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THE BRIDE WHO ARGUED WITH GOD

Name: THE BRIDE WHO ARGUED WITH GOD
Author: Hava Ben-Zvi
ISBN: 0-595-40567-3

TALES FROM THE TREASURY OF JEWISH FOLKLORE

by Hava Ben-Zvi ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 1, 2006

An important piece of public history.

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A collection of short folktales collected from Jews who immigrated to Israel.

In the introduction, Ben-Zvi notes that for centuries, Jews have passed down their culture, morals and spirituality through oral folktales. Emerging from countless countries, they dispersed throughout the world, forming a strong Diaspora that has fostered a diverse storytelling tradition. Upon the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, many immigrants told their stories to the Israel Folktale Archives, which became the author’s major inspiration and research source. The tales included here are brief and seek to explain, teach a lesson, or extol the religious or personal virtues of the characters. In the title story, a couple is visited by the Angel of Death, who informs them that they will soon lose their son. They ask that he be allowed to marry first, and on the day of his wedding, the Angel appears in the form of a beggar. Though both the parents and the son plead for his life, it is his new bride who prevails, arguing that, because the Talmud specifies that a new husband should not leave his bride for a year, it must not be his time to go. After each story, Ben-Zvi includes notes that offer an interpretation of the story’s lesson, a guide to direct readers to more information about the Jewish laws and traditions invoked in the tale, or more information about the particular Jewish community from which the story originated. Though the morals of the stories become quickly repetitive, and the prose is occasionally awkward and overly formal, the author’s dedication to research is evident. The wide range of settings–Morocco, Poland, Persia, Tunisia, Czechoslovakia, Israel, Russia, Iraq and more–admirably reflects the remarkable diversity of the Jewish Diaspora. In much of the world, particularly North Africa, Asia, and the non-Israeli regions of the Middle East, Jewish communities are slowly dying out–a fact that makes this preservation of their oral traditions particularly meaningful.

An important piece of public history.

Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2006

ISBN: 0-595-40567-3

Page Count: -

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.