Book Description
The forty-seven stories in this collection, selected by Singer himself out of nearly one hundred and fifty, range from the publication of his now-classic first collection, Gimpel the Fool, in 1957, until 1981. They include supernatural tales, slices of life from Warsaw and the shtetls of Eastern Europe, and stories of the Jews displaced from that world to the New World, from the East Side of New York to California and Miami.
Customer Reviews:
Magnificent and Masterful, Spirited and Profound.......2007-01-13
Isaac Bashevis Singer was a master storyteller and any reader will be well-rewarded for spending time with his "Collected Stories." Many of these stories are set in Poland before World War II or post-war New York City, but there is a spiritual energy that drives all of these tales, regardless of location. Old World demons and devils can be found in "The Unseen," "The Destruction of Kreshev," "Henne Fire," "Zeidlus the Pope," about the Devil tempting a Rabbi into becoming the Pope, and one of the collection's best, "The Dead Fiddler," about a would-be bride inhabited by dueling dybbuks. New World mystical forces are recounted in "Powers," about a man's seductive past, and "The Psychic Journey," about war breaking out during a writer's trip to Israel. Several stories involve survivors of World War II, among them "The Cafeteria," about a woman who imagines seeing Hitler in a New York City deli, and the unexpectedly heartbreaking "The Joke," about a practical joke taken seriously. Every story is deeply felt and richly detailed, including the more comic ones such as "Gimpel the Fool," "The Yearning Heifer," and "The Admirer," about a writer's fan disrupting his day. Choosing favorite stories in this collection is almost impossible, because they are all unforgettable, but ones that resonated most richly for me include "Taibele and her Demon," about a woman's mysterious night visitor, "The Little Shoemakers," about a family of cobblers who courageously survive two world wars, "The Manuscript," about a mistress who saves her lover's novel from destruction, and the transformative "A Crown of Feathers," about a young woman losing and then trying to regain her faith.
Wonderful storyteller.......2006-12-28
This is the first ive read of Bashevi Singers work but its sure aint the last.
Ive read quite a lot of the classics and more than a couple of the Nobel prize winners, but I can honestly say that I have a hard time remembering such joyous storytelling. Singer was amazing; it all seems so easy when he tells his stories; its almost like the stories flows from his pen.
The fact that the stories often stem from the culturally rich jewish community in Europe makes it even more interesting. We tend to forget today, that much of what we call art was carried at great length by that community, together with the russian.
Anyway...if we forget all this and center on the prose, i end up with the following recommendation:
If you want to read something marvellous, enchanting and extraordinary,
dont miss Singer.
The Vanished Yiddish World Returns To Life.......2005-09-17
This truly excellent collection of Singer's stories (all originally composed in the Yiddish language) are as colorful as the people about whom the stories were written. Here are tales of weddings, of jokesters, of happy occasions of all variety, of feuding farmwives, and of unrepentant fools. After reading through a handful of Singer's works, a person gets the feeling of how it must have been to live as a Jew in eastern Europe a hundred years ago. This was a culture rich in its traditions and lore, a people who loved life and kept their identity through good times and bad. Singer, himself born and raised in the region so many of his short stories describe, was one of very few authors I would unhesitantly dub "a human treasure".
A lost world from the inside.......2005-04-01
The greatest paragraph in all of Singer is the one at the beginning of his story, Shosha, where he says he knew two dead languages, Hebrew and Aramaic, and was educated to read about the cultic requirements of a temple which had not existed for 1900 years; he knew Yiddish which he considered perhaps not a language at all, and that although his ancestors had lived in Poland for five or six hundred years he knew only a few words of Polish, although he lived in Poland for all of his youth until he came to America.
Nothing says more about the unhealthy state of the Jews than this. Zionists should use this quote as the supreme justification for their idea that Jewish life in the Diaspora was very disfunctional and certainly unhealthy.
One of the greatest short stories collections of all time.......2004-07-19
Singer is one of the supreme masters of the short story. His stories are filled with incredible energy and life. Demonic lust drives many characters, and one of the reasons he is much loved is his seeming modern depiction of characters who come from the old world, the world of Jewish Poland . But the stories I most love are ones in which a power of beneficence overwhelms in some surprising way. The great Gimpel the Fool is one example of this, the story of the cuckold the eternal innocent and believer who knows once he stops believing in his wife he will stop believing in God and the goodness of the world. Another of these great stories is the Little Shoemakers with its tale of successive generations in old world and new continuing the family trade despite the loss and transformation in tradition time brings. Another of this kind of great story is the 'Spinoza of Market Street' with its revelation of an unexpected love. The list is long of very great and moving stories.Singer is a master- teller who can be stark and frightening at times but gives that sense the great writers' do , of life in literature as something deeply deeply meaningful. Who reads this book will taste life deeply and more deeply love it.
