I Read Books: The Dictionary of the Khazars

Me: I think I’ll review every book I read this year.

Also Me: I think I’ll re-read The Dictionary of the Khazars

Also Also Me: Oh no.

Dictionary here is used in an old fashioned way; lexicon or encyclopedia would be the more modern term. Nevertheless, this book is fiction.

The Khazars were a real people who lived between the Caspian and Black Seas during the second half of the first millennium. The Dictionary claims to be a collection of documents relates to the Khazar Polemic, the event in which Jewish, Christian and Muslim representatives made their cases as to which religion the Khazars should convert to. This was a real event. Nevertheless this book is fiction.

You can look up the history. In the Dictionary, the question of which religion they converted to and what happened to the Khazars is not resolved; Hebrew sources suggest they converted to Judaism, Islamic sources that they made their Islam, Christian sources, well you get the idea. The book is more interested in the characters who tried to find out about the Khazars, and also dreams (the Khazars had priests who were dream hunters) and death, and time, and angels made up of dreams and death and time.

There’s a murder at the end.

Read This: For crazy weird semi-theological pseudo-historical fantasy.
Don’t Read This: If non-linear, non-standard non-narratives are not for you.