I really enjoyed Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and was eager to read Helen Simonson's sophomore attempt. Unfortunately this book was a disappointment. Although Simonsen's ability to craft a multilayered sentence was amply evident here, it was actually to the book's detriment as people engaged in dialogue that was long on eloquence and short on verissimilitude. This was most obvious when our hero and heroine conversed. Their detail-heavy exchanges were rather surprising for two people who barely knew each other, yet there was no sense that their actual relationship was deepening. The characters in this book were mostly interchangeable and the plotline felt clicheed for historical fiction; independent ahead-of-her-time single woman moves to town and wants to fight societal norms (she wants to write a book! Everyone in these novels wants to write a book!), swears she'll never marry (hmm, do you think this wonderful guy she keeps talking to will test her resolve?), she's younger and prettier than they had expected (don't things ever happen to average-looking people?), etc., etc.
I just lost patience after a while, and even though I enjoyed the convenience of being able to read this on my phone (free ARC from Netgalley; I do feel guilty panning it and dnfing it), it simply didn't do it for me....more
My five star rating is entirely subjective. I don't know how others might feel about this book, or whether it would speak to them the way it spoke to My five star rating is entirely subjective. I don't know how others might feel about this book, or whether it would speak to them the way it spoke to me. I found it highly compelling, but I'm sure that has at least as much to do with my own background and interests as with the book's objective power.
I very much enjoyed Like Dreamers: The Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem in the Six-Day War, and the Divided Israel They Created and was eager to read this, the author's far more personal book. Here, Yossi Klein Halevi describes his Orthodox childhood in 1950s-1970s Boro Park, raised by a Holocaust survivor father whose views were very much shaped by his experiences and the broader reactions of Jewry to the Holocaust. From an early age, Yossi felt passionate about wanting to fight for Jewish causes and sacrificed his grades and other more typical pursuits as well as intellectually honest complex thinking in service of becoming a radical activist. As Yossi matured, he began to struggle with the fascinating insight that rather than a way to fully embrace life, his activist activities were actually an escape. Gradually, he distanced himself from radical friends and ways of thinking and found more moderate ways to advocate for fellow Jews, joining the ranks of individuals he had earlier disdained.
Some of the appeal of this book for me, admittedly, lay in the familiarity of Yossi's childhood context (although he's significantly older than I am) and the influences that shaped his thinking. I also loved his passion and his earnest desire to act, not just think and feel. Most of all, though, I appreciated Yossi's honesty and insight. While adeptly helping the reader feel what he felt and understand his choices, Yossi remains self-critical and causes you to consider the flaws as well as the appeal of embracing an activist view....more
Whenever I read celebrity memoirs, I usually don't know much about the celebrity and am simply judging the memoir on its own merits. The question Meh.
Whenever I read celebrity memoirs, I usually don't know much about the celebrity and am simply judging the memoir on its own merits. The question of whether I would have liked the book more (or possibly less) if I were better acquainted with the celebrity's persona lingers in the background, so take this from who it comes.
This celebrity memoir is arguably a little different from the usual how-I-got-famous-and-the-dysfunction-I-suffered-along-the-way genre because of the Scientology angle. I was fascinated by Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief and curious to read a more personal account of someone's experience with Scientology. Well, if I wanted sensationalist gossip this memoir didn't disappoint, even if the gossip mostly centered around Tom Cruise. That being said, this could just be me but I had a bit of a hard time tracing the path of Leah's disenchantment with Scientology; I get that there was some friction for her at Tom Cruise's wedding to Katie Holmes but wasn't exactly sure how the whole 180 happened as a result.
Otherwise, this memoir hit a lot of the same self-absorbed celeb memoir notes -- how I got my big break, name-dropping, more detail than I wanted at times, etc. Since it was readable and interesting at times despite this (and as I said, despite my never having heard of Leah Remini), I'll go ahead and give it three stars....more
With Gary Shteyngart I tend to be more enthusiastic about the parts than about the overall whole.
I remember reading The Russian Debutante's Handbook, With Gary Shteyngart I tend to be more enthusiastic about the parts than about the overall whole.
I remember reading The Russian Debutante's Handbook, falling all over myself laughing at the first chapter and gradually losing interest as the book progressed. Here too, there were many great moments but unfortunately not as much sustained momentum.