Average customer rating:
- great introductions, great bargain
- Profound ideas from some profound thinkers
- The best of the hardest
- Simply outstanding
- A Great Book
|
German Philosophers: Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche
Roger Scruton ,
Peter Singer ,
Christopher Janaway , and
Michael Tanner
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
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Binding: Paperback
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Greek Philosophers: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle (Past Masters)
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The European Philosophers from Descartes to Nietzsche (Modern Library Classics)
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Wittgenstein: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)
ASIN: 0192854240 |
Book Description
German Philosophers contains studies of four of the most important German theorists: Kant, arguably the most influential modern philosopher; Hegel, whose philosophy inspired an enduring vision of a communist society; Schopenhauer, renowned for his pessimistic preference for non-existence; and Nietzsche, who has been appropriated as an icon by an astonishingly diverse spectrum of people.
Customer Reviews:
great introductions, great bargain.......2003-03-23
Of the two reprint volumes (Greek and German Philosophers) that Oxford has published of its Past Masters series, I think all of the individual essays (except the one on Plato) are reprinted currently in its 'Very Short Introduction to...' series. So these volumes are a good deal because i think the 'Very Short Introduction' series are 10 bucks each. As well as being very clear and concise introductions by world renowned scholars.
Profound ideas from some profound thinkers.......2001-12-15
I was already familiar with these philosophers after taking a course in philosophy, but the way in which these authors eluciate the ideas of these thinkers makes this a five-star book. In order of their greatness I'd have to place Nietzsche first, Scophenhauer second, Kant third, and while Hegel was profound, his worship of history was a little too much for me to swallow, so I place him last.
The best of the hardest.......2000-07-13
These are highly admirable overviews by some of the best of the current set of the philsophers examining past greats.
This must have been a difficult book to put together. The editors would have to have found not one, but four great authors from which to put together introductions for the hardest authors in all philosophy.
He succeeded. This book makes immediately explaicable two of the hardest authors in all history- Kant and Hegel. I was amazed at the level of commentary in this short a work. It is almost impossible to pull this easy an introduction off. My hat is off to both Scruton and Singer.
The other commentaries and introcductions were as good as they come. Because of the ease of Schoepenhaur and Nietzsche, the authors had more room to give reasonably complete explanations and ruminations on their lives. Janner and Tannaway both make superb additions to these traditions, both commentaries worthy of being works in themselves.
This is four times a good book. My respect to all the authors, and my full throated call for people to read these books.
Simply outstanding.......2000-04-07
All of the philosophers covered in this volume are difficult to read. They are difficult to read for several reasons, including: 1) some of the translations of the primary texts are mediocre at best; 2)translations never truly capture the intent of the original texts; and 3) even in the original German the ideas are challenging and difficult. Because of these difficulties, this book, which provides incisive accounts of the German philosophers, is particularly useful to the English-speaking reader. Highly recommended.
A Great Book.......1999-09-04
This is a truly wonderful book. The reader can grasp what is being said in a relatively short time and spend the rest of his life thinking about it. I recommend it to newcomers in philosophy to get a good introduction to the some great philosophical thinking as well as to more seasoned practitioners so that they may learn how to explain things.
Book Description
Shosha is a hauntingly lyrical love story set in Jewish Warsaw on the eve of its annihilation. Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring Yiddish writer and the son of a distinguished Hasidic rabbi, struggles to be true to his art when faced with the chance at riches and a passport to America. But as he and the rest of the Writers' Club wait in horror for Nazi Germany to invade Poland, Aaron rediscovers Shosha, his childhood love-still living on Krochmalna Street, still mysteriously childlike herself-who has been waiting for him all these years.
Customer Reviews:
want to know about a great book?.......2007-07-17
Shosha is a great book by one of the leading authors of the 20th century. It is a beutiful love story with a difference.
The Excitement of "Shosha".......2007-02-09
The main character, Aaron Greidinger, is a writer, an intellectual, interested in a simple girl, Shosha Schuldiener, from his childhood. He's interested in many women--sexually, too--which occasions wonder how Hasidic or Orthodox Jews can admire the author. "You'll give her a few weeks of happiness, and then you'll abandon her", says girlfriend Betty Slomin about Aaron's interest in Shosha (84). This appeared accurate at that juncture. Look at the list. He has been having a long affair with the Communist Dora, a heavy woman. He has been sexually active with Celia, the wife of his friend Haiml and the girlfriend of Morris Feitelzohn. He is sexual and going around with Betty Slomin, the wife of Sam Dreiman, as she helps him with his playwriting. He is also making sexual advances toward the maid for his apartment, Tekla. And while all of this is transpiring, he is considering taking up again with his childhood girlfriend, Shosha. Singer's story, written in the late 1970s, is about a writer coping with sexual desires while writing a play. Singer probably designed this aspect of his character more for amusement than for reflecting any actual persons, including himself.
