Review: Incantation by Alice Hoffman

Review by Lora (DivaBetty)

Allow me to begin by confessing my adoration for Hoffman's bewitching coldly-observant-on-the-outside-heartbreaking-in-the-center style.

If you require references in addition to my oath of fealty, check out The Probable Future or Green Angel for astonishing proof of her power.

I've loved her other YA books (Green Angel, Green Witch, The Foretelling) so I was thrilled to find Incantation for $2.50 at the school book fair last week.

The Premise:
Sixteen year old Estrella lives in a Spanish village with her widowed mother Abra (she spins wool and dyes yarn a spectrum of gorgeous blues as well as practicing herbalism) and grandparents. She loves her home, her town, her best friend Catalina next door--they are inseparable, dark haired and mischievous. Locals even called them Raven (Estrella) and Crow (Catalina) as children.

Officials begin to  set more regulations on the Jews in town--surgical practice/medicine is banned as well as the possession of books by a Jew. Estrella finds this disturbing, but Catalina is rather callous about it. Any thoughtful reader over age ten will realize this is your first clue that Catalina's a raging bitch. Anyone under age ten (or named ESTRELLA) will not notice that obvious fact.

Estrella's stern grandmother gives her a string of pearls bought for her on the day she was born. Catalina manages to weasel these away from her by questioning her loyalty. Estrella's devout and studious brother comes home from seminary for a visit. Catalina gripes that he thinks he is better than everyone else.

The next door neighbors are turned over to the officials as secret Jews and executed. Estrella sees Catalina looting through their house afterward, taking embroidered tablecloths and anything fine she can scavenge.

Yes, folks, she's a greedy greedy ho-bag.

Did I mention that--uh ohs!--Catalina's orphaned cousin Andres lives with her family? It is assumed that he is betrothed to Catalina. He loves Estrella. Estrella begins to notice him.

Catalina is mad and crazy jealous. She becomes suspicious of how Estrella's family always lights candles before dusk on Friday afternoons and performs the sign of the cross differently. I think you see where this is going. If you don't, I won't spoil it for you.

Despite the impending doom in the plot, Incantation is fascinating, beautifully detailed, and well worth reading. It's well-researched, provides a personal and vivid depiction of closeted Jews during the Inquisition, against the background of a sweet love story brought from the ashes of devastation.

An excerpt (because it's so much lovelier than I can say):
We floated in the dark water. Above us the sky was so filled with stars it seemed more white than black. I thought of salt and flour on my grandmother's tabletop. I thought of pearls in the sea. All this way from town we could still breathe in the odor of the lime flowers from the burnt trees in the plaza.  Some things were strong. They stayed with you. The place where you grew up, the scent of lime flowers, the dreams you had. When I stared into the bathwater, I thought of the bowl my mother had me gaze into so many times and I thought, It is all here, the beginning and the end.