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SUNDAY JEWS
Calisher, Hortense
2003 20894 In this, Hortense Calisher's latest and most lauded novel, she explores a family united in blood yet divided by ideas. Son Charles hopes to be a Supreme Court justice; family beauty Nell has children by different lovers; art expert Erika has a nose job; and artist Zach has two wives. Their mother, infamous in Israel, born of a well-to-do Boston background but no longer rich, is bound to a past that never quite dies. The buried history of this extraordinary--and very American--family comes to light unexpectedly when grandson Bert brings home as a wife the woman who, years ago, joined the family circle, then mysteriously disappeared. Told with wit and deep acuity, Sunday Jews is a tour de force from a writer whose fiction has justly been compared with that of Eudora Welty and Henry James, and whose ability to delineate our lives is unparalleled. From The Critics Book Magazine Calisher, whose prose has always alternated between the breathtakingly original and the just plain obscure, appears to be entirely undaunted by the prospect of being read by people who like a little clarity, a little forward thrust, a little resolution in their fiction. Opening with the cacophony of a crowded family gathering, whipping back and forth in time, dropping in and out of its predominantly third-person voice on apparent whims, the book seems to drift toward whatever occurred to the author at the time of writing. There's no point in trying to spell out a plot; Calisher's interest lies in presenting a sprawling family whose matriarch, Zipporah (aka Zoe), is an intellectual Jew and whose patriarch and children represent all variety of faith and meaning. The book feels ripe, portentous. Too many sentences burst wide open into absolute pandemonium, and the success of too many scenes depends on one's ability to hold a thousand interrupted thoughts in one's own head. And yet the language in some sequences is truly stunning; the end, which depicts Zipporah's death, reflects the genius of this most mystifying writer. Publishers Weekly Like Edith Wharton and Henry James, Hortense Calisher finds the drama of fiction as much in the analysis of motive as in the various excitements of action. Her newest novel might be said to have a Wharton-ish feel to it"if, that is, Wharton had written about assimilated Jews rather than status-conscious WASPS. The Jewish family at the center is named, surprisingly, Duffy. Zipporah Zangwill's marriage to Peter Duffy is mixed not because they come from different faiths, but because they disbelieve in different deities"Zipporah in the Jewish God, Peter in the Catholic one. The first third of the book, which is marvelously felt, tracks Peter's mental degeneration. After retiring from the university where he had been a philosopher, Peter becomes absentminded, then feebleminded, and finally physically debilitated. Zipporah, a nonacademic anthropologist and mother of five, takes him to Italy to hide his condition. Zipporah is helped by a mysterious nurse, Debra Cohen, an awesomely cool Israeli sabra who disappears when Peter dies. The novel's middle section portrays Zipporah in the autumn renaissance of her widowhood. She inherits a fortune from her neighbor and friend, Norman, and takes a lover, the mythically wealthy Foxy Mendenhall. Calisher shows Zipporah's five children creeping into a professionally respectable middle age, while their children zoom through their 20s. Zipporah is particularly close to her grandson Bertram, who is waiting for a project to happen. He has studied to be a rabbi, but avoided a post. Ten years after Debra Cohen's vanishing act, Bert finds a clue to her whereabouts and tracks her down in Europe. While Calisher's novel is much too baggy, it is also majestically persistent, with an old-fashioned faith in the novel's ability to make worlds. Forecast: Calisher, now 90, has been writing fiction for a very long time, and this big novel is a crowning achievement. With it, she may break out of the gilded writer's writer prison and gain the attention of a larger public. Harcourt Brace 0-15-602745-3 / 9780156027458
Soft Cover New Condition
Price:
21.00 USD
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SUNDAY JEWS
Calisher, Hortense
2003 10016498 Like Edith Wharton and Henry James, Hortense Calisher finds the drama of fiction as much in the analysis of motive as in the various excitements of action. Her newest novel might be said to have a Wharton-ish feel to it¢if, that is, Wharton had written about assimilated Jews rather than status-conscious WASPS. The Jewish family at the center is named, surprisingly, Duffy. Zipporah Zangwill's marriage to Peter Duffy is mixed not because they come from different faiths, but because they disbelieve in different deities¢Zipporah in the Jewish God, Peter in the Catholic one. The first third of the book, which is marvelously felt, tracks Peter's mental degeneration. After retiring from the university where he had been a philosopher, Peter becomes absentminded, then feebleminded, and finally physically debilitated. Zipporah, a nonacademic anthropologist and mother of five, takes him to Italy to hide his condition. Zipporah is helped by a mysterious nurse, Debra Cohen, an awesomely cool Israeli sabra who disappears when Peter dies. The novel's middle section portrays Zipporah in the autumn renaissance of her widowhood. She inherits a fortune from her neighbor and friend, Norman, and takes a lover, the mythically wealthy Foxy Mendenhall. Calisher shows Zipporah's five children creeping into a professionally respectable middle age, while their children zoom through their 20s. Zipporah is particularly close to her grandson Bertram, who is waiting for a project to happen. He has studied to be a rabbi, but avoided a post. Ten years after Debra Cohen's vanishing act, Bert finds a clue to her whereabouts and tracks her down in Europe. While Calisher's novel is much too baggy, it is also majestically persistent, with an old-fashioned faith in the novel's ability to make worlds. From Booklist: (*Starred Review*) Calisher, Jamesian in style and intent, traces the meshing of inner and outer worlds with voluptuous precision. Truly a grande dame of letters, she remains intrepid, demanding, and indefatigable in her fifteenth novel, a riverine family saga. Its source is the loving marriage of Zipporah Zangwill, a Jewish anthropologist, and her lapsed Catholic philosopher husband, Peter Duffy. Their large and elegant old New York apartment has been home to six children and the scene of ever-swelling Sunday family gatherings as these complicated individuals--some tall and blond, others short and Brillo-haired, some gay, some straight, some artistic, some theological, some professional--extend the family circle with friends, lovers, spouses, and children. Calisher's approach is spiraling rather than linear, and much is conveyed through brilliantly witty conversations performed in scenes as beautifully composed as paintings. Marvelously piquant, Zipporah, the heart of the novel, is fluent in the deep meaning of ritual and family ties, and as she and her colorful progeny make their improvised way in the crazy world, Calisher offers profound reflections on religion, identity, sexuality, age, illness, and our tenacious attachment to life in all its misery and joy. Subtly and incrementally powerful, this phenomenal work astutely illuminates the myriad dualities of existence! Mariner Books 0-15-602745-3 / 9780156027458
Paperback Brand New Condition
Price:
16.09 USD
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