I do love the guy's writing. I love, in spite of myself, the whole angsty Jewish thing even if I find it a bit hackneyed at times. This book reminded me of Foreskin's Lament in many ways though it was less bitter and religion played a more marginal role. I related to Gary's conflicted identity and to his vivid descriptions of his critical but devoted Russian parents. Gary willingly portrayed himself as a bit of a jerk, which sometimes felt admirably honest and sometimes felt off-putting as well as self-indulgent and navel-gazing. Overall I found Gary sympathetic in spite of himself, even if there were times when I wanted to look away or cringe.
I'm not sure I fully appreciated the book, or my experience of reading it, but I did develop an affinity for Gary. He's about my age, and I remember when a whole bunch of Russians suddenly arrived on the shores of America and we Jewish elementary school students tried to welcome them into our schools. The language and culture gaps proved challenging, and I often found myself wondering what went on in their heads but not sure how to ask. In that way, reading Gary's memoir felt enlightening and interesting.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that, while I didn't love the book, I loved a lot of things about it. Three stars. And a big thank-you to Netgalley for providing me with a review copy and making me feel validated in my goodreads addiction. ;)...more
I watched the goodreads controversy swirl around me with mild curiosity and some ambivalence. I'm not a fanWell, I guess I've jumped on the bandwagon.
I watched the goodreads controversy swirl around me with mild curiosity and some ambivalence. I'm not a fan of being stalked by overeager or disgruntled authors and/or their PR people (it has happened to me occasionally, although I should probably be thankful that my lower visibility and popularity on this site have protected me from being intruded upon too frequently). And I'm certainly not a fan of censorship. With that said, I wondered whether some of the stronger reactions of goodreaders were a little intense and over the top, both to bad behavior by authors (why lower yourself to their level, or even further down?) and to goodreads' tightening the reins. I couldn't help feeling there had to be two sides to the story.
I was fascinated, though, by the passionate response. One of the things that made me a goodreads addict in the first place was finding an online community of people who shared my nerdy obsession with reading, organizing my thoughts and reactions to books, and conversing with others about this. And the reaction of these individuals to these restrictions -- hell hath no fury...
This book is the admirable effort of several of these individuals to take their anger and do something constructive with it. Consistent with the qualities that would make someone a passionate reader and writer, some of the most deservedly popular and articulate goodreads reviewers put their thoughts into writing. This compilation includes cogent discussions of the new goodreads developments and what they signify on a philosophical level, a historical description of the developments of the protest, first on an individual level and gradually organized into a collective and increasingly powerful response, and some of the goodreads reviews themselves that, in a variety of creative ways, attacked the new policies and exposed what was so provocative to goodreaders about them. Best of all, in a beautiful slap in the face to the idea of elevating the marketing of books above all else, this fascinating book is downloadable for free.
Having read (and admittedly skimmed at points; as fascinating and touching as this protest was, it occasionally felt repetitive) the collection, my sense of this controversy is that although goodreads was never truly a non-profit venture, the recent buyout by Amazon has shifted its focus from providing a social community for readers to expanding the market for authors. To this end, Amazon/Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ has begun to try to take control over the content of reviews so as to enhance marketing opportunities for authors, an act of censorship which has outraged reviewers who simply want to express themselves freely. Not only does this create a negative experience for reviewers, but in sanitizing the content of the reviews on this site Amazon/Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ is seriously diminishing the site's appeal.
It's one thing to get a troll attacking your review and to feel like the troll just looks like a jerk, or to tell the troll to go to hell if you feel you need to. It's another thing to have an authority figure come down from on high and censor your review because it doesn't suit their purposes. It's not as if we're being paid to write these reviews and should therefore have to conform to specific guidelines.
I recognize that this is the internet and that things can get pretty nasty here, far nastier than in real life where you actually have to look at the person when you say these things. And I'm not a fan of that type of nastiness. But there's something I like even less, and that's a police state. In an online community, I think this type of nastiness should be handled on an individual level -- not by a supreme dictator.
With all due sympathy to the painful feeling of being attacked, I still maintain that an author who feels attacked by a review is best off ignoring it. If your book is good, don't worry; people will discover it and read it anyway. When you wrestle with a pig, you both get covered in mud. Authors who respond in a defensive and immature way to critical reviews just make themselves look bad. But now, authors can get the Amazon/Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ police to respond for them in a highly drastic manner -- by censoring the review, alleging that it fails to meet some vague and conveniently undefined criteria.
