Read Online kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781524732752 Books
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The celebrated Pulitzer finalist and prize-winning author of Dinner at the Center of the Earth and What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank delivers his best work yet, a streamlined comic masterpiece about a son’s failure to say Kaddish for his father.
Larry is the secular son in a family of Orthodox Brooklyn Jews. When his father dies, it’s his responsibility to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. To the horror and dismay of his sister, Larry refuses—imperiling the fate of his father’s soul. To appease her, Larry hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com to recite the prayer and shepherd his father’s soul safely to rest.
Sharp, irreverent, hilarious, and wholly irresistible, Englander’s tale of a son who makes a diabolical compromise ingeniously captures the tensions between tradition and modernity—a book to be devoured in a single sitting whose pleasures and provocations will be savored long after.
Read Online kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781524732752 Books
"i loved the humanity of this book. The truth and tenderness. The honesty of the characters and the humor. The reality that these struggles face each of us of every faith...how to observe, how to pray or not to observe... and how to live in this world that can be so removed from an pure spirituality. I resonated with Reb Shuli's effort to live a life true to his goodness and informed by his fragile humanness. Thank you Mr. Englander."
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kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781524732752 Books Reviews :
kaddishcom A novel Nathan Englander 9781524732752 Books Reviews
- The year is 1999 and Larry is in Memphis, Tennessee, at his sister's house, preparing for the funeral and shiva of their father. The father, who seems to have been a fairly wise man, has sickened suddenly and died, while visiting his daughter. Larry, who at the age of 30, has left the rigorous practice of Orthodox Judaism he was raised in. He and his father talked before his death about Larry saying Kaddish for the required eleven months after his father's death. Larry couldn't commit to saying Kaddish either to his father before his death or to his sister, during the shiva period. Larry has left the faith and all the yelling by his sister and her Orthodox rabbi cannot change Larry's mind. The rabbi tells him that he can hire someone else to say the daily prayers. Larry goes on kaddish.com and hires a student in Israel to do the job Larry, as the only son, should have done.
Okay, fast forward 20 years and Larry has returned to the religious fold in which he was raised. He becomes observant Orthodox, teaches in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and now has a wife and two children. He's now Rev Shuli and life is good. Life is good for the Rev but as he regained his religious beliefs and practices, he is feeling increasingly guilty about having off-loaded the prayers and responsibilities of saying Kaddish. That is the beginning of the story in Nathan Englander's new novel, "Kaddish.com".
There's a bit of magic realism in Englander's story as he moves Rev Shuli from Brooklyn to Jerusalem as Shuli tries to track down the owner of the website he used 20 years earlier. I'm not a big fan of magic realism as it gives an author the ability to make facts implausible to a plot. But a little MR in Englander's book is okay as Shuli finds his way in Jerusalem's kaleidoscope of colors, foods, music, and people. I almost began to view the pages through the lens of a Marc Chagall painting.
I was raised as a Reform Jew but I "got" most of the references to religious practices far away from my own. The book also comes with a question/answer section to use in a book club format. I'd like to read more about the book and what motivated Nathan Englander to write it. It is a very interesting story. - The plot of kaddish.com is tightly wound and builds such momentum that it’s impossible to down once you pick it up. The story follows a man’s journey from being a lapsed Orthodox Jew who pays a mysterious website from the early days of the Internet to recite the Kaddish – a prayer for the dead – for his beloved father to his efforts years later to reclaim his right to mourn and protect his father’s soul in the afterlife.
But this book is so much more than its plot. It opens a window into the world of Orthodox Judaism, which often appears impenetrable to outsiders. And it is told with such humor and tenderness – as well as a keen eye for people's foibles and moral failings – that it reveals a shared humanity, even after transporting you to an unfamiliar culture. There’s not a wasted word in this novel. Highly recommend. - I was both surprised and disappointed to read Englander's new novel surprised that such a fine writer had produced what is, in my judgement, a banal and shallow book, and disappointed that the author seems to imagine that his audience is now middle-brow American Jews looking for choices for the next book club. Larry, his protagonist, a disengaged, alienated outlier, unwilling to assume the obligation of reciting kaddish for his beloved father, is transformed in one paragraph (yes!--one paragraph!) into a rabbinic Shaul who bewilderingly begins speaking with the inflections of a Yeshiv-ish Talmud teacher, living a black-hat orthodox life with a scholar-wife, offering bromides to a troubled adolescent, and twenty years after the fact, trying to come to grips with his not having recited kaddish for his father. The author's failure to offer even a suggestion of any psychological arc is so glaringly absent that one needs to re-read said paragraph, asking oneself--did I miss something? Englander's work, heretofore heralded as the next coming of Malamud and Roth, has hit a nadir of monumental proportions. It has nowhere to go except up and this talented writer needs to better manage having become the darling of modern Jewish "literature"--an accolade to this point wholly deserved--and return to his incisive, honest and even profound earlier work.
- Amazing (!!) tour de force by Nathan Englander!! Heartfelt, heartbreaking, funny, and inspiring all at the same time. I couldn't stop reading it and yet didn't want it to end. And now that I've finished, I miss the characters...I really feel as if I'm missing a friend. The tension between remaining true to those we love and being true to ourselves, the inner conflict(s) between different parts of who we are, who we could have been, even who we may be (again) one day in the future....all of these things and more are explored, examined and sweetly unwound through the main character's journey and search. He is and could be any of us. It was pure joy to read and I look forward to sharing it far and wide!
- This is a wonderful book. It is both thoughtful and thought provoking. Englander's insights illuminate the human psyche and transcend the Jewish genre to reach the universal nature of being human. It is both very funny and very sad. He writes with empathy both for the one who "questions" and for the one who "knows" religious truth. All this is done with a deft touch that will leave some angry, some happy but all richer and more understanding of the other's point of view.
- i loved the humanity of this book. The truth and tenderness. The honesty of the characters and the humor. The reality that these struggles face each of us of every faith...how to observe, how to pray or not to observe... and how to live in this world that can be so removed from an pure spirituality. I resonated with Reb Shuli's effort to live a life true to his goodness and informed by his fragile humanness. Thank you Mr. Englander.
- This book suffers from violating Elmore Leonard’s principal rule of writing “leave out the parts that people skipâ€. There is little plot, little intelligent or witty dialogue. I found myself skimming by page 10.
