Why this book:  I was preparing a presentation for the Unbeatable Mind Summit which included current efforts to extend life significantly. I saw this book on a list of the best books of 2018, checked the reviews and decided to give it a go.

Summary in 4 Sentences:  About 2000 years ago, near the time of Christ in Jerusalem,  a Jewish “priest” offers a woman the opportunity to trade her own death for the life of her dying child. She readily agrees, the child lives, but our protagonist, having traded away her own death,  goes on to live many lives – over the next 2000+ years, watching many many husbands, many, many of her own children and other friends live their lives, suffer and die, while she lives on, repeatedly in new incarnations.  There is a love story over the centuries with another such immortal individual – and while both have different attitudes toward their “predicament”, both are weary of living and collaborate to balance their desire to die with their continuing obligations to the living.

My impressions:  I took a chance on this book and I’m glad I did – I was very favorably   impressed.  It is well written, well-constructed, flows nicely, not overlong at about 300 pages and enjoyable to read.  Dara Horn presents a thoughtful story exploring the less appealing sides of fulfilling the immortality fantasy that many of us share, and which today is being discussed as potentially realizable.   In Rachel, the book’s protagonist, we get to know a sensitive but thoughtful woman who is nothing if not resilient – she’s seen a lot in two millennia of living, and has decided that she’s seen enough.  But she made the Faustian bargain to gain the life of her first born child, and then, over the millennia, repeatedly finds herself in the midst of life’s challenges, pain, and suffering.   She endures watching husbands and children making so many of the same mistakes, and suffer the consequences, again and again, simply in somewhat different contexts.

Rachel is pursued throughout the centuries by Elezar, a devoted lover and the father of the child who was about to die, and for whose life indeed they both traded their deaths.   Rachel’s relationship with Elezar is complex.  We don’t get to know him as well as we do Rachel, but he is an intriguing character – persistent, patient, optimistic, and a man of passion and integrity.  Rachel loves him, needs him, but avoids him when she can, because it seems that whenever he has entered her life over the millennia, things became more complicated than she wanted. And there is something that Rachel wants in life that she feels Elezar can’t give her – I’m not sure what that is.

There is much in this book about the perennial challenges women face in finding a mate, being a spouse, and then a mother.  Rachel has considerably more experience in this womanly endeavor than she wants.   While for Rachel, the context changes, and the names and faces change, the people and their struggles don’t.  Her children rarely listen to her wisdom.  She is compelled to keep her secret from all – except Elezar, who has different perspectives and priorities, and faces his own somewhat different challenges with immortality.

Rachel and Elezar are Jewish and their incarnations over the centuries seem always to  be part of the Jewish story.  That aspect of their multiple identities remained consistent throughout their many lives,  and we are treated to many insights about Judaism.

The multiple lives that Rachel and Elezar lived might seem similar to being “reincarnated,” but their new incarnations were significantly different from reincarnation theory as I understand it.  In “classic” reincarnation, individuals are not usually aware of their  previous lives and in each new life, must be born, grow, and mature anew.   Also most reincarnation theories are purpose-driven – the goal is to overcome one’s karma, to perfect oneself in order to get out of the continuous cycle of life and death.  Rachel and Elezar on the other hand, always find themselves alive again as young adults, in new settings with very clear memories of their previous incarnations.  Rachel and Elezar are more Sisyphean than Promethean – they are simply doomed to push the rock of life’s problems up the hill again and again, for eternity, with no “reward” of heaven or nirvana to strive for or to look forward to.  Their challenge is to learn to love their fate.

Rachel’s life in America in the 21st century is a key part of the story, and much of Eternal Life is a back and forth between her 21st century life and her life of 2000 years ago. There are references to her lives in between, and certainly references to lessons learned and experiences, but the author doesn’t offer us much detail – she makes her key points focussing on how Rachel deals with her challenges in these two lives in particular.

What were Dara Horn’s key points?  Here is my take:

•  Immortality is not all it may seem. One is reminded of the line out of the movie Troy in which Brad Pitt, playing Achilles, notes, “The gods envy us because we are mortal.”
• There are some common themes Rachel has seen in her many lives, with her many husbands, her many children:  She seemed to believe in her 21st century life, that there wasn’t much human folly she hadn’t seen or experienced.
• A mother’s love for her children is perennial and painful.  It was very, very hard for her to continue raising children and knowingly watching over-and-over again as they grew old, suffered, and died, while she continued to live.
• The Rachel-Elezar love story was interesting. It was deep and powerful.  Elezar was totally committed to Rachel.  Rachel loved Elezar, but her instincts as a mother were much stronger.  I sensed that this was a generalization that the author meant to make about all or most women.
• Love, family, and concern for the person one loves are what make the suffering and challenges of life worthwhile.
• Death eventually may indeed be a blessing.

The book is about a woman written by a woman – so that perspective is very well represented in the book. I would have liked a bit more about Elezar’s perspective.  I would also have liked more about Rachel’s lessons learned about how men and women relate, how she evolved and got better at love and marriage in her many marriages, about the men she picked to marry, how those decisions worked out.  Did she get better at picking a spouse, since that is such a key component to a happy life?  What were her lessons learned?  It would have added a few  more pages to the book, but would have added a lot – from my perspective.

I enjoyed this book, gained some interesting insights, and found Rachel’s and Elezar’s challenges thought-provoking and insightful.  Eternal Life is a good read for a thoughtful and intelligent reader – and would prompt a great discussion in a book club.  It can also be enjoyed simply as a good story.  I’d give it 4 stars.