Here I Am: A Novel
2 journalers for this copy...
A Christmas surprise from Karpow! Wow, he truly is spoiling me: 571 pages. I certainly won't starve over the holidays :D
Thank you so much, Karpow-san!
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Unfortunately I'm neither interessed in Jewish traditions nor in the small problems of an American middle-class family, but both seem to be compulsory to like this fat novel. Several times I was tempted to stop reading. It's not the language, Foer is a proficient writer. But do I want to hear a couple fighting all the time about education and bar mitzvahs, petty trifles and what not?
It's the tale of a fracturing family, but not a family I am related. A family of people with a privileged life who have no problems at all. Hence they must create some and routinely visit a shrink. No one of the grown ups is really likeable. Julia fusses about trifles, Jacob is a coward and secret porno addict, always trying to get buddy-buddy with his sons, who hate it of course.
I could sympathize with Sam, the eldest son. He is a misunderstood teenager who is forced to have a bar mitzvah and flees into a parallel world on the internet, where he can burn down his own virtual synagogue.
We can exactly see where humour is intended, e.g. Jacob's call to a call center, but somehow it's not funny. It's all so darn serious and mirthless.
Do I really want to know whether Steven Spielberg is circumcised or not? Foer dedicated several pages to this question, another example, meant to be funny. I just found it somewhat childish.
Half into the book, Foer finally raises his eyes above the family topic, and it get's political: Israel is destructed by an earthquake!
I belong to the people who think that Israel shouldn't exist, that it was wrong and unjust all along, to simply occupy Palestinian ground and steal all the water of the region. Not that I'd hate Israelites, on contrary, they have worldwide the most vegans. But I detest their suppressing politics, their walls and settler tactics. Thus I found this twist of the story rather intriguing.
But Foer doesn't follow the thought, doesn't take the story to Israel ... where chaos reigns, the borders are immediately shut and a war is imminent. Instead he continues to focus on private and family matters, ponders whether one can be Jewish without living in Israel.
That's anyway about the point of the novel I guess, the question whether one is Jewish enough, a discourse at lenght about Jewishness, an orgy of arguments about religious identity.
I can't help but think that we read here about the family struggles of Foer and Nicole Krauss themselves. They, by the way, eventually separated, like the couple from the novel. And I can't help to conclude that this novel was also kind of writing therapy for the author.
Thank you so much, Karpow-san!
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Unfortunately I'm neither interessed in Jewish traditions nor in the small problems of an American middle-class family, but both seem to be compulsory to like this fat novel. Several times I was tempted to stop reading. It's not the language, Foer is a proficient writer. But do I want to hear a couple fighting all the time about education and bar mitzvahs, petty trifles and what not?
It's the tale of a fracturing family, but not a family I am related. A family of people with a privileged life who have no problems at all. Hence they must create some and routinely visit a shrink. No one of the grown ups is really likeable. Julia fusses about trifles, Jacob is a coward and secret porno addict, always trying to get buddy-buddy with his sons, who hate it of course.
I could sympathize with Sam, the eldest son. He is a misunderstood teenager who is forced to have a bar mitzvah and flees into a parallel world on the internet, where he can burn down his own virtual synagogue.
We can exactly see where humour is intended, e.g. Jacob's call to a call center, but somehow it's not funny. It's all so darn serious and mirthless.
Do I really want to know whether Steven Spielberg is circumcised or not? Foer dedicated several pages to this question, another example, meant to be funny. I just found it somewhat childish.
Half into the book, Foer finally raises his eyes above the family topic, and it get's political: Israel is destructed by an earthquake!
I belong to the people who think that Israel shouldn't exist, that it was wrong and unjust all along, to simply occupy Palestinian ground and steal all the water of the region. Not that I'd hate Israelites, on contrary, they have worldwide the most vegans. But I detest their suppressing politics, their walls and settler tactics. Thus I found this twist of the story rather intriguing.
But Foer doesn't follow the thought, doesn't take the story to Israel ... where chaos reigns, the borders are immediately shut and a war is imminent. Instead he continues to focus on private and family matters, ponders whether one can be Jewish without living in Israel.
That's anyway about the point of the novel I guess, the question whether one is Jewish enough, a discourse at lenght about Jewishness, an orgy of arguments about religious identity.
I can't help but think that we read here about the family struggles of Foer and Nicole Krauss themselves. They, by the way, eventually separated, like the couple from the novel. And I can't help to conclude that this novel was also kind of writing therapy for the author.
Geschenk von spy-there, herzlichen Dank!
