An entrancing literary effort drawn from authentic characters and settings.
Memories' ghosts haunt this intriguing novel, the third from Schmahmann (Nibble & Kuhn, 2009, etc.).
Helga Divin is dying, and her two children have rallied to her side at her London home. Danny is a wealthy investment banker who lives near Boston. Bridget also lives in America with her daughter, Leora, and her husband, Tibor, a Bulgarian refuge. The Divins are natives of Durban, South Africa, although both youngsters were forced to flee penniless during apartheid. Soon after, widowed Helga, a liberal university professor, married Arnold Miro, a wealthy businessman, and moved to London. It does not help family dynamics that Miro is a boor, a greedy poseur who has isolated the normally strong-willed Helga. Miro also is attempting to misappropriate a collection of Zulu historical objects gathered by Silas Divin, Helga's first husband, Danny and Bridget's father. Among the artifacts are two elephant tusks given to one of the first settlers of the region, Nathaniel Isaacs, a Jew. As the Divins are Jewish, the tusks reign symbolically over the novel, as does Gordonwood, the hilltop estate Silas purchased. Also important to the narrative are Baptie, a servant at Gordonwood who feels a maternal connection to Danny and Bridget, and her son Eben, whose appearance is emblematic of the nation shaping itself out of apartheid's ashes. Told in four parts, with Danny's point of view in the first, the story moves to Eben and new Africa in the second; and Morton Nerpelow, the family's Durban attorney, in the third. Characters come together in the fourth. Danny's human frailties inspire empathy, as do Bridget's, but the imperturbable and constantly supportive Tibor is sketched admirably, and Miro as nemesis is unambiguous. Point of view sometimes slips, especially when Danny relates the tale. Chapters are very short, some less than a page, but one offers an interesting precis of the first contact between whites and the Zulu nation.
An entrancing literary effort drawn from authentic characters and settings.Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-89733-612-3
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Academy Chicago
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
This first novel, ostensibly about the friendship between two boys, Reuven and Danny, from the time when they are fourteen on opposing yeshiva ball clubs, is actually a gently didactic differentiation between two aspects of the Jewish faith, the Hasidic and the Orthodox. Primarily the Hasidic, the little known mystics with their beards, earlocks and stringently reclusive way of life. According to Reuven's father who is a Zionist, an activist, they are fanatics; according to Danny's, other Jews are apostates and Zionists "goyim." The schisms here are reflected through discussions, between fathers and sons, and through the separation imposed on the two boys for two years which still does not affect their lasting friendship or enduring hopes: Danny goes on to become a psychiatrist refusing his inherited position of "tzaddik"; Reuven a rabbi.... The explanation, in fact exegesis, of Jewish culture and learning, of the special dedication of the Hasidic with its emphasis on mind and soul, is done in sufficiently facile form to engage one's interest and sentiment. The publishers however see a much wider audience for The Chosen. If they "rub their tzitzis for good luck,"—perhaps—although we doubt it.
Pub Date: April 28, 1967
ISBN: 0449911543
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2012
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
