fine first novel but a cultural event--a wedding of secular and religious forms of literature--In the Image neither lives in the past nor seeks to escape it, but rather assimi-
lates it in the best sense of the word, honoring what is lost and finding, among the lost things, the treasures that can renew the present." Naomi is Leora's high school friend who died. Horn writes of Naomi's theory: "Young people…are like blind heaps of clay, formless, and in that formlessness lies an infinite number of possibilities. Some seize that wet potential in their hands, sculpting shapes never seen before. Others, bewildered by choice, simply pour themselves into a mold. Still others are afraid to commit to even the slightest dent, mercilessly kneading and unkneading every last piece, dreading the moment when they will inevitably harden. At the time, Leora had been enchanted by this brilliant way of seeing oneself, unfixed, unfinished. But more than that, Leora was enchanted by Naomi herself, the girl short of seventeen who in spite of her age, or perhaps because of it, seemed to speak like a divine voice emerging from a whirlwind. Later, like nearly everything Naomi ever said, this theory seemed somehow prescient, as if Naomi had known
all along that she would always remain unfinished, forever damp and yielding, shaped and changed by the slightest touch from Leora's memory. But after Jason, Leora had to revise Naomi's theory. Some people who have been so gently sculpted before, Leora added are suddenly squashed--or squash themselves--into something new, throwing themselves into the kiln by force to harden themselves forever. And Leora knew it wasn't her place to judge that choice." This is imagery worthy of this book's title.
lates it in the best sense of the word, honoring what is lost and finding, among the lost things, the treasures that can renew the present." Naomi is Leora's high school friend who died. Horn writes of Naomi's theory: "Young people…are like blind heaps of clay, formless, and in that formlessness lies an infinite number of possibilities. Some seize that wet potential in their hands, sculpting shapes never seen before. Others, bewildered by choice, simply pour themselves into a mold. Still others are afraid to commit to even the slightest dent, mercilessly kneading and unkneading every last piece, dreading the moment when they will inevitably harden. At the time, Leora had been enchanted by this brilliant way of seeing oneself, unfixed, unfinished. But more than that, Leora was enchanted by Naomi herself, the girl short of seventeen who in spite of her age, or perhaps because of it, seemed to speak like a divine voice emerging from a whirlwind. Later, like nearly everything Naomi ever said, this theory seemed somehow prescient, as if Naomi had known
all along that she would always remain unfinished, forever damp and yielding, shaped and changed by the slightest touch from Leora's memory. But after Jason, Leora had to revise Naomi's theory. Some people who have been so gently sculpted before, Leora added are suddenly squashed--or squash themselves--into something new, throwing themselves into the kiln by force to harden themselves forever. And Leora knew it wasn't her place to judge that choice." This is imagery worthy of this book's title.
March 6, 2020
In the Image was Dara Horn’s debut novel, back in 2002. I guess it’s celebrating it’s 18th / chai anniversary this year! For the occasion then, I will dedicate a few words to this 📖 .
First of all, Dara Horn, from this very first book, established herself as a masterful #storyteller. Her stories are original, at times sad, other times funny, and are also, steeped in everything Jewish - especially #Hasidism (but also secular & traditional orthodoxy), biblical references, and more “recent” / modern Jewish history.
This particular book is about two people, who are only related through a couple of coincidences. Leora was the best friend of Naomi Landsmann, who was tragically run over by a car, at the young age of 16. Her grandfather, Bill Landsmann, a couple of years after Naomi’s death, sees an article Leora penned, and decided to invite Leora and her family to his home, because he feels they have some things in common.
It turns out, that both Leora and Bill, feel as if “they are tourists”, in their own lives. Since Naomi died, Leora has purposefully withdrawn herself from “life”, from fully experiencing it. On the other hand, Bill has had everyone he’s loved, ripped away from him, and rightly feels “alone”. Hence, he reached out to Leora. This is the backdrop for their stories.
Much of this book is about the cards we are dealt with in our lives, and how we play them. Does G-d act randomly? So often in life, people don’t get what they deserve. This whole thing about the righteous being rewarded links in to the story of #Job, in which, G-d lets Satan take everything away from Job, to “test” the strength of his convictions.
Both Leora and Bill, eventually go their separate ways, but before they “part” he says: “Who knows what you might have found out about me, or I about you. What do you really know about anyone, other then what they choose to show you?” “It is often said we are shaped by our experiences ... Bill says... but I don’t think that’s true ... we are not shaped by our experiences, but by what we choose to do.
What do you think?
