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outcolder's review against another edition
5.0
Picture Hapgood in the Lower East Side of 1902, really digging it. He's like, "These Russian Jews are fascinating! They are so serious, even the 'nudniks!'" Compare him with hipsters today who might get into some immigrant group ... people like me, actually, probably ... and I think Hapgood will come out looking pretty good. He really knows a lot about turn of the century Jewish New York and he doesn't make caricatures, or make it all out to be sunshine and roses, or make it all out to be misery without end. One of the things he admires about some of the Yiddish writers he profiles is their insistence on capital-T Truth and you can feel that same motivation in his own writing.
I always have a hard time reading stuff like this. I call it the kryptonite thing. You know, you get near a piece of the home planet and all your superpowers fade away? But somehow I didn't have that with this book. At first I was thinking, OK, OK, I know this basic stuff about Jewish immigrants in the US ... the stuff he needs to explain to a goyish audience in the beginning. But when he gets to "the Spirit" part, all the Yiddish theaters and poets and luftmenschen and the socialists and the anarchists and the cafes, it felt good to see "my people" through the eyes of Hapgood.
Most of all though, it is just fun. The edition I read had notes from the 1960s written by someone who lived as a child in the neighborhood Hapgood is describing and it was good to have an 'authentic informant' confirming Hapgood's version and it also added some extra flavor.
Yeah, there are tons of books about that part of NYC at that time, and I will probably continue to recommend [b:Jews Without Money|106309|Jews Without Money|Michael Gold|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348001074s/106309.jpg|102475] over this one, but if one Jewish LES book isn't enough, you could do a lot worse than this impressionistic journalistic piece.
I always have a hard time reading stuff like this. I call it the kryptonite thing. You know, you get near a piece of the home planet and all your superpowers fade away? But somehow I didn't have that with this book. At first I was thinking, OK, OK, I know this basic stuff about Jewish immigrants in the US ... the stuff he needs to explain to a goyish audience in the beginning. But when he gets to "the Spirit" part, all the Yiddish theaters and poets and luftmenschen and the socialists and the anarchists and the cafes, it felt good to see "my people" through the eyes of Hapgood.
Most of all though, it is just fun. The edition I read had notes from the 1960s written by someone who lived as a child in the neighborhood Hapgood is describing and it was good to have an 'authentic informant' confirming Hapgood's version and it also added some extra flavor.
Yeah, there are tons of books about that part of NYC at that time, and I will probably continue to recommend [b:Jews Without Money|106309|Jews Without Money|Michael Gold|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348001074s/106309.jpg|102475] over this one, but if one Jewish LES book isn't enough, you could do a lot worse than this impressionistic journalistic piece.
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