Greidinger moved from his childhood home to a second home during his adolescence to areas away from there, circling in and around Warsaw and the Yiddish writers around Warsaw. For 60 pages we watch a religious youth evolve into a secular writer and member of the Jewish intelligentsia, all without any help from the simple girl-woman Shosha. It's as difficult for us as it is for Betty Slomin, the wife of that affluent American, to fathom how he will develop a passion--and a commitment to--one woman at all, much less one simple, basic-looking woman, the woman for whom this whole novel is named. Subsequently, we find that he did, somehow. Somehow we are to believe that. He directly, artlessly informs her of his devotion. It is an aloof devotion for, despite all the exploratory discussion by this novelists' various intellectual characters, this character of his, this prominent writer, cannot ever seem to reach words to tell Shosha what it is he admires about her, what are her attractive qualities.
In fact, the writer remains as aloof toward her as he is toward the central questions vexing the people of his time. He appears more like a moderator in the intellectual discourse of his social milieu, and somewhat less than a concerned participant.
Aaron Greidinger, laconic, is mostly a neutral presence to the people about him, whom he, in fact, makes speak, for Greidinger is clearly just the author Singer, at an earlier time. So, Singer himself is neutral, for example, during the Dr. Feitelzohn and Mark Elbinger discussion of theology (142-145) when Greidinger says "I was not in the mood to take part in any discussions and I went over to the window." He is making the conversants there speak, and speak volumes, while he appears to not even move his lips, a silent listener, a ventriloquist. This subtle presence by the author characterizes almost the whole novel. In perhaps no other first-person narrated novel is the writer present as an indifferent listener, writing the dialogue of the other characters through an apparent ventriloquism.
The other characters are no dummies. "Strangely, Morris Feitelzohn could speak with ardor about the wisdom found in certain Cabbalist and Hasidic books. In his own fashion, he loved the pious Jew and admired his faith and power to resist temptation. He once said to me, `I love the Jews even though I cannot stand them. No evolution could have created them. For me they are the only proof of Gd's existence.'" (19) But Singer is not sure how and whether to accept them; he is more fascinated with them and performing the obligation of recording them for posterity.
Feitelzohn possesses his two opposite sentiments regarding the Jews as if they are the only group about whom he could feel this way. Well, didn't he ever hear of the Amish, the Protestant American evangelists, even the devout Moslem? On the basis of irony, any of those could be proof that Gd exists, no? Perhaps his statement is about him, for he could be read as saying, "For me, they are the only proof of Gd's existence", which renders his statement a little trivial.
Aaron Greidinger's play is not respected by the theatre cast and crew. In the hands of producer Sam Dreiman, an American businessman, and his self-preoccupied girlfriend Betty Slonim, with her constant remarks and criticisms, it is subjected to constant revisions, as well as additions by various performers, and then additions by the actors union demanding more performers, and then by the theatre owner himself. (Ch. 6)
The story of the production reminds Greidinger of the tale of a village taken possession by madness, in which roles have been switched. An idiot is released from an institution and rendered a university professor, and the university's professors are floor sweepers, and so forth (112).
Social critics in the Jewish newspapers during the runup to the Hitler invasion of Poland reject any play other than plays providing reflection on the crisis, as distractions. What, they asked, does a medieval girl, the main character in the play, "The Ludmir Maiden", doubly possessed, by the dybbuks of a whore and a musician, have in relation to contemporary problems?
The play is examined in a rehearsal, resulting in rejection by its own producer, who calls it a "crazy farce for insane cabbalists". He doesn't realize that the farce quality resulted from all the kaleidoscopic alterations contributed by the various performers, his own girlfriend, and he himself.
Greidinger follows up this explanation with a retraction. (Ch. 7, Sect. I) It is he who is to blame for the play's failure. He could have worked on it. He does not suggest how he could have coped with all the revisions others made. It is not an intimate revelation of his inner intentions, which Jesus and his followers might seek from repentants. He admits to committing sins of lethargy and distraction, without more. He has failed to carry out the mitvah of writing a play, as if it had been assigned to him by the Jewish Gd, and describing what he was doing all those months instead is all that seems necessary to him to tell the story. Instead of "working on the play", he did this and that. He went with Betty Slonim to museums and to "silly American movies", from which there was nothing to learn. He spent his free time with Shosha, and falling onto the bed with Tekla. But whether he could have done anything to counter the willful interference of all those who were determined to leave their imprimatur on "The Maiden of Ludmir" is, he feels, not worth addressing. He doesn't even let us readers know what he would have done, although he strenuously argues he would have done it. This disingenuous list of his sins in an afterword is politic and deferential, to make him appear humble, likeable. We enjoy the description of his distractions. We like someone who owns up to his responsibilities. But if we think about it, he isn't credible.