Many highly visible and popular goodreads reviewers have elected to leave the site and move to booklikes as a means of protest and to seek out a community more similar to goodreads in its more halcyon days. That is most sad and unfortunate. I'm happy for these reviewers, who hopefully will find a more comfortable space in another internet community. But it's a loss for the rest of us. Personally, I'm not ready to make the move to booklikes; I feel I've built up a community here and suspect I don't write the kind of reviews that would attract the Amazon/Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ censors. But it's sad to see a vibrant community lose some of the people who gave it its personality. Moving to booklikes would also be a loss for me, but so is staying here without some of the reviewers I loved reading. What a shame this all is....more
The writing in this book was beautiful, and the story was great -- or could have been, had it not gottenSometimes it hurts to give a book three stars.
The writing in this book was beautiful, and the story was great -- or could have been, had it not gotten bogged down at several different points. I also felt pretty disconnected from the characters. These flaws made it difficult to fully appreciate the book's strong points, impressive though they were.
We first meet the book's central character, a judge living in Malaysia, when she has retired from her career and is returning to her past. We gradually learn about the judge's past, starting with her desire decades earlier to create a beautiful garden to memorialize her sister. The judge's sister had died what was clearly a tragic death in a Japanese prisoner's camp, a camp from which the judge herself mysteriously escaped. The judge's ambition of creating this memorial garden leads her, as a young woman, to apprentice herself to a man who once served as the gardener to the emperor of Japan. The judge's obviously conflicted feelings about the Japanese make this a complicated situation from the get-go, and of course, things get more complicated.
Although the judge's traumatic experiences in the camp together with her sister are referenced periodically and are clearly a pivotal point, it is not until the end of the book that we learn what actually happened in the camp as well as some mysteries surrounding the judge's Japanese gardening mentor. These parts of the book are interesting; the middle less so as the book bogs down in details of Japanese rituals and a side plot with little apparent relevance. And unfortunately, having lost a great deal of interest as the plot meandered from here to there, it was hard for me to read with the same absorption even once events got interesting again. Admittedly, I think some of this had to do with the fact that I was reading this book on my iphone and constantly flipping screens -- I think this did something to my attention span.
With that said, this book had a lot going for it. It was refreshing for me to read about a location and period of history I've read so little about, and the author succeeded in evoking the historical context without excessive info-dumps. The writing, as I mentioned, was lovely and a lot of the various plot twists and ethical themes were interesting to contemplate. Lots of people liked this book more than I did, and for once I can actually see why.
Still, though, I can't really give it more than three stars. ...more
Don't get me wrong. My dislike for this book is not a reflection of my feelings about the topic. I think itOnce again, I find myself in the minority.
Don't get me wrong. My dislike for this book is not a reflection of my feelings about the topic. I think it's great that these women sued "Newsweek" at great personal risk in the early 70s and eventually, paved the way for women to begin breaking the glass ceiling in journalism. I admire their courage, their willingness to fight for what they believed in, and the fact that they actually achieved a great deal.
So I should have liked this book, right? Unfortunately, the writing really fell flat for me. It actually read like an overlong Newsweek article. Fact. Quote. Fact. Quote. Fact. Quote. Dry reportage, taking an interesting topic and somehow putting a lot of distance between the topic and myself. Lynn Povich was apparently a highly successful journalist, but her writing in this book left me completely cold. I also think the book may have worked better as an article. It felt stretched out to me, with a lot of unnecessary detail and really, not all that much to say.
I probably would have done better with the wikipedia page. ...more
My sister and I were discussing this book yesterday, and I asked her why she didn't give it five stars. We agreed that we want our five star ratings tMy sister and I were discussing this book yesterday, and I asked her why she didn't give it five stars. We agreed that we want our five star ratings to be really meaningful, and try to reserve them for the really great books. Her issue with this book was that the narrator sometimes felt less like a personality and more like a writer documenting events, and that the narrator's behavior in context didn't always jive with her voice. My sister has a point, but I still thought this was a great read and I'm going to go ahead and give it the full five stars.
