- Hardcover: 480 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Press (HC); First Edition edition (Jan 15 2008)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1594201498
- ISBN-13: 978-1594201493
- Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 16.8 x 4.1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 748 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,384,580 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||
Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Mockingly irreverent and verging on the fantastical, Grunberg's satirical comedy featuring a contemporary messiah will amuse some readers and offend others. When Swiss teenager Xavier Radek meets Awromele Michalowitz, a rabbi's son, decides it is his life's mission to comfort the Jews to atone for their suffering. Idealistic and naïve to the point of foolishness, Xavier is a contemporary version of the Jewish folkloric character Gimpel the Fool. Never mind that his grandfather was a superzealous Nazi, and his mother thinks that You-Know-Who had the right idea in exterminating the Jews. Both young men acknowledge the erotic bond between them, first evidenced when Xavier undergoes a botched circumcision. As the action moves from Basel to Amsterdam to Tel Aviv in a series of farcical adventures involving violence, brutality, lust and jealousy, the novel reveals a world made up of bigots and complacent hypocrites. Grunberg's iconoclastic novels are bestsellers in Europe, where they have won numerous literary awards. He has a fine touch for the ridiculous and the macabre, but by the time Xavier becomes the corrupt prime minister of Israel and metamorphoses into a modern Hitler, this abrasive satire becomes an open wound. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Grunberg rejects self-serving existentialism, confronts real-world torture, genocide, terrorism, and personal crimes of the heart, and he infuses his visceral, wily satire with biblical fury."
-Los Angeles Times "Arnon Grunberg is known for writing incendiary novels, but...The Jewish Messiah pushes his bleak sense of humor into new realms....Much more than an impolite screed; Grunberg wants to incite dialogue, not controversy."
- Time Out New York
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
-Los Angeles Times "Arnon Grunberg is known for writing incendiary novels, but...The Jewish Messiah pushes his bleak sense of humor into new realms....Much more than an impolite screed; Grunberg wants to incite dialogue, not controversy."
- Time Out New York
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
First Sentence
BECAUSE HIS GRANDFATHER had served, with sincere enthusiasm and a great faith in what the future would bring, in the SSâ the kind of man who wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves, not the kind of wishy-washy grandpa who never got up from his desk, who stamped an official document now and then before hurrying home to his wife and children at five, no, a gentleman, one who understood death's handiwork without bothering his own family about it, a man for whom words like "honor" and "loyalty" still meant something, a man of morals who clung faithfully to a vision even under brutal conditions when many of his buddies stripped off their uniforms and ran for it, but not him, a man who said, "A man of fiber knows his duty, a man of fiber doesn't just live from day to day," and, having said that, went on to fire every last round in his clipâ the grandson wished to serve a movement with enthusiasm and faith in the future. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
BECAUSE HIS GRANDFATHER had served, with sincere enthusiasm and a great faith in what the future would bring, in the SSâ the kind of man who wasn't afraid to roll up his sleeves, not the kind of wishy-washy grandpa who never got up from his desk, who stamped an official document now and then before hurrying home to his wife and children at five, no, a gentleman, one who understood death's handiwork without bothering his own family about it, a man for whom words like "honor" and "loyalty" still meant something, a man of morals who clung faithfully to a vision even under brutal conditions when many of his buddies stripped off their uniforms and ran for it, but not him, a man who said, "A man of fiber knows his duty, a man of fiber doesn't just live from day to day," and, having said that, went on to fire every last round in his clipâ the grandson wished to serve a movement with enthusiasm and faith in the future. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet on Amazon.ca
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
12 of 15 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful nonsense, Feb 9 2008
By Duke Marine - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Jewish Messiah (Hardcover)
I'm torn on this book. On the one hand it was one of the most beautifully written things I have ever read. Some sentences I would read over and over because they were so beautiful and unique.However the story...the story was good enough to keep me reading for the 400+ pages of the book...but I don't think it was because it was good I think it was because I thought maybe at some point it would make sense or get to the point. It was almost like the story was just the summary on the book jacket stretched out ridiculously with insane attention to mundane detail. I'd say 75% of the book doesn't move the story along.
Also the characters...they are incredibly 1-dimensional. Which is strange because the author delves into the inner thoughts and emotions of the main character extensively. But they are merely described, not explained. All of characters face some of the most nightmarish situations ever conjured in fiction but their reactions are completely alien and inhuman. Like I found myself waiting to find out that everyone turned out to be a serial killer or psychologically disturbed in some way. But they weren't, they were all supposedly "normal."
I suppose you could read social commentary into it. However, in my opinion, it doesn't make any such commentary very clear. Any message from the book would be completely a matter of interpretation and reading whatever you want into the text.
All in all, I sort of regret spending all of the time I spent reading the book because it failed to deliver any sort of point and wasn't entertaining enough for that to be the point. However it wasn't an unenjoyable waste of time as the writing was...poetic without being flowery. The author and translator are obviously masters of language. And I suppose the best praise I can give the story was that it was crafted in such a way that I can forgive myself for expecting there to be more to it than there turned out to be.
15 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy it for the cover alone., Jan 9 2008
By Dmitry Portnoy - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Jewish Messiah (Hardcover)
Imagine Woody Allen and the Marquis de Sade had a child, not a bastard, but one they fussed over and nurtured and sent to the best schools: he might have written this horrible, vicious, hilarious, totally true book, whose tasteless provocations upon motherhood, philosophy, art, and friendship are matched by a quixotic cruelty to cheeses. The translated prose is like the best martini: ice-cold, and crystal clear, with an instant head rush, and the subtlest whiff of foreignness in vermouth. Beware: it is a very stiff drink.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
???Befuddled???, May 8 2012
By skrams - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
Read the whole book and enjoyed it. Still don't know what to make of it.Serious.... Funny.... Pornografic .... Tongue in cheek.... This book has it all.
Read a sample first. You'll either love it or hate it.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
