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Title: God's Grace by Bernard Malamud ISBN: 0-380-64519-X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $3.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.8 (10 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Eden revisited.
Comment: This book is a delightful tragicomedy that mixes elements of Robinson Crusoe and the Book Genesis built upon a tastefully disguised post-modern stage.
The paleontologist Cohn is the sole human survivor of the nuclear holocaust. Together with a chimp, Buz, he lands upon an uninhabited island. The chimp has an implant that enables human communication. More monkeys appear. Cohn tries to establish a society. Having studied for the rabbinate Cohn teaches his Judaic world-view, but faces opposition from Buz whose previous human companion thought him the principles of Christianity. Cohn tries to recreate the monkeys in his own image, and goes as far as formulating his own set of seven commandments and creating his own addition to the scheme of evolution. But alas, paradise is lost again.
While it is not surprising that previous reviewers have mostly focused on the religious aspects involved in the story -too bad that anti-Semitism always lurks right around the corner- this short novel is way beyond a satire of religion. Using a very light and smooth writing style Malamud presents the reader with a narrative in which humor, horror, grace and mystery blend seamlessly. A modern classic.
Rating: 5
Summary: A truly beautiful, exceptionally moving book
Comment: There's a staggering range of emotion here: from apocalyptic doom, to fearful survival, to irascible and choleric comedy, to wrenching simplicity of striving towards good, and bringing about a cataclysm. Humanity or, better still, human history personified... God's Grace is like Swift's Gulliver's travels: simple enough to captivate a casual reader, deep enough to drown a philosopher. A moving masterpiece.
Rating: 5
Summary: Human nature on trial
Comment: Calvin Cohn, a Jewish paleontologist, son of a rabbi, is the only human survivor of a thermonuclear disaster. He has to content himself with the company of a few chimps and baboons. God is responsible for this second flood and He blames humans for destroying nature; Cohn has survived due to an error and he is let to live and make the best he can. In this scenario of desolation, Cohn becomes a god-like creature, he believes he can recreate the world, impose a new social order based on high moral and spiritual values, hard working, order, aiming to turn his fellow chimps into a better lot than humans. Amongst the chimps there is "Buz", a Christian who has been taught how to speak, sweet "Mary Madelyn" the only reproductive female of the group, "Esau" the nonconformist, a mysterious albino ape, and the cast-out gorilla "George" who is enchanted by the cantor's singing...
This a novel heavy in meanings, in the use of parables, fables and allegories. Following Malamud's pessimistic outlook on human nature, Cohn is just one more of his characters standing in a long line of losers, an individual who fears his fate and becomes the object of ridicule and pity. In his disguised reincarnation of Adam, Moses, and finally Christ, Cohn symbolizes the necessity of gaining moral wisdom through suffering. In a metaphorical language and fantastic-like "Chagall" prose, Malamud creates a thought-disturbing novel, an account of human nature fragile standing, and a celebration to its strenghts as well as a lament to its weaknesses.
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Title: The Assistant: A Novel by Bernard Malamud, Jonathan Rosen ISBN: 0374504849 Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux Pub. Date: 07 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Jurgen by James Branch Cabell ISBN: 0486235076 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1977 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: The DENIAL OF DEATH by Ernest Becker, Sam Keen ISBN: 0684832402 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 08 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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