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The World to Come Audiobook
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(3.46) - 26 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
An intoxicating combination of mystery, spirituality, redemption, piety, and passion, The World To Come is Dara Horn's follow-up to her breakout, critically acclaimed debut novel In the Image. Using a real-life art heist as her starting point, Horn traces the life and times of several characters, including Russian-born artist Marc Chagall and the New Jersey–based Ziskind family.
Benjamin Ziskind, a former child prodigy, now spends his days writing questions for a television trivia show. After Ben's twin sister, Sara, forces him to attend a singles cocktail party at a Jewish museum, Ben spots Over Vitebsk, a Chagall sketch that once hung in the twins' childhood home. Convinced the painting was stolen from his family, Ben steals the work of art and enlists Sara to create a forgery to replace it. While trying to evade the police, Ben attempts to find the truth of how the painting got to the museum.
From a Jewish orphanage in 1920s Soviet Russia where Marc Chagall brought art to orphaned Jewish boys, to a junior high school in Newark, New Jersey, with a stop in the jungles of Da Nang, Vietnam, Horn weaves a story of mystery, romance, folklore, history and theology into a spellbinding modern tale. Richly satisfying and utterly unique, her novel opens the door to "the world to come"—not life after death, but the world we create through our actions right now.
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"This story is full of many different messages/lessons and interesting Jewish Russian history. It reminded me of The Girl with the Pearl Earring, only because it is a novel that revolves around a famous painting by Chagall. "
— Kelley (5 out of 5 stars)
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A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present---and how we haunt the future.
— Time -
“A deeply satisfying literary mystery and a funny-sad meditation on how the past haunts the present—and how we haunt the future.”
— Time -
“Nothing short of amazing.”
— Entertainment Weekly -
“An accomplished work that beautifully explains how families—in all their maddening, smothering, supportive glory—create us.”
— Los Angeles Times Book Review -
“Spellbinding…A compelling collage of history, mystery, theology, and scripture, The World to Come is a narrative tour de force crackling with conundrums and dark truths.”
— Booklist (starred review)
The World to Come Listener Reviews
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" Wonderful premise, compelling characters, great mystery spiced with a sweet love story. Wickedly disastrous ending that left everything unresolved, I guess on the theory that's all in "the world to come." "
— Julie, 6/5/2011 -
" Well written story about the justifiable theft of a Chagall--who wouldn't want a Chagall? "
— Deborah, 5/30/2011 -
" i enjoyed so much of this book: the yiddish stories, the history, Chagall! But the ending, i guess... politically, really did not sit well with me. kind of made me hate it. "
— Blake, 5/28/2011 -
" Wonderfully imaginative. Interesting thoughts on the value and interpretation of art. "
— Gina, 4/25/2011 -
" I bit hard to follow, but I liked the last chapter where souls yet-to-be-born are in paradise learning things they'll need to know in the world. I liked the description of science, where they do experiments on the growth and results of things such as envy and gossip. Appropriate for teens. "
— Amy, 4/10/2011 -
" Wow, One of those books that stays with you for a while. Full of jewish folklore, and images of pre-life. Loved it. Recommended to anyone who's ever been born. "
— Debi, 4/9/2011 -
" Couldn't help but think of Jonathan Safran Foer's line about "Jews don't ask 'what does it look like?' or 'what does it smell like?', but 'what does it remember like?'." "
— Thethockmonthter, 3/12/2011 -
" I was engrossed every time I was ACTUALLY reading this book, but never felt like I needed to pick it up when I wasn't reading. "
— Chelsea, 3/4/2011 -
" I gave up on this book. It felt a bit dark and gloomy... not my kind of book. It was also hard for me to start caring about the characters. "
— Julie, 2/24/2011 -
" I read this book for a new book club I'm visiting next week. It reminds me Chaim Potok's books. The research is impecable, the descriptions hauntingly beautiful. I will be thinking about this book for weeks to come. "
— Kirsti, 2/3/2011 -
" This could have easily been a four-star book without the woowoo ending. It really dove off a cliff for me. "
— Benjamin, 1/18/2011 -
" Great read. Entertaining, but a disappointing ending. "
— Kate, 1/15/2011
About Dara Horn
Dara Horn is the author of five novels and one of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists. She has taught Jewish literature at Harvard, Sarah Lawrence College, and Yeshiva University.
About William Dufris
William Dufris attended the University of Southern Maine in Portland-Gorham before pursuing a career in voice work in London and then the United States. He has won more than twenty AudioFile Earphones Awards, was voted one of the Best Voices at the End of the Century by AudioFile magazine, and won the prestigious Audie Award in 2012 for best nonfiction narration. He lives with his family in Maine.