#darahorn #intheimage #amsterdam #poppenhuizen #rijksmuseum #nadav #bookofjob #5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #Spinoza
First of all, Dara Horn, from this very first book, established herself as a masterful #storyteller. Her stories are original, at times sad, other times funny, and are also, steeped in everything Jewish - especially #Hasidism (but also secular & traditional orthodoxy), biblical references, and more “recent” / modern Jewish history.
This particular book is about two people, who are only related through a couple of coincidences. Leora was the best friend of Naomi Landsmann, who was tragically run over by a car, at the young age of 16. Her grandfather, Bill Landsmann, a couple of years after Naomi’s death, sees an article Leora penned, and decided to invite Leora and her family to his home, because he feels they have some things in common.
It turns out, that both Leora and Bill, feel as if “they are tourists”, in their own lives. Since Naomi died, Leora has purposefully withdrawn herself from “life”, from fully experiencing it. On the other hand, Bill has had everyone he’s loved, ripped away from him, and rightly feels “alone”. Hence, he reached out to Leora. This is the backdrop for their stories.
Much of this book is about the cards we are dealt with in our lives, and how we play them. Does G-d act randomly? So often in life, people don’t get what they deserve. This whole thing about the righteous being rewarded links in to the story of #Job, in which, G-d lets Satan take everything away from Job, to “test” the strength of his convictions.
Both Leora and Bill, eventually go their separate ways, but before they “part” he says: “Who knows what you might have found out about me, or I about you. What do you really know about anyone, other then what they choose to show you?” “It is often said we are shaped by our experiences ... Bill says... but I don’t think that’s true ... we are not shaped by our experiences, but by what we choose to do.
What do you think?
#darahorn #intheimage #amsterdam #poppenhuizen #rijksmuseum #nadav #bookofjob #5⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ #Spinoza
March 2, 2009
This is a novel well crafted around the notion that humans are in fact created in the image of God and therefore images of all kinds: photographs, paintings, dreams, musings, memories, etc. are sacred. Some may be perverse but nonetheless represent some facet of God;s created order. From various Hebrew perspectives: Hassidic, contemporary, conservative (I do not know all the sects), stories are told and family lines mingle. One man's life is compared to the ancient Job due to the significant hardship he undures but there is redemption. Childhood friends torn apart by a tragic accident become the common thread, one recovering from the death of the other and the departed one living on in images formed by the other characters. I particularly liked the ending due to its thought provoking question of what is most valuable in life. No page turning mystery or spine-tingling drama, but deeper some considerations of what people fear, desire, and cherish.
September 8, 2018
I would unreservably rank Dara Horn prominently among the finest young American Jewish writters. It is amazing how she mines the depths of her rich store of knowledge of her Jewish heritage and works it into her sophisticated and complex plots. "In The Image" is her first novel and it is a masterpeice. With that, she just gets better in her subsequent works. I especially enjoyed how she crafts a delightful parody of the Book of Job into the plot. While you don't have to be Jewish to appreciate her storytelling skill, it definitely helps :0)
April 7, 2014
One of the most brilliant books I've read - part love story, part history, part mystery. One chapter is entirely a re-written book of Job, set in the middle of a carousel of vacation photo slides and an old curiosity shop.
May 12, 2009
This novel is intoxicating ... it traces a woman finding her place among her world, her religion, her love. I loved every word of it. Nothing typical about it.
April 17, 2020
There were SO many things that I liked about this book! Until you read it and we talk about it, I can’t even list them all. The jacket of the book didn’t do it justice!
August 28, 2021
This book is like plunging into a collective cultural consciousness. It's impossible to describe.
May 12, 2019
It’s a unique experience to read biblical themes in a modern secular novel. I read this author’s more recent book, The World To Come, last year. Like this book it was a surprising reading experience of a biblically based allegory put into context of a modern Jewish American family. So I kept an eye out for Dara Horn’s other books. This is her debut novel that at the time received a lot of praise from both the religious and secular literary community. In The Image is partly a modern re-telling of the book of Job. It is also an intertwined narrative of teenager Leora and continues into her adulthood and of the elderly grandfather of her best friend. The best friend, Naomi, the reader never meets as we are told she is killed in a hit and run on the first page. The best friends grandfather, Bill Landmann’s, story goes backwards: first with his childhood in Vienna and then Amsterdam, and finally immigrating to New York. Teenage, then young adult Leora has the feel of a talented yet tortured John Green protagonist. {Think Hazel Grace of The Fault In Our Stars or Aza Holmes of Turtles All The Way Down}.
There is another narrative developed in the middle of the novel of Naomi’s great-great grandmother,Leah. This is of course Bill Landsmann’s grandmother.
Then a fourth narrative of Leora’s first serious boyfriend who has a dramatic religious conversion.
