Read Online kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781984883254 Books
Download As PDF : kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781984883254 Books
The celebrated Pulitzer finalist and prize-winning author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank delivers his best work yet, a streamlined comic masterpiece about a son’s failure to say Kaddish for his father.
Larry is the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews. When his father dies, it’s his responsibility to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. To the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses—imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. To appease her, Larry hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the prayer and shepherd his father’s soul safely to rest.
Sharp, irreverent, hilarious, and wholly irresistible, Englander’s tale of a son who makes a diabolical compromise ingeniously captures the tensions between tradition and modernity—a book to be devoured in a single sitting whose pleasures and provocations will be savored long after.
Read Online kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781984883254 Books
"I was both surprised and disappointed to read Englander's new novel: surprised that such a fine writer had produced what is, in my judgement, a banal and shallow book, and disappointed that the author seems to imagine that his audience is now middle-brow American Jews looking for choices for the next book club. Larry, his protagonist, a disengaged, alienated outlier, unwilling to assume the obligation of reciting kaddish for his beloved father, is transformed in one paragraph (yes!--one paragraph!) into a rabbinic Shaul who bewilderingly begins speaking with the inflections of a Yeshiv-ish gemara teacher, living an orthodox life in Israel with a scholar-wife, offering bromides to a troubled adolescent, and twenty years after the fact, trying to come to grips with his not having recited kaddish for his father. The author's failure to offer even a suggestion of any psychological arc is so glaringly absent that one needs to re-read said paragraph, asking oneself--did I miss something? Englander's work, heretofore heralded as the next coming of Malamud and Roth, has hit a nadir of monumental proportions. It has nowhere to go except up and this talented writer needs to better manage having become the darling of modern Jewish literature--an accolade to this point wholly deserved--and return to his incisive, honest and even profound earlier work."
Product details
|
Tags : kaddish.com A novel [Nathan Englander] on . The celebrated Pulitzer finalist and prize-winning author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth </i>and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank </i>delivers his best work yet,Nathan Englander,kaddish.com A novel,Random House Large Print,1984883259,Atheism;Fiction.,Atheists,Families,Fathers;Death;Fiction.,Fiction,Jewish families,Large type books,Orthodox Judaism,Orthodox Judaism;Fiction.,Religious fiction,AMERICAN CONTEMPORARY FICTION,FICTION / Family Life / General,FICTION / Jewish,FICTION / Literary,Fiction-Literary,Fiction/Family Life - General,Fiction/Jewish,General Adult,Large Print,Tennessee,literary fiction;Jew;Pulitzer;jewish;family;jewish fiction;novels;fiction;religious books;religion;fiction books;books fiction;jewish novels;jewish books;realistic fiction books;literature;jewish fiction novels;judaism;contemporary fiction;historical;war;mystery;england;drama;wwii;dutch;short stories;romance;love;school;classic;relationships;french;marriage;ww2;autobiography;world war ii;friendship;terrorism;hebrew;american literature;palestine;realistic fiction;grief;german;immigration;music,jewish; literary fiction; family; jewish fiction; novels; fiction books; fiction; religious books; literature; religion; realistic fiction books; jewish books; books fiction; jewish fiction novels; jewish novels; judaism; historical; war; short stories; drama; england; dutch; romance; classic; wwii; school; love; american literature; mystery; roman; relationships; contemporary fiction; immigrants; autobiography; terrorism; ww2; realistic fiction; marriage; friendship; world war ii; french; literary; jewish literature; coming of age
kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781984883254 Books Reviews :
kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781984883254 Books Reviews
- I was both surprised and disappointed to read Englander's new novel surprised that such a fine writer had produced what is, in my judgement, a banal and shallow book, and disappointed that the author seems to imagine that his audience is now middle-brow American Jews looking for choices for the next book club. Larry, his protagonist, a disengaged, alienated outlier, unwilling to assume the obligation of reciting kaddish for his beloved father, is transformed in one paragraph (yes!--one paragraph!) into a rabbinic Shaul who bewilderingly begins speaking with the inflections of a Yeshiv-ish gemara teacher, living an orthodox life in Israel with a scholar-wife, offering bromides to a troubled adolescent, and twenty years after the fact, trying to come to grips with his not having recited kaddish for his father. The author's failure to offer even a suggestion of any psychological arc is so glaringly absent that one needs to re-read said paragraph, asking oneself--did I miss something? Englander's work, heretofore heralded as the next coming of Malamud and Roth, has hit a nadir of monumental proportions. It has nowhere to go except up and this talented writer needs to better manage having become the darling of modern Jewish literature--an accolade to this point wholly deserved--and return to his incisive, honest and even profound earlier work.