A priest named Arthur stands accused of molesting a young boy from a difficult background. The story is narrated by his sister, Sheila, who gradually fleshes out Arthur's story, the boy's story, the story of her and Arthur's difficult upbringing, and the events leading up to and following the accusation for everyone involved, including Sheila's other brother Mike. The writing reads smoothly, the characters are complex and feel real, and the story keeps you guessing about Arthur's guilt or innocence. The story also touches on the idea of religious faith and whether it can or should be maintained in the face of disappointing behavior.
Enjoyable, absorbing, provocative -- what more could you want from a good novel? Five stars.
I am going to disagree with the Orange Prize committee. I am going to disagree with thousands of goodreads reviewers. This book is crap.
Okay, all you I am going to disagree with the Orange Prize committee. I am going to disagree with thousands of goodreads reviewers. This book is crap.
Okay, all you trolls. Go ahead and tell me what a philistine I am, how ignorant I am of Greek literature and mythology, and how my failure to appreciate this book reflects my limitations rather than those of the book. You don't really need to bother defending this book, because the masses seem to agree with you.
But if you ask me, this was a Harlequin. Boring Patroclus is wholly infatuated with the impossibly perfect Achilles, who, even more impossibly, returns Patroclus's passion. Lots of purple prose, lots of love, daring battles, blah, blah, blah. I got about halfway through and decided I was finished wasting my time.
I'm fine with Patroclus and Achilles being in love, but a little complexity PLEASE. How about some characterization? How about some relationship tension from within, not just without?
I've read some glorified Harlequins that managed to break my snob barrier -- Outlander and Water for Elephants to name just two. Sadly, this one didn't. Perhaps this was, in part, because all the accolades led me to expect something far more literary or deep. And maybe had I read The Iliad I would be more excited by the references and more forgiving of the book's flaws.
So feel free not to take my word for it, but I found this book incredibly disappointing. ...more
Mmmrrmmmpppphhhh -- wrote a long and thoughtful review of this book, now lost in cyberspace due to an electrical short. Sigh. I will try to reconstrucMmmrrmmmpppphhhh -- wrote a long and thoughtful review of this book, now lost in cyberspace due to an electrical short. Sigh. I will try to reconstruct, but will probably end up shortening and simplifying. Maybe that's a good thing.
When I read "Orange is the New Black," I wondered whether approaching a memoir with a high degree of curiosity about an experience is a set-up for disappointment, as reading about the mundane details can end up seeming rather boring and banal. In this case too, I think I went in with inflated expectations as I was perhaps overeager to read about someone else's doctoral internship in psychology and to compare notes.
There were definitely some parallels between Darcy's experiences and mine. Darcy and I both received psychodynamic training in graduate school (although she felt decidedly more positive about hers than I felt about mine), only to discover that this failed to prepare us for working with full-blown psychosis in an inpatient setting. Darcy, however, experienced other frustrations as well. Her supervisors not only failed to provide her with the guidance she sought but actually told her straight out that they disliked her (in my field, the distinction between evaluating someone professionally and evaluating them personally can get blurred). She felt unappreciated as a lowly psychology intern in a setting where interventions were largely medication-driven and psychiatry residents ruled the roost. And worst of all, her placement was so poorly run that it was later written up for, among other things, failing to provide appropriate clinical leadership which may validate some of Darcy's difficulties with her supervisors. Although some reviewers snark, perhaps accurately, that Darcy's own contributions to her problems remain unacknowledged by her, clearly the situation itself was far from ideal.
While I enjoyed reading about Darcy's experiences and reminiscing a bit about my own, somehow this memoir was not as affecting for me as I hoped it would be. Perhaps some of the problem was that Darcy spent a great deal of time describing the various patients she met which somehow felt repetitive although it really should have been more interesting. Meanwhile, when Darcy finally has the blow-up with her supervisors, it almost appears to come out of nowhere -- a little foreshadowing and a few dropped hints but not much actual build-up or development.
Was the whole thing perhaps too superficially rendered? Or were my expectations unrealistic? I'm not sure, so I think I'll just give it a 3 and call it a day. It was certainly an interesting read for me, even if Darcy wasn't the long lost twin I had hoped to find....more
Although I don't usually enjoy speculative fictionalized biographies, this book was an exception. Melanie Benjamin takes the little we know about Mrs.Although I don't usually enjoy speculative fictionalized biographies, this book was an exception. Melanie Benjamin takes the little we know about Mrs. Tom Thumb, Lavinia Stratton, gleaned from her actual autobiography and other ambiguous sources, and creates an interesting and believable character. Benjamin also gives us an interesting and well-written story and evokes a fascinating time period.