Singer supposes it's his attitude that we readers will remember, his appearance of humility, as we skim lightly over his expression of regret. After all, the soul is not its specific memories. So, why should we readers remember these specificities? In speaking about the soul, as distinct from the mortal body, Dr. Feitelzohn notes that if memories of lives are washed away, on the one hand, the soul that survives is not "the same", with which his conversant concurs, which, like much else in Judaic theology, is essentialist philosophy. (144) The question is posed, in the effort to reach an answer, What essence survives paring away of the memories? (It must be noted that the difficulties to this line of inquiry consist of its terminology.)
If the philosophy in "Shosha" is vague, the characters are crystal clear. As the characters are founded on real personas known to Singer, readers always know who is talking, even without attributions, because of their immensely different positions in his world. Thus, while Greidinger has several women friends, one is the wife of a playwright and highly critical and intellectual about art, the second is a Communist deeply immersed in political ideology and cynicism (Dora), one is so simple she was kicked out of elementary school (Shosha), and another is a Gentile Polish housemaid bent on politeness, gratitude for the zlotys, and emotional support. Singer's own Greidinger main-character writer is subdued. Few inner psychological elaborations to him mean he's also known by his words and actions; we wonder as much about the man thinking and speaking in all scenes as about his colleagues. There's no chance of confusing him with the writers, like Feitelzohn, in his commnunity. If Feitelzohn is mystical, Greidinger is straightly secular. If Dora is ideological, Greidinger is cynical and convinced that no political system will work and all is doomed. Hence, great drama attends any meeting of minds. Readers are at the edges of their seats attentive to what the one would say and how the other would reply. Their actions and words are logical deductions from the essential characters their creator gave them. What are they doing together in one room? is the question that the dialogue is designed to answer. Thus, a vigorous minded Greidinger is often befriending then marrying/consoling a simple, forgetful, inept, innocent Shosha. Thus, the quiet, economizing, humble Greidinger is often befriending Betty Slonim, loud, assertive, boastful, explicative, and self-absorbed. Perhaps relationships based on discrepancies so great are possible only in art, a three-dimensional art that obtains a reality all its own.
Singer is content to present his outstanding characters in an exciting plot. A resolution to the tension of the plot is not necessary to him, apparently. Either that or he was just not "in the mood" to writing its resolution. Emigration from Poland to escape the threatening German war machine is an underlying theme throughout the earlier part of the novel, and emerges later in the foreground when Aaron Greidinger's play fails. The participants and observers of the play excitedly discuss the political situation there. The narrative has proceeded linearly. The reader expects the main characters to change their minds and organize an escape. However, the narrative suddenly leaps ahead in a giant leap . . . to flashback, as an epilogue (262), and the narrative is looking back from over a decade after, leaving the reader to wonder why there was all that dramatic tension in the first place. It is perhaps this disappointment of a drama unfulfilled that scuttles the entire enlightening and artistically original novel to the dark corners of our bookshelves and has precluded it from university course readings on European literature.
One of Singer's Best.......2005-12-19
Singer writes an odd and completely compelling love story. I read this book every couple of years and always find it fresh and interesting. It has elements of the history of the Jews in Warsaw before the war but it's really a story about truth - truth in regards to yourself and truth in regards to learning what is really important.
Shosa is such a simple and plain girl without any ambition. She is completely unimposing and naïve yet, somehow, against her humble persona you feel that all your `important' troubles are just not that important.
I also like how Singer sets up a love affair that examines the clashing worlds of modern Jewishness: on one side is a progressive liberal intelligencia almost drunk with new ideas while on the other side is an age-old culture that remains immoveable in its ancient wisdom.
Great book that should be read and reread.
couldn't put it down .......2005-06-26
I found this sweet love story to be compulsively readable and its title character to be adorable. I'm not sure that I saw the profundity that other reviewers saw (except for the constant reminders that Jewish Poland was about to be destroyed).