These four characters’ stories overlap through the lens of time.
The characters are wonderful. The story telling unique. As a spiritual Christian reader, who does not enjoy Christian Lit for complicated reasons, I really enjoyed this book.
However, the over all theme of the book got a little murky for me. The doll house analogy never made sense to me. Also, it felt like there was one too many story lines that bogged the other stories down.
The writing technique in the second to last chapter is very good. It reads as if the reader is reading the scriptural account of Job and his three friends who all have neat tidy answers for human suffering and really get it handed back to them.
Then God Himself answers, just as recorded in the book of Job and gives a poetic response that is all about perspective. It ends with:
“I created you in my image,
I am not created in yours”
A great read by a talented author with a unique voice.
There is another narrative developed in the middle of the novel of Naomi’s great-great grandmother,Leah. This is of course Bill Landsmann’s grandmother.
Then a fourth narrative of Leora’s first serious boyfriend who has a dramatic religious conversion.
These four characters’ stories overlap through the lens of time.
The characters are wonderful. The story telling unique. As a spiritual Christian reader, who does not enjoy Christian Lit for complicated reasons, I really enjoyed this book.
However, the over all theme of the book got a little murky for me. The doll house analogy never made sense to me. Also, it felt like there was one too many story lines that bogged the other stories down.
The writing technique in the second to last chapter is very good. It reads as if the reader is reading the scriptural account of Job and his three friends who all have neat tidy answers for human suffering and really get it handed back to them.
Then God Himself answers, just as recorded in the book of Job and gives a poetic response that is all about perspective. It ends with:
“I created you in my image,
I am not created in yours”
A great read by a talented author with a unique voice.
November 15, 2023
A couple of months have passed since I read In the Image, so I’m sure that this review will be missing some points I would’ve addressed had I written it earlier.
For me, Horn’s book was about the tension between tradition and modernity – what it means to leave tradition behind and what it means to renew it. We like to think of the world being on just one trajectory forward, since the big bang. However, the image that emerges from the book is of history being a spiral at best, if not an endless cycle. We see this around the world today as well: while people have left religions in droves over the past century, there has also been a return or a renewal, in searching for meaning.
The power in this book isn’t in its storyline. It’s not about rising action or falling action. It’s more of a meditation on that innate tension between tradition and renewal: what we leave behind, what is always with us, what can be revived and whether it is ever truly revived or actually reimagined.
Horn uses a powerful intergeneration lens to explore these topics.
One of the scenes that was particularly poignant for me what when the main character’s boyfriend becomes Orthodox and rejects what she views to be a very traditional Friday night ritual of dinner and a meaningful movie. The scene is written with such heartful earnestness, and it made me think about how tradition is very subjective – one person’s tradition is another person’s rejection of tradition.
For me, Horn’s book was about the tension between tradition and modernity – what it means to leave tradition behind and what it means to renew it. We like to think of the world being on just one trajectory forward, since the big bang. However, the image that emerges from the book is of history being a spiral at best, if not an endless cycle. We see this around the world today as well: while people have left religions in droves over the past century, there has also been a return or a renewal, in searching for meaning.
The power in this book isn’t in its storyline. It’s not about rising action or falling action. It’s more of a meditation on that innate tension between tradition and renewal: what we leave behind, what is always with us, what can be revived and whether it is ever truly revived or actually reimagined.
Horn uses a powerful intergeneration lens to explore these topics.
One of the scenes that was particularly poignant for me what when the main character’s boyfriend becomes Orthodox and rejects what she views to be a very traditional Friday night ritual of dinner and a meaningful movie. The scene is written with such heartful earnestness, and it made me think about how tradition is very subjective – one person’s tradition is another person’s rejection of tradition.
Read
September 15, 2022At some point, somewhere I read a review of a book by this author. I am not even sure it was this one, but I was very intrigued and decided to order this.
I don't quite know what caught my interest in the review, but I found this book very strange indeed. On one level it as an interesting glimpse into various degrees of practicing Judaism - from close to ignorance to the family traditions to Lubavitches...
It's hard to pinpoint the main character as the narrative shifts from contemporary to the recent past, and further past, and each time a different character is in the spotlight. The characters are fairly opaque though, and the whole discussion of image and how we see is ironical in that it is very hard to really see who Leora is, for example. I had no idea how she might react to Jake's surprise and gift, for example.
Having very recently read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, I was struck by the similarity of the premise of that with the underwater dream scene at the end of this book, when Leora realizes all the lives not lived and choices not made are stored and potentially accessible. Another serendipitous parallel as I slid this from my shelf to take on a trip with little thought or awareness of the subject, or especially of any similarities with my recent reads.