I enjoyed this more than Alice I Have Been, and it's always nice to see a writer exceeding previous works. I'll look forward to Benjamin's next book....more
Hmm. Little accidental foray into the YA world for me, and my feelings are mixed.
I see why it can feel satisfying to gradually piece together a story Hmm. Little accidental foray into the YA world for me, and my feelings are mixed.
I see why it can feel satisfying to gradually piece together a story from a set of ambiguous puzzle pieces; for me, though, it's a style that often makes me feel alienated. I usually like to be grabbed immediately and to feel like I'm living inside the book, not to find myself scratching my head and saying, "What's happening here?" And because I'm like that I often end up detaching from books like these and failing to figure things out, as much out of emotional distance as out of the book's actual ambiguity. Occasionally, though, the style works for me and I feel really brilliant for having solved the puzzle and satisfied that I stuck with the book.
This particular experience fell right in the middle of those two poles. What appears to be the main plotline of the book is pretty unclear at first, and is interspersed with insets from an even murkier subplot where you really have no idea who's talking or what's happening. Of course, the two stories are connected and the hows and whys of that gradually unfold -- a little too gradually for my taste. To the book's credit, though, I did stick with it and was rewarded -- mostly -- by increasing clarity after the halfway point or so. I might reread it and appreciate it more the second time around, if I cared enough to do so.
I will say that the plot, once it finally unfolded, was pretty brilliant. Some of the characters and their dilemmas were interesting, although I never really felt like I knew any of them well. The romance was a bit too crafted for my tastes; the guy was that oh-so-perfect balance of tough and sensitive, macho yet emotionally available for the heroine. Yawn. I also get a little tired of the whole I-want-you-but-I'm-too-proud-to-let-you-know-so-I'll-just-endure-my-own-private-heartbreak-until-someone-hits-me-over-the-head thing.
I'm not usually a YA fan and this book didn't convert me, its merits notwithstanding. But I'm not sorry I read it and my guess is that it's one of the better YA books out there....more
A goodreads friend recently asked me about my antipathy toward The Glass Castle, and I couldn't for the life of me remember why I gave it only one staA goodreads friend recently asked me about my antipathy toward The Glass Castle, and I couldn't for the life of me remember why I gave it only one star. I think there were some contextual factors at play in my own life at the time. I remember thinking it was hard to believe, and that I wished Jeannette Walls had shared more about how she transitioned from a horrific situation into her current apparently normal one, issues I had with this book as well. I can't really figure out why some rags-to-riches, triumph-of-the-human-spirit memoirs (Angela's Ashes) work for me, and others (The Glass Castle) don't. I can only say that this one fell in between.
I was pretty horrified by Liz's drug-addicted parents and their neglect of her. I'm not sure how much of my disbelief stemmed from my difficulty absorbing Liz's childhood circumstances and how much of it was actual disbelief, especially that Liz could remember conversations and events from earliest childhood in such great detail. It's a question I have about many such memoirists.
Similar to other reviewers, I would have liked to hear more about her complicated relationship with her older sister as opposed to yet more details about her life before she managed to turn things around. Bitter fights, estrangement, and suddenly they're sharing an apartment -- all believable, but I would have liked to understand it better. The relationship between siblings growing up in such horrific circumstances can be interesting and unpredictable. I also felt that I didn't fully understand her relationship with Carlos, a Jekyll/Hyde boyfriend.
And yet, the book held my interest and I appreciate Liz's sharing more of the process of turning her life around than Jeannette Walls did, though I still felt that the emphasis on the horrors of her earlier life was more heavily weighted. There were some very inspiring moments and I never felt like it was a chore to read the book, my criticisms notwithstanding.
Overall, if you liked The Glass Castle you'll probably like this. And even if, like me, you didn't, there's still a possibility you'll enjoy this one more....more
I always appreciate a decent pageturner with a fast-paced plot, well-done suspense, and enough characterization and psychological dynamics to hold my I always appreciate a decent pageturner with a fast-paced plot, well-done suspense, and enough characterization and psychological dynamics to hold my interest. For me, this fit the bill.
When we first meet Karen she and her daughter are reuniting with her lover Rex, released from prison after serving a long sentence for murder. As the plot unfolds we gradually learn more about Karen's initial meeting with Rex and the events that followed, up to and including the murder which is not what we presume it to be.
