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
Genetically engineered dinosaurs run amok in Crichton's new, vastly entertaining science thriller. From the introduction alone—a classically Crichton-clear discussion of the implications of biotechnological research—it's evident that the Harvard M.D. has bounced back from the science-fantasy silliness of Sphere (1987) for another taut reworking of the Frankenstein theme, as in The Andromeda Strain and The Terminal Man. Here, Dr. Frankenstein is aging billionaire John Hammond, whose monster is a manmade ecosystem based on a Costa Rican island. Designed as the world's ultimate theme park, the ecosystem boasts climate and flora of the Jurassic Age and—most spectacularly—15 varieties of dinosaurs, created by elaborate genetic engineering that Crichton explains in fascinating detail, rich with dino-lore and complete with graphics. Into the park, for a safety check before its opening, comes the novel's band of characters—who, though well drawn, double as symbolic types in this unsubtle morality play. Among them are hero Alan Grant, noble paleontologist; Hammond, venal and obsessed; amoral dino-designer Henry Wu; Hammond's two innocent grandchildren; and mathematician Ian Malcolm, who in long diatribes serves as Crichton's mouthpiece to lament the folly of science. Upon arrival, the visitors tour the park; meanwhile, an industrial spy steals some dino embryos by shutting down the island's power—and its security grid, allowing the beasts to run loose. The bulk of the remaining narrative consists of dinos—ferocious T. Rex's, voracious velociraptors, venom-spitting dilophosaurs—stalking, ripping, and eating the cast in fast, furious, and suspenseful set-pieces as the ecosystem spins apart. And can Grant prevent the dinos from escaping to the mainland to create unchecked havoc? Though intrusive, the moralizing rarely slows this tornado-paced tale, a slick package of info-thrills that's Crichton's most clever since Congo (1980)—and easily the most exciting dinosaur novel ever written. A sure-fire best-seller.
Pub Date: Nov. 7, 1990
ISBN: 0394588169
Page Count: 424
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 21, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1990
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