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karencarlson's review against another edition
You could think of this as an adventure story about a slacker teen in Memphis, alienated from his own Judaism until his discovery of a nineteenth-century Hasidic rabbi in his parent’s freezer changes his life.
Or: You could also think of it as a saga of the late Jewish Diaspora, from the Polish shtetls to the cities to the US and Israel, from a mystical faith to a political one, or, sometimes, to no faith at all, and back again.
Or: You could think of it as a way to incorporate a century of backstory without losing the momentum of the present story.
Or: You could see it as a family saga of disconnected people who still manage to be family.
However you see it, what you have is two alternating time lines: one in the present at the cusp of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the other from the late nineteenth century until it catches up with the present. Chapters are helpfully labeled with dates to keep things straight.
And, oh, one other thing – it’s a lot of fun to read. I don’t say that about many books that wander through pogroms, thuggery, and loneliness, but somehow this manages to be fun even when it’s downright disgusting. Some knowledge of Judaica - particularly Kabbalah - is helpful, but the text mostly tells you what you need to know.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
Or: You could also think of it as a saga of the late Jewish Diaspora, from the Polish shtetls to the cities to the US and Israel, from a mystical faith to a political one, or, sometimes, to no faith at all, and back again.
Or: You could think of it as a way to incorporate a century of backstory without losing the momentum of the present story.
Or: You could see it as a family saga of disconnected people who still manage to be family.
However you see it, what you have is two alternating time lines: one in the present at the cusp of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and the other from the late nineteenth century until it catches up with the present. Chapters are helpfully labeled with dates to keep things straight.
And, oh, one other thing – it’s a lot of fun to read. I don’t say that about many books that wander through pogroms, thuggery, and loneliness, but somehow this manages to be fun even when it’s downright disgusting. Some knowledge of Judaica - particularly Kabbalah - is helpful, but the text mostly tells you what you need to know.
FMI see my blog post at A Just Recompense.
richardwells's review against another edition
3.0
Absolutely amazing. The Marx Brothers catapulted into the Yiddisher stratosphere. The hilarious adventures of a Rabbi frozen into a block of ice, carted around Europe to American, finally stored in an icebox in Memphis, thawed and launched into a career as a new age guru in a shopping mall. You gotta read it to believe it. It's funny, insightful, and touching. True love.
blueranger9's review against another edition
3.0
I enjoyed the story for its deeper narrative but it was a bit tedious at times, and had I not grown up in Great Neck, I would have had to convert to Judaism in order to understand most of the references. While I got through it after nearly pulling my hair out, I found there were more SAT words that my frazzled post-collegiate brain couldn't recall than there were references to Jewish texts. Overall an interesting premise, and well written, but not really my cup of tea in its execution.
wannabemensch's review against another edition
2.0
I wanted to like this. Love Judaism, mysticism, silly-ism. But something about the style and the vocabulary irked me, and I never fully liked any of the characters. Such a fun premise, such promise. The best part was when it was over.
doulicia's review against another edition
2.0
I really wanted to like this book. It's two stories. One is about generations of a Jewish family and how their path leads from Cossak Russia to Memphis, Tennessee. I loved that part. The other part, about a run-of-the mill couch potato teen who is inspired to dealve not only into his Jewish roots, but Jewish mysticism in particular, never hangs together. Perhaps the author wanted it to be zany funny a la Carl Hiaasen. But no one behaved believably and much went unexplained. Things completely fell apart in the final chapter. There was no resolution and no point that I could gather.
pussreboots's review against another edition
3.0
I'm glad I finally read it.
Reading this, I couldn't help but imagine the rabbi as performed by Mel Brooks (he hasn't but the almost twenty years ago when this book first was published, he would have been perfect). Young Bernie Karp I see as Matthew Broderick from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
It's weird. It's memorable.
http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comments_09/frozen_rabbi.html
Reading this, I couldn't help but imagine the rabbi as performed by Mel Brooks (he hasn't but the almost twenty years ago when this book first was published, he would have been perfect). Young Bernie Karp I see as Matthew Broderick from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.
It's weird. It's memorable.
http://pussreboots.com/blog/2018/comments_09/frozen_rabbi.html
dmendels's review
3.0
2/3rds brilliant. The rest a bit of a slog. I liked parts of it so much I wish I could recomend it....
northstar's review
3.0
What a long, strange trip this book was. I checked it out in January and read about 150 pages but got annoyed with the florid writing style and returned it to the library. A month later, I found myself wondering about the characters and so I found it again and finished it.
The book begins at the turn of the 21st century, when teenager Bernie Karp finds a rabbi frozen in a block of ice in the family's chest freezer. The story then bounces between the rabbi's adventures once he is thawed and the saga of one family that schlepped the rebsicle to the United States after a pogrom and kept him frozen through years in the ghettos of New York. The latter story held my attention; although Stern's style is not really to my taste, he has a talent for historical detail and colorful description. Two immigrants with tragic pasts meet en route to New York and their struggles in some ways mirror the challenges faced by many people who came to this country at that time. But Stern lost me every time he switched back to Bernie's story and his attempts to make sense of his own role in the rabbi's journey. The rabbi becomes this sort of New Age sage and I just didn't connect with that part of the book. I'd recommend this to people who like unusual fiction.
The book begins at the turn of the 21st century, when teenager Bernie Karp finds a rabbi frozen in a block of ice in the family's chest freezer. The story then bounces between the rabbi's adventures once he is thawed and the saga of one family that schlepped the rebsicle to the United States after a pogrom and kept him frozen through years in the ghettos of New York. The latter story held my attention; although Stern's style is not really to my taste, he has a talent for historical detail and colorful description. Two immigrants with tragic pasts meet en route to New York and their struggles in some ways mirror the challenges faced by many people who came to this country at that time. But Stern lost me every time he switched back to Bernie's story and his attempts to make sense of his own role in the rabbi's journey. The rabbi becomes this sort of New Age sage and I just didn't connect with that part of the book. I'd recommend this to people who like unusual fiction.
lisagray68's review
Unfortunately this will go on my "given up for dead" file. I was telling some people the story line and we were all cracking up. It has the potential to be so funny!! But I never found it actually funny, and I hated some of the characters. I just couldn't get into it. Read 100 pages, which is my rule.
clambook's review
2.0
Interesting premise, but tries way too hard. Reads like one long, long Myron Cohen joke. DNF.