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Title: Three Daughters by Letty Cottin Pogrebin ISBN: 0-14-200348-4 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.54 (13 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: awkward, but absorbing, tale of Jewish womanhood.
Comment: "Three Daughters", the first novel of accomplished feminist and non-fiction writer Letty Pogrebin, tells the story of three sisters and their families, friends, and pasts. Each of the sisters lives a life that is both exactly what she wants and a failure: each is estranged from her family, or from reality, or from her truest self. Through the course of the novel, they begin to recognize their weaknesses and, with each others' help, forge the beginnings of a better life.
It sounds like an Oprah Book Club book, and it reads like one at times. Pogrebin is obviously a novice; she tries too hard to make clever use of language and often overuses it. But she writes interesting, believable characters who live in a plausible world. The story is complex enough to be absorbing for nearly 400 pages (in a time of 200-page books, it's nice to have something to sink one's teeth into) without being confusing. And, while this book will not win any awards for depth or thematic subtlety, it's an interesting and inspiring read.
That this book is most interesting to Jewish women hardly needs saying; the sisters are Jewish and they make no secret of it. I found the book to be self-conscious about its religious emphasis at times, but Pogrebin's thorough knowledge of unusual aspects of Jewish faith and culture won me over.
Rating: 5
Summary: An Unbelievably SMART and LIVELY book
Comment: I rarely finish a novel and then re-open to the beginning as I did with Three Daughters. Though I've read Pogrebin's non-fiction, and found them extremely memorable, this first novel of hers is entirely different.
I couldn't believe the brilliance that ran through the entire book. Nor do I understand how anyone can say that these characters were stilted, or were told but not shown. Absolutely untrue, at least for me, each one leapt to life, as did many of the issues Leah, Shoshanna and Rachel brought with them. Each woman, or daughter was absolutely three dimensional, vivid and unique. I dearly hope one doesn't have to be Jewish and/or a New Yorker to get the depth of the mind that created this work of art.
I found all the discussions of Judaic law, of Israel, of discord in a family so nuanced and was mesmerized by the tone of the entire book, which reminded me of Saul Bellow's mind, minus his self-indulgence. This book shines with a brilliance that is, as someone said below, breathtaking. How Pogrebin can make a middle aged woman racing across a busy street to save her rolodex exciting, I can't say, because I can't do it. But this first novel was dramatic, flowing and exciting from cover to cover. "Three Daughters" was for me a rare find. Alas, I am Jewish and a sometime New Yorker, so maybe it's an acquired taste. I surely hope not. Great writing speaks universal truths, and I was simply blown away by this novel, as few others do effect me. I highly recommend all readers to give this book a careful read-through. It's more than 5 stars, and as a first novel, if not a first book, kudos to the author for a wonderful, earth-shattering read. Thank you, Ms. Pogrebin!
Rating: 4
Summary: Familial Ties
Comment: Pogrebin has written a novel of familial ties, ties that bind, unbind and ties that haven't quite made the transformation.
Three Jewish sisters, born of the same father struggle for identity (internal, external and religious/cultural), struggle to keep a family together in the only way they know how, whether it be positive or negative, it is the way they have learned from their parental life lessons.
Each sister is unique, within their sameness for identity search and familial bonds. One cannot understand her father, and is a rebel rouser, an antagonistical feminist, who is stuck in time and cannot seem to move forward on her life journey, one is family-oriented, living for her family, one has a career and manages her family at the same time.
Through Pogrebin's subtleties, we see that the three different personalities, in the end, have similar substance, and are more alike than they think or would like to admit.
I enjoyed reading the Jewish journeys each of them took, their treks through time, backward and forward, to learn forgiveness, to learn commitment to family, and to embrace each other and their Jewishness.
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Title: In the Image: A Novel by Dara Horn ISBN: 0393325261 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: September, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: Jane Austen in Boca: A Novel by Paula Marantz Cohen ISBN: 0312319754 Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: The New Rabbi by STEPHEN FRIED ISBN: 0553380753 Publisher: Bantam Pub. Date: 26 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Seven Blessings: A Novel by Ruchama King ISBN: 0312309155 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 13 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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Title: Deborah, Golda, and Me by Letty Pogrebin ISBN: 0385425120 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 14 September, 1992 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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