Several weeks’ worth of good reading, and an invaluable gathering of the best of a remarkable literary tradition.
The ordeal of an embattled populace and the variety of a robust folk culture are preserved in this enormous anthology: an admirable labor of love executed with matchless skill by the veteran translator of Mann, Proust, Kafka, and many others.
Neugroschel’s compact introduction and headnotes make essential distinctions between classical-formal Hebrew and vernacular Yiddish, while soberly reminding us that “Countless Jewish manuscripts and books have been destroyed by Christians.” Nevertheless, what remains (much of which has long lain buried in Yiddish-language periodicals) includes a rich profusion of early religious tales (many of which revise familiar biblical stories), parables, and folktales (one of the best: a harrowing tale of demonic seduction, “The Queen of Sheba in the House of the Sun”), and the dense symbolism of early modern master Rabbi Nakhman of Braslev. Other classics include excerpts from the book generally considered the first Yiddish novel, Yoysef Perl’s Revealer of Secrets (1819), and The Little Man, a popular chronicle of village life in tsarist Russia written by the much-beloved Mendele Moyker-Sforim (a forerunner of Sholom Aleichem). In the long section devoted to “Modernism,” Neugroschel offers impressive work from Aleichem himself (the dark, powerful “Seventy-five Thousand”), the great short-story writer Y.L. Peretz, the conflicted Dovid Bergelson (a Soviet apologist who was a delicate Chekhovian stylist), and the pseudonymous “Der Nister” (whose gorgeously wrought symbolic fantasy “Beheaded” is a standout). Also among the volume’s choicest surprises: Yudl Rosenberg’s vivid retelling of the legend of Rabbi Levi of Prague and the Golem he created; Leon Kubrin’s harshly naturalistic “Apartment No. 4”; Yoysef Smolazh’s stark “The Open Grave” (which is reminiscent of Stephen Crane); and Bertha Lelchuk’s racy summa of the immigrant experience, “The Aunt from Norfolk.” The anthology concludes with excerpts from Yehuda Elberg’s Joycean The Empire of Kalman the Cripple, Chava Rosenfarb’s elegiac Bociany, and Isaac Bashevis Singer’s classic story of unshakable faith, “Gimpel the Fool.”
Several weeks’ worth of good reading, and an invaluable gathering of the best of a remarkable literary tradition.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2002
ISBN: 0-393-05190-0
Page Count: 880
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2002
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.
Four men who meet as college roommates move to New York and spend the next three decades gaining renown in their professions—as an architect, painter, actor and lawyer—and struggling with demons in their intertwined personal lives.
Yanagihara (The People in the Trees, 2013) takes the still-bold leap of writing about characters who don’t share her background; in addition to being male, JB is African-American, Malcolm has a black father and white mother, Willem is white, and “Jude’s race was undetermined”—deserted at birth, he was raised in a monastery and had an unspeakably traumatic childhood that’s revealed slowly over the course of the book. Two of them are gay, one straight and one bisexual. There isn’t a single significant female character, and for a long novel, there isn’t much plot. There aren’t even many markers of what’s happening in the outside world; Jude moves to a loft in SoHo as a young man, but we don’t see the neighborhood change from gritty artists’ enclave to glitzy tourist destination. What we get instead is an intensely interior look at the friends’ psyches and relationships, and it’s utterly enthralling. The four men think about work and creativity and success and failure; they cook for each other, compete with each other and jostle for each other’s affection. JB bases his entire artistic career on painting portraits of his friends, while Malcolm takes care of them by designing their apartments and houses. When Jude, as an adult, is adopted by his favorite Harvard law professor, his friends join him for Thanksgiving in Cambridge every year. And when Willem becomes a movie star, they all bask in his glow. Eventually, the tone darkens and the story narrows to focus on Jude as the pain of his past cuts deep into his carefully constructed life.
The phrase “tour de force” could have been invented for this audacious novel.Pub Date: March 10, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-385-53925-8
Page Count: 720
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PROFILES
PERSPECTIVES
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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