For readers unfamiliar with Yiddish writing, a revelation; for readers and aficionados of the language, a treasure.
A wide-ranging, eclectic anthology of work by Yiddish writers.
Stavans (Humanities, Latin American, and Latino Culture/Amherst Coll.; The Seventh Heaven: Travels Through Jewish Latin America, 2019, etc.) and Yiddish Book Center academic director Lambert (American Literature/Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst; Unclean Lips: Obscenity, Jews, and American Culture, 2014, etc.) have assembled an impressive collection of essays, fiction, drama, memoir, poetry, cartoons, and interviews, all showing how “Yiddish is so deeply woven into the fabric of the United States that it can sometimes be difficult to recognize how much it has transformed the world we live in today.” Arranged thematically rather than chronologically, the pieces are, in some cases, written by names that general readers will recognize: Irving Howe, Emma Goldman, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Allen Ginsberg, Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, Michael Chabon, Alan Alda, Leonard Nimoy, and Elliott Gould. Others will be news to many readers—and mostly good news. The editors provide a brief introduction to each major division of the text and to each contributor. The arrangement of the text is sensible, and the editors show us that American Yiddish writing expands well beyond the United States; they include pieces from Canada, Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico. Among all these are some stunners—e.g., “Oedipus in Brooklyn,” a story by Blume Lempel (1907-1999) that begins with the line, “Sylvia was no Jocasta.” Emma Goldman (1869-1940) writes fiercely about marriage, which she compares to an “iron yoke.” In a poem about Coney Island, Victor Packer (1897-1958) writes, “Beauty and crudity / Go hand in hand and / Launch a united front / Right there on the sand.” Ozick (b. 1928) compares Sholem Aleichem to Dickens, Twain, and Will Rogers. “He was a popular presence, and stupendously so. His lectures and readings were mobbed; he was a household friend; he was cherished as a family valuable.”
For readers unfamiliar with Yiddish writing, a revelation; for readers and aficionados of the language, a treasure.Pub Date: Jan. 21, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-63206-262-8
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Restless Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 12, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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