Shosha will never be written again........2005-05-27
Several years ago while I was a student at Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts I had the good fortune to hear Dr. Yehuda Bauer, perhaps the world's foremost expert on the shtetl. This is a vanished world that few scholars can discuss any longer and one of its most daunting demands is its formidable linguistic challenges. Hungarian, Polish, Yiddish and Russian are hardly the close cousins of English and its Romantic language roots. To delve into the few primary source materials that exist in this field is hardly a task for the faint of heart. Dr. Bauer knows more than ten languages and is able to navigate this terrain with expertise but as for the rest of us? I suppose I feel like John Keats when the Odyssey was translated for 19th century English readers. We are awaiting the entrance to an exhibit our wildest imaginations cannot apprehend or, for that matter, anticipate. Dr. Bauer can keep an interested audience spellbound by his intimate details of this vanished world and you realize when you listen to him that when he is gone a very valuable bit of history and tradition will be disappearing with him.
And so we have Singer. As a Jew, I know very well that there are elements of my ancestry that are beyond my grasp. Reading Shosha, there is a strange familiarity; not with the Polish names but with a Jewish sensibility that has been passed along to me by my family. If you are a Jew -an Ashkenazic Jew reasonably educated both culturally and religiously- there are fingerprints in this work you will think you've seen before. The Warsaw ghetto is filled with old Jewish men and women who live by the word of God, who spend each waking hour in devotion to tradition. This dedication separates them from the modernity surrounding them. Of course their Polish neighbors don't understand them, they are enraptured by gnostic texts that speak vividly of a world that dissipated long before the diaspora to Poland. This is a metaphysical realm not of ressurections but of divinations. There is no palpable realm of the messiah who will deliver Jews from their misery. It is within these texts that, one might argue, these Jews inhabit an apostolic and epistolary reality that makes sense only to them. And that world is not modern. The modern is to be held at arms length, to be suspected and apprehended but never assimilated.
Singer, writing from the United States, left this world before the Nazis moved in and obliterated nearly every last inch of it. The study houses of Warsaw did manage to come to New York, but they became artifacts rather than centers of Jewish thought. American Jews (even the most devout) became assimilated, praising American progress which was the "gift" of modernity. The gnostic, metaphysical realm of ethereal traditions would never assert itself in the lives of a majority of Jews again.
Why might Jews who read this text understand this? I would only wager that there is something in this suspicion of modernity, this over-the-shoulder regard of society that remains, like an inside joke, in the conscience of Jews. But non-Jews should not be turned away. Singer makes this esoteric world oddly accessible. His gift, in my eyes, is to take fumblers like myself, people who really couldn't navigate these distinct and undulant cultural waters and make us see the beauty in it. It is a universal beauty; a humor that speaks of the collective aspirations of a people who have had mostly cause for despair if not, on their best days, ambivalence about redemption in this life.
Read this book. It is a touching story whose sublimity is its tragic humor, it's acceptance of defeat as a pre-requisite for uncertain, unpromised, but still possible victory.
Five stars.
Average customer rating:
- here is my review on this
- My first book by Singer and surely not the last......
- Already Gone
- Nobel Prize Winners are few and far between
- Living with the unthinkable
|
Enemies, A Love Story
Isaac Bashevis Singer
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
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The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer
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Shosha: A Novel
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ASIN: 0374515220 |
Book Description
Almost before he knows it, Herman Broder, refugee and survivor of World War II, has three wives: Yadwiga, the Polish peasant who hid him from the Nazis; Masha , his beautiful and neurotic true love; and Tamara, his first wife, miraculously returned from the dead. Astonished by each new complication, and yet resigned to a life of evasion, Herman navigates a crowded, Yiddish New York with a sense of perpetually impending doom.
Customer Reviews:
here is my review on this.......2007-03-26
In New York
The hotel staff
gave me the chair
that
Isaac B Singer
used to
lean his back against
years before he died
custom made
produced
out of gentle wings of butterflies
that circled his first wife's head
every day and night in Treblinka
before she finally
went
up in smoke
So
I went down at the front desk
A weird occurence
of
that strange and powerful thing
I certainly
wanted to bring to their attention
Of course they say
I. B. Singer
never stayed here
never had a first wife
nor she died in the concentration camp
But what's metter?
My back
feels better
way better
ever since
My first book by Singer and surely not the last.............2007-01-01
Isaac Bashevis Singer writes a novel of sheer absurdity and yet, page by page, he makes it very believable.
Herman Broder is a Jew who managed to escape the gas chambers of the Nazi Holocaust by living in a hayloft with his mother's servant Yadwiga from Poland for three years. His wife was not so lucky.....she and her children were all killed by the Nazis......at least that is what we (along with Herman) are led to believe early on. Herman manages to make it to the United States where he marries the peasant girl servant Yadwiga out of sheer gratitude for her saving his life, not out of any kind of a love or fondness for her. And while he is married to Yadwiga, he is carrying on an affair with Masha, who also went through her own camp horrors in Russia. Herman identifies more with her, not to mention the fact that an attraction also exists there, both physically and intellectually.