Erin Kelly writes well and did a good job of building the story gradually, layer by layer, keeping me wondering. This wasn't a perfect book; I did have some issues with some of Karen's actions and her startling passivity in one relationship, even over time when she should have grown as a character and learned to function better. Still, definitely a good read that will occupy you and may prove difficult to put down. ...more
Is it just me, or was this book ridiculously poorly written? I felt like I was reading a book written for fifth graders. Choppy writing, nonexistent cIs it just me, or was this book ridiculously poorly written? I felt like I was reading a book written for fifth graders. Choppy writing, nonexistent characterization, clumsy dialogue, children who didn't sound or act their age -- all there was was plot, basically, and even that was convoluted and confusing.
Lisa, older sister to Sam, disappeared at the age of twelve either to a supernatural world or as a victim of a sordid kidnapping. Fifteen years later, adult Sam's strangely dimwitted girlfriend Phoebe believes she can help him find Lisa. What follows is bombardment of people impersonating other people and the gradual uncovering of twisted family secrets. I never quite understood the whole thing, but I don't know how much of that is the book's ambiguity and how much of that was simply my own disengagement.
Other reviewers seem to have liked this more than I did, describing it as deliciously creepy and difficult to put down. I think the writing style ruined it for me. I just couldn't get into a book that read like Dick and Jane, no matter how suspenseful the plot tried to be. ...more
1. I almost never enjoy food writing as much as I think I will. I certainly don't enjoy it enough to compensate for basic flaws in a book.
2. TMI memoirs are car accidents but vague, guarded memoirs are boring and confusing which is arguably worse. (I still don't get why Gabrielle was so mad at her mother, how she made the transition from untrained catering assistant to successful chef/restaurant owner, what the heck was up with her marriage, etc.)
3. Just because you write good sentences doesn't mean you should write a memoir.
4. You can come from a working class background, priding yourself on your work ethic and humble origins, and still be a huge snob. Your blood sugar can run dangerously low and you'll still turn your nose up at a restaurant that doesn't meet your standards, making everyone around you crazy in the process (for God's sake, just order some french fries or something and the heck with it!).
5. Don't get your hopes up about a book on goodreads that has a high average rating initially when it's billed as an up and coming book (this book once had an average rating of 4.13 or so). Wait until more people have read it and then check the rating (in this case, closer to 3.6 which is far more indicative)....more
Reading this book was a chore, and I doubt I would have finished it if not for my book club. For a while there I was wondering whether this was the BoReading this book was a chore, and I doubt I would have finished it if not for my book club. For a while there I was wondering whether this was the Booker Committee's way of throwing Jews a bone because of some other Booker winner in the recent past which could be construed as anti-semitic. As I plodded through I began to recognize some of the book's merits, but at no point did it become an enjoyable reading experience for me.
First of all, this could probably be described as a "novel of ideas," a phrase I saw applied to 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction. "Novel of ideas" appears to be a nice way of saying cardboard characters and virtually non-existent plot but lots of pseudo-intellectual dialogue masquerading as a story. As Stephen King told us in On Writing, the author's goal should not be to take themes and try to turn them into stories -- the goal is to write good stories, and hopefully themes emerge. It seems so obvious, and yet so many novels are agenda-driven and I have yet to find one where the quality doesn't suffer. The Finkler Question is no exception.
So okay, what is this book about anyway? Darned if I know. The main character, Julian, decides that he wants to be Jewish although he's pretty clueless about what that means. Julian's cluelessness is actually rivaled by that of the author, who describes Zionist Israeli settlers as wearing black hats. Buddy, do your research. Orthodox Jews wearing black hats tend not to be Zionistic, and fervent Israeli settlers don't usually wear black hats -- if you're writing a book of this nature, you should know this basic fact. But I digress. I'll come back to the ignorance later.