I can't say I am fully won over.
I don't quite know what caught my interest in the review, but I found this book very strange indeed. On one level it as an interesting glimpse into various degrees of practicing Judaism - from close to ignorance to the family traditions to Lubavitches...
It's hard to pinpoint the main character as the narrative shifts from contemporary to the recent past, and further past, and each time a different character is in the spotlight. The characters are fairly opaque though, and the whole discussion of image and how we see is ironical in that it is very hard to really see who Leora is, for example. I had no idea how she might react to Jake's surprise and gift, for example.
Having very recently read The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, I was struck by the similarity of the premise of that with the underwater dream scene at the end of this book, when Leora realizes all the lives not lived and choices not made are stored and potentially accessible. Another serendipitous parallel as I slid this from my shelf to take on a trip with little thought or awareness of the subject, or especially of any similarities with my recent reads.
I can't say I am fully won over.
April 14, 2018
I find Dara Horn’s books to be smart and intelligent and filled with layers of understanding that I crave from reading a book. She had a gift for weaving biblical references into the narrative which cannot be seen at a glance - it challenges the reader to think deeply about what they just read and then return to it with a new awareness. Reading through the author’s interview at the end of the book made me realize how much I missed and now will return to read again with refreshed eyes in hopes of learning even more. Horn depicts her characters with realism, showing us all their flaws. Some you want to hate but when their story unfolds you realize that the have been shaped by their past and your feelings towards them are tempered with compassion. I have read other books by Horn and each one is not just a story but a revelation.
October 16, 2025
A mesmerizing mezmerational mesmerization. Honestly, I was transfixed, bewtiched, enraptured. No, I'm not using a thesaurus, I'm just trying to relay to you the emotion-riddled dreamstate roller-coaster I was taken on when reading this wunderkind masterpiece. This is the author's first book? How is a first foray like this even possible? It's too fantastic, too accomplished, too damn good to have been done by a rookie. Horn is the Fred Lynn/Ichiro Suzuki of literature. She draws maximum drama out of the most mundane of life-moments, wrecks you with mini-heartbreaks with every turn of the page, and takes you on a most inimitable reading journey with little compare. Transportive is a placeholder I'll use for now, until I think of something better. As for this sui generis creation, little else is.
June 19, 2018
Boek gekocht op een uitverkoop van de bib. Even doorbijten bij het begin... De taal van Dara Horn - een voor mij volslagen onbekend auteur - is puur genieten. Het verhaal blijft voor mij persoonlijk iets te open. Je krijgt in feite maar een paar flarden van een geheel dat veel groter en complexer is. Dat heeft iets intrigerend maar het laat je als lezer een beetje met een onverzadigd gevoel achter.
July 11, 2024
Really enjoyed the relationship of characters Bill and Leora and their formative backgrounds. Lots of parallels to unpack, it ends in a somewhat mysterious way that makes me feel like I missed some of the final connections, but the readers guide brought a lot of the themes to life. Religious affiliation, the impact of previous generations on the present, experiences molding personal outcomes- all very insightful.
July 15, 2024
This is the fourth novel by Dara Horn I've read and it's right up there with The World to Come as her best book. It's a truly brilliant piece of work that manages to balance genuinely deep themes (especially if, like me, you're coming at it from a Jewish perspective) with beautiful prose, emotive storytelling and wonderfully observed characters. It's also ambitious as hell and that Horn actually meets those ambitions in her very first novel says a lot about her talents as a writer. I cannot recommend this masterpiece enough. It's not the quickest read, but it's well worth it.
December 9, 2017
Interessant boek. Mooi geschreven. Alleen de laatste 2 hoofdstukken wordt het vaag en vraag ik me af: waarom?
Waarom zo dromerig/ wazig? Waarom de verschillende verhaallijnen? Wat is de bindende factor? Waarom dit boek?
Het voelt alsof er iets mist, iets waardoor de brokstukken van het boek niet bij elkaar komen, maar alles aan het einde juist uiteen valt.
Waarom zo dromerig/ wazig? Waarom de verschillende verhaallijnen? Wat is de bindende factor? Waarom dit boek?
Het voelt alsof er iets mist, iets waardoor de brokstukken van het boek niet bij elkaar komen, maar alles aan het einde juist uiteen valt.
October 29, 2025
4.5 stars. I just love Dara Horn's writing and characters. I love Leora and Jake, I loved the other stories, I love how they wove together, I love the non-standard-format chapters. If we'd gotten another chapter or even a few more pages this could easily have been 5 stars for me – the ending was just so abrupt.
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