But just when you think the suspension of disbelief Singer creates cannot get any more bizarre, it does, when Tamara, his ex-wife, shows up in New York, after surviving the Nazis. Herman now has two and sometimes three women after him, and still he is unable to commit to any one of them. Singer creates a novel of absurd proportions, and then has the temerity to keep it growing! And the arrant brilliance in it is that it works on the reader to the very end.
Along the way the characters reveal thoughts which make one think more of a philosophical treatise than of a novel, a mark of a great writer and one of the reasons I could not put this book down:
"How peculiar that a panful of brains should be constantly wondering and not able to arrive at any conclusion! They were all silent: God, the stars, the dead. The creatures who did speak revealed nothing."
-Isaac Bashevis Singer, from the book "Enemies, A Love Story"
There are few writers such as Oscar Wilde to whom I can say they are unequivocally brilliant......Singer is certainly one of them.
Already Gone.......2006-12-21
How does one cope with such a thing? You know? The Holocaust.
It was the Holocaust that took Herman's parents, wife and two children. He manages to survive by hiding in a hayloft. For three long years, a former servant in his home, Yadwiga, a plain, uneducated but loving Polish woman, keeps him hidden and alive. After the war, we find Yadwiga and Herman married and living in Brooklyn. For other Holocaust survivors, Brooklyn represents opportunity, a sense of re-birth. All around him, new families are being formed out of what is left of old ones. Old customs are being renewed. The old prayers are said. Feasts are held. Traditions prevail. Life goes on. The future is hopeful, but not for Herman. Herman merely exists. He has a job as a ghost-writer for a famous rabbi. Herman is good at writing inspirational messages, messages of hope. But, Herman is not a believer. Not anymore. Not since the Holocaust. To Herman, God is either dead or an enemy. God is out to get him. Herman has a mistress, Masha, a camp survivor. His life is complicated. Then, as it turns out, his first wife who supposedly died in the camps, she's alive. Now Herman has two wives and a mistress. Complicated. They all want a piece of him. Emotionally, he retreats to the hayloft. But, emotionally, Herman is already dead, as dead as he would have been had he been found and sent to the camps, as dead as the rest of them, as dead as his faith in God. In the hayloft, minute by minute, day by dragging day, Herman was exterminated.
Nobel Prize Winners are few and far between.......2004-08-02
There are reasons that Isaac Bashevis Singer won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and all of these reasons are apparent in ENEMIES, A LOVE STORY.
Though he is not the only Jewish author to have won the Nobel, he is the only author whose primary writing was in Yiddish. Hence, the version of ENEMIES that I read was a translation.
Still, the simplicity of his prose shines through the novel. His storytelling skills are spellbinding.
Mr. Singer perfectly captures the undertone of desperation and doom connected with those who endured the Nazis and survived.
This novel will shock and it will sadden but it never will be less than writing at its finest.
Living with the unthinkable.......2004-07-28
Isaac Bashevis Singer was an idea novelist, in the way that Turgenev was. He fashioned his plots and characters around the questions he wanted to explore, and never let them get out of his control. But, like Turgenev, Singer was a great writer and never let his characters and plots become secondary. His writing is always entertaining as well as enlightening. Enemies, A Love Story is a case in point.
Herman Broder is a Jewish man living in New York City in the late 1940's, having survived the Holocaust in Poland hiding from the Nazis. Now the war is over, but Herman is no more at liberty than he was then. Believing his first wife died in a concentration camp, Herman has married again; he also has a mistress; to both women he lies about his work, and to his boss he lies about his women. Then his first wife shows up alive, and now he has to lie to her too. Herman is always on the verge of running, he must relentlessly cover his tracks in case he has to escape again. This sounds like a comedy of errors, and Singer finds the humor in Herman's plight, but he never loses sight of the tragedy which produced Herman's obsession with escape. This is a man so damaged that he can't really live anymore, and that's the question Singer is exploring with Enemies: is it possible to be whole again after going through the Holocaust? And if not, is it possible to live with the pieces that are left? Consider Vladek Spiegelman in Art Spiegelman's Maus, also a Holocaust survivor who only made it through sheer luck and a relentless hoarding and parceling out of otherwise mundane and unimportant items; now, though he's wealthy and free to do as he pleases, he can't stop hoarding, just in case.
Singer is asking, are the Jews who lived through Hitler's final solution dead, in their own way, like the victims who went into the ovens? What is there to do when you've lived through the unthinkable, and when so many people didn't? Enemies, A Love Story is a brilliant novel that grabs you by the mind as well as the heart.
