The Dovekeepers, Alice Hoffman

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

 (Tansley Reads Rating: 52%)

Ice Breaker:

What folklore about food/medicine/healing was passed along to you from earlier generations of women?”

 

Questions:

 

1.  The Dovekeepers, a historical fiction based on the siege of Masada, is obviously not going to end well.  How did this affect your reading of the book?

 

2. What do the doves in the novel represent?  What about the dove keepers?

 

3. In what ways were the four main characters: Yael, Revka, Aziza, and Shirah similar and in what ways were they different.  Which character were you most drawn to and why?

 

 4. In the story each of the women has their own talents (Yael – animals; Revka – observe what was only half there; Aziza – silence; Shirah – water).  How did these talents affect their characters and how did these talents help them in the story?

5. Which male character did you find compelling, and why?

6. Yael describes her relationship with Ben Simon as “a destroying sort of love” (pg. 46). What does she mean by that? Are there other relationships in the novel that could be described in the same way?

7. How do Shirah’s daughters react to the intimate friendship that develops between Yael and their mother? Is Shirah a good mother or not?

8. “You don’t fight for peace, sister,” Nahara tells Aziza.  “You embrace it.” (pg. 343) What do you think of Nahara’s decision to join the Essenes?  Is she naïve or a true believer?

 9. The figure of Wynn, “The Man from the North,” who comes to serve the women in the dovecote, is based upon archaeological finds at Masada.  In what ways does Wynn come to bring the women together?  Compare Yael’s relationship with Ben Simon to her relationship with Wynn.

10. What do you make of Channa’s attempt to kidnap, essentially, Yael’s baby Arieh? Is Channa different from the other major female characters in the book? Do you find your opinion of her changes?

11. How does magic function in the novel? What is the relationship between Shirah’s Jewish beliefs and her use of spells?

12. At the end of the story why do you think that Yael takes Shirah’s name and identity as the Witch of Moab?

13. Do you feel the lives of the women in The Dovekeepers echo the lives of women in the modern world who are experiencing war and political unrest?

14. Why do you think it is so difficult to know what the lives of ancient women were really like? Do you see any connection with the way in which your own family stories are handed down through the generations?

15. Oppressed people find ways to forge identity and value among themselves and in so doing, hold themselves apart and above the rest of their society. The Jews of that time did so, and within the Jewish community, the women had their own ways of strengthening their worth and supporting the larger community. Do you agree with this assumption? If so, do you think that with less oppression the Jewish people might have disappeared into general society?

16. Is there anything you would like to mention about the book that didn’t come up in discussion?

17. Fast round: What was your overall opinion of the book?