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teokajlibroj's review
3.0
I read this book mainly because I heard that Esperanto was part of the plot. In that sense, I wasn't disappointed, there is a good deal of Esperanto in the book (although I should point out that the Ido split didn't kill the language, it's still as active today).
A major problem I have with the book is that the narrator and main character is incredibly dull. He has absolutely no personality, characteristics, hobbies or friends. He doesn't really do or say anything. He spends most of the book helplessly letting things happen to him or listening to other people talk.
The plot is decent until about half way through the book when the author ran out of ideas and didn't know what to do next. From then on the plot grinds to a halt and the book lacks direction.
The third section of the book is an absolute disaster. The main character does a lot of things without any reason and it all seemed pointless. The setting was very contrived and didn't feel real at all. The author manages to make Jewish life under the Nazis seem boring. The ending was an absolute fiasco.
A major problem I have with the book is that the narrator and main character is incredibly dull. He has absolutely no personality, characteristics, hobbies or friends. He doesn't really do or say anything. He spends most of the book helplessly letting things happen to him or listening to other people talk.
The plot is decent until about half way through the book when the author ran out of ideas and didn't know what to do next. From then on the plot grinds to a halt and the book lacks direction.
The third section of the book is an absolute disaster. The main character does a lot of things without any reason and it all seemed pointless. The setting was very contrived and didn't feel real at all. The author manages to make Jewish life under the Nazis seem boring. The ending was an absolute fiasco.
amchica's review against another edition
3.0
I couldn't bring myself to finish this. The first section about Freud and his patient was both funny and touching and had some really great writing. Then the second section about Esperanto just drag on and on, so much so that I really don't even care what happens to the characters anymore. With a seriously brutal editor, this could have been a great book.
kipahni's review against another edition
3.0
Well this was a kind of all over type of book- unlike any other book I have read. You can usually figure out a book half-way through or even just from the cover but this book was all over the place.
Will I ever read it again, no. Do I want to own it, no. Did I enjoy every minute of listening to it, YES!
The other thing I found interesting about this book was that the main character was a lot more passive- I mean he really was more like a secondary or peripheral character and everything else was kind of just occuring around him (as opposed to taking an active part in his life)
The ending was kind of anticlimatic but really where can the author go when he has already gone to heaven, holocaust, spirit possesion, esperanto and psychoanalysis- everything is pale in comparison to that.
While I think the theme of the book is myth vs reality
my husband thinks the book is about "The jewish people just wanting to have a home, peace, and a belief"
not sure where he got that from in the book.... but to be fair he just listened to the very first part and the very last part.
Will I ever read it again, no. Do I want to own it, no. Did I enjoy every minute of listening to it, YES!
The other thing I found interesting about this book was that the main character was a lot more passive- I mean he really was more like a secondary or peripheral character and everything else was kind of just occuring around him (as opposed to taking an active part in his life)
The ending was kind of anticlimatic but really where can the author go when he has already gone to heaven, holocaust, spirit possesion, esperanto and psychoanalysis- everything is pale in comparison to that.
While I think the theme of the book is myth vs reality
my husband thinks the book is about "The jewish people just wanting to have a home, peace, and a belief"
not sure where he got that from in the book.... but to be fair he just listened to the very first part and the very last part.
msjg's review
5.0
Have you been waiting all your life to read a novel in which Sigmund Freud, the inventor of Esperanto, a Hasidic rebbe, a love-starved dybbuk and the Archangel Metatron are all significant characters? Your day has come. Such a delicious book, for those of you who like that sort of thing. I do.
smaravetz's review
2.0
The first part of this book was really interesting, a quick read, but the 2nd & 3rd parts just dragged. Sort of a personal epic, it followed the main character through the early days of psychoanalysis, the Esperanto movement and the Warsaw ghetto. In some ways, reminded me of Doctorow & his way of cramming as many significant people from an era into a novel as possible, but also dealt with the supernatural and religious.
directorpurry's review
CW: Rape, suicide, death of a child
Read for the "Read the World" challenge for: Austria
Read for the "Read the World" challenge for: Austria
mikolee's review
3.0
Wow what a fascinating book. Complicated long winded novel with great historical figures from Freud to Dr Esperanto. Reincarnated love seems almost like a trite topic but it was told through such an interesting lense - a sort of agnostic Jewish eye doctor right before the rise of Hitler. A look into the Jewish intellectual life.
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