Book Description
A Handbook of Diction for Singers is a complete guide to achieving professional levels of diction in Italian, German, and French, the major languages of the classical vocal repertory. Written for English-speaking singers, it is an ideal textbook for students of diction and is also invaluable for voice teachers, vocal coaches, and conductors. This unique book combines traditional approaches proven successful in the teaching of diction with important new material not readily available elsewhere. Employing the universally accepted International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), it presents the sounds of each language in logical order, along with essential information on matters such as diacritical marks, syllabification, word stress, and what to look for in dictionaries. A Handbook of Diction for Singers offers thorough and consistent explanations of Italian, German, and French pronunciation issues that typically create the most difficulty for English-speaking singers. It goes into greater detail than comparable texts, providing specific information and discussion of concepts especially important to singers. For Italian, it presents extensive coverage of the execution of phrasal diphthongs, as well as a detailed guide to the occurrences of open and closed e and o. For German, the question of when to use glottal attacks in singing is thoroughly discussed, as is the execution of phrasal consonant clusters. The French chapter gives many examples of the correct approaches to mute e (schwa) and glides, and also concisely but thoroughly presents liaison. Particular emphasis is placed on the characteristics of vowel length in all three languages. Illustrated with numerous examples and exercises, A Handbook of Diction for Singers is an exceptional text for courses in diction and a valuable reference source.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent Reference for All Singers.......2004-04-29
Professor David Adams skillfully offers keen insight into the basics of Italian, German, and French diction. In addition to covering the most general rules, he goes on to explain common exceptions and more elusive nuances of each language within the context of a singer's perspective. Some familiarity with the International Phonetic Alphabet is helpful but not necessary.
This book will prove a tremendous asset for any singer whose goal is more than simply singing correct notes. It will assist in adding that element of expression only possible with the clarity of the text as it was intended by the composer.
Book Description
Diction for Singers guides singers to the pronunciation of English, Italian, Latin, German, French, and Spanish. The easy navigation leads the reader from the orthographic spelling to the sound, so she can see the general rules for spellings. Each language section includes quick reference tables showing all vowels and consonants with their common letter groups, and special pronunciations.
Customer Reviews:
disappointment.......2005-09-24
i never received my purchase. I had ordered the book for a class and needed it as soon as possible. Since the book never came in, i had to buy it again from other site. I paid DOUBLE for the book.
Diction for Singers.......2003-11-16
With all due respect, well, yes, this book is of GENERAL use-there is a certain convenience in having all these languages in one book. And it maybe a way to begin this type of study. But, alas, there are so many aspects about diction not even addressed. Mistakes abound, and whereas those can be corrected, what about the information that is simply not included? The singer using this book will indeed gain a smattering of diction in all languages, but for adequate preparation for a classical singing career, singers should further their education with more specific textbooks on the languages in question. For instance Evelina Colorni's Italian book, Nico Castel's Spanish offerings, Glenn Paton's Gateway to German Diction, Thomas Grubb's Singing in French or Eileen Davis' new book Sing French. Shortcuts are exactly that, SHORTCUTS! If you are a serious singer, shortcuts just don't work. Get with it-study the details in order to be really competitive in your art. Would you shortcut your vocal technique? Of course not! Nor should you shortcut any part of your training. If you are a diction teacher of students targeting a performance career, please consider the future of your students and the foundation you are providing them.
Excellent necessity.......2001-10-14
This book is a must-have if you are to sing successfully. It is pretty easy to understand, and it introduces IPA without confusing everyone. There are a few mistakes in it but almost every book has mistakes in it. Excellent and easy to understand. Get it if you are a singer!
A must have book.......2001-08-25
Diction for Singers is a great book, it has helped my singing tremendously! It gives detailed information about a variety of languages and their pronunciation! I recommend this book for any singer!
A must have book!.......2001-08-25
Diction for Singers is a great book, it has helped my singing tremendously! It gives detailed information about a variety of languages and their pronunciation! I recommend this book for any singer!
Book Description
First published in 1981, German for Singers remains an effective and authoritative guide to German diction for singers of every genre. The second edition is corrected, revised and updated and includes an audio CD demonstrating the sounds of the German language. William Odom is professor of foreign languages at the University of Mississippi. He recently served as a pronunciation consultant for the New Orleans Opera's production of Tannhuser. He has also traveled extensively in Europe working with professional and amateur singers, improving their German diction.