Julian's exploration of Judaism, evolving in tandem with his Jewish frenemy Sam's founding of a group of "ASHamed Jews" (i.e., self-hating), serves as a springboard for lots of endless discussions and ruminations and navel-gazing among the various characters about what it really means to be Jewish. Now, I hate to sound like a provincial Orthodox Jew who can't fathom what Jewish identity consists of for a Jew who doesn't share his religious lifestyle, and please don't think I have a superiority complex -- I honestly don't. I do have to admit, though, that it's hard for me to relate to Jews I meet whose entire conception of their Jewish identity appears to be based on feeling offended by Christmas decorations and taking anti-semitic acts personally. Even for someone who doesn't choose to observe the way I do, there's so much more to being Jewish than that. But for the Jews in this book, that was about it. The "Finkler question," a.k.a. the Jewish question, was kind of a heading for all sorts of debate on anti-semitism and Israeli action in Gaza, and whether one justifiably causes the other. Nothing about God, or Sabbath observance, or basic Jewish literacy (I really wouldn't have started with Maimonides' "Guide to the Perplexed," even for comic purposes).
I guess what I'm trying to say is this book centers around one guy who desperately wants to be Jewish and one guy who desperately wants not to be, and neither of them has the slightest clue. It's almost offensive. If I wrote a book about someone who wanted to be black and decided to eat watermelon and throw a few ghetto phrases into their lexicon, the book might arguably be construed as funny if it were written in a clever way but I could also see myself being accused of being racist, narrowminded, stereotypical, at the very least superficial, etc. Being Jewish is not about artificially injecting Yiddish phrases into your dialogue. It's not about answering a question with a question or engaging in any of those other oft-mocked cultural mannerisms (some of which I'd never heard of and I suspect Jacobson invented).
So now I hear you saying, where's your sense of humor? You took the book way too seriously. And it's true; much of the book was clearly intended to be tongue-in-cheek and clever and even succeeded in bringing a smile to my face at times. But supposedly the book was also meant to be profound and thought-provoking. I don't think the Booker committee awards humor books, and humor books don't usually include endless philosophical discussions. Now I don't want to totally rip that aspect of the book -- there were a lot of interesting and original statements here that gave me pause. But when the author's notions of Jewishness were so incredibly superficial, stereotypical, narrow, and just plain ignorant, it was hard for me to be impressed by his points. I was too busy rolling my eyes and sighing because we are clearly on such different pages.
If the book had been an enjoyable read, I could have forgiven its other flaws. If the book had spoken to me on some deeper level, I might have enjoyed it despite its literary failings. I am giving it two stars because I recognize some of its merits. But basically? A lot of overrated, overhyped crap....more
It's always impressive when a non-fiction book explores a topic that it would never occur to me to read about and manages to be not only educational bIt's always impressive when a non-fiction book explores a topic that it would never occur to me to read about and manages to be not only educational but interesting. In The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Wilkerson describes African American migration from the Jim Crow south to the more subtly racist north over the course of the 20th century. In addition to offering well-researched historical details on the broader movement Wilkerson narrows her focus to three particular narratives, following migrants Ida Mae, George, and Robert from their southern childhoods to their struggles to make it up north to their eventual deaths.
Wilkerson makes Ida Mae, George, and Robert come alive as fully fleshed-out three-dimensional characters worthy of great fiction. George and Robert in particular are depicted as determined and deeply flawed individuals whose achievements are inspirational yet come at a painful price. Their stories are gripping and fast-paced, vivid and lifelike without getting bogged down in detail.
Meh. Readable, I suppose, but it wasn't grabbing me. I pushed myself through 50 pages and then decided I'd rather spend my valuable reading time on soMeh. Readable, I suppose, but it wasn't grabbing me. I pushed myself through 50 pages and then decided I'd rather spend my valuable reading time on something I enjoy more....more
It's always gratifying when a departure from your reading comfort zone pays off.
In this book, DeWitt uses the well-trod plotlines of a western to givIt's always gratifying when a departure from your reading comfort zone pays off.
In this book, DeWitt uses the well-trod plotlines of a western to give us a very sympathetic narrator -- Eli Sisters -- and to flesh out his complex relationship with his dominant older brother, Charlie. Eli and Charlie are hired killers, with Eli feeling a great deal more ambivalence about his profession than Charlie does. The book follows the twists and turns of their latest mission.
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this, as I don't generally do Westerns and it seemed like a "guy" book. But I enjoyed the relationship dynamics between the two brothers and Eli's dilemmas, which achieved the delicate balance between philosophical depth and staying true to Eli's authentic, uneducated, plainspoken voice.
I don't want to oversell this, but I will say that it was a quick and easy read without feeling stupid or pointless. Always a nice combination....more
Loading...