Customer Reviews:
This is it.......2004-04-04
This is THE resource for singers and teachers alike. Using both phoenetic and IPA characters, the book explains step by step the common pronunciations of both vowels and consonants for each language. French and German are not particularly easy languages to pronounce correctly, and there are a lot of rules to keep in mind. This book helps a lot, and you can easily refer back to it in order to check yourself. A must have for singers and teachers.
Average customer rating:
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The Homeless Imagination in the Fiction of Israel Joshua Singer (Jewish Literature and Culture)
Anita Norich
Manufacturer: Indiana University Press
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0253341094 |
Book Description
Learn German at home or on the go with the most complete, up-to-date program available!
Developed by the experts at Living Language, this deluxe course has everything you need to speak, understand, read, and write German.
Ultimate German combines conversation with grammar and culture in an easy-to-follow, enjoyable, and effective format.
COMPREHENSIVE LESSON MANUAL with REFERENCE SECTIONS
40 lessons:
lively, authentic dialogues
vocabulary, grammar, and usage
cultural highlights
revised and updated with additional exercises, the latest in computers, the Internet, euros, and more
Reference sections:
complete grammar summary with verb conjugations
business and social letter writing
German-English / English-German glossary
EIGHT COMPACT DISCS
First learn at home:
immerse yourself in German -- listen and repeat with the all-German recordings
follow along with the manual, which includes English translations
learn conversation, grammar, and culture
Then practice on the go:
review and expand upon what you've learned
an English-speaking instructor guides you through each lesson
no reading required with these German/English recordings
learn in the car, at the gym, anywhere
INCLUDES:
Eight Compact discs
448-page textbook
Customer Reviews:
An Excellent beginning course in German!.......2007-03-09
I am just starting this course and find it well organized, comprehensive, easy to understand, & fun. I especially like the design of the lessons with doing the book lesson first followed by the CD work. The grammar, vocabulary, & lesson tests are also terrific. And I look forward to purchasing the advanced version of this program once I finish this level. All-in-all, this is a terrific value in a language course!
Beginners only.......2007-02-14
This book is not for the advanced or intermediate student, the vocabulary is up-to-date and colloquial (though still hochdeutsch), but very sparse.
Suffice to say this is one of the cheapest primers out there with a near complete grammar, but the dialogues are what make me recommend it - they're actually amusing! Also the lessons are very short - 40 in all, each having 1-2 dialogs with excercises and quizes. There are only a limited number of reading passages making this a primarily converstaional primer. There are grammatical constructions included that don't often appear in a beginner's conversations, however.
*Despite the appendices and the section on letter-writing, there is not nearly enough common business vocabulary included to compose anything, recommend "Guide to Correspondence in German" by Charles J. James in addition to above title for readers with a business purpose (has vocab, sample letters, excercises etc.)
**Minor confusion in amazon listing: This book appears to be the reincarnation of an earlier Living Language edition in the "All the way" series, however the publisher is listed on the author line for Amazon's stub for this earlier title, so anyone looking for that book can get this edition instead.
Great Course!.......2005-09-02
As others have mentioned this book does not have pictures, games, puzzles and all that worthless junk like some other products that entertain you but don't teach you much. This book is text which means it is dense with information for learning the language which is what you want right? This one along with the advanced version goes through all of the pertinent grammar that you will need to get around in German speaking countries without an escort. The practice dialogues are contemporary and challenging. The eight hours audio is clear as a bell. In a nut shell if you need pictures and funny dialogues and other entainment gimicks to keep your attention then I would suggest you go back to grade school. Learning another language is not easy an endeavor not for light weights.
Decent book, weak audio program.......2005-06-24
This product is better at teaching you the technicalities of the language than at teaching you to speak the language. I found the Pimsleur series both more engaging and far more effective at getting over that crucial barrier towards being able to actually use what one learns. The Ultimate text is decent, but rather dry and academic (even compared to my vintage high school german texts!). The audio program is simply ineffective; it is mostly vocabulary (a word in German, a word in English) and does little to teach one the use of the language. The book, however, uses a variety of approaches (blocks of text, exercises, diagrams and tables that document German forms, grammatical and cultural asides, etc.). I'd recommend buying the Pimsleur tapes, and complementing with this book/audio. The audio on the Ultimate German adds comparatively little, but is worth getting simply to help ensure you're correctly pronouncing the exercises in the book. Bottom line; the tape/cd is OK for pronunciation, but weak at teaching usage.
Not perfect, but probably the best bang for the buck!.......2005-02-20
I am taking German in college, and am in my 2nd semester now. I bought Ultimate German to supplement my college textbook. I agree with some of the other reviewers that the material is very 'bland'; however, for the money, it probably provides the best value. It comes with a set of CD's to use with the book, and another set that you can use w/o the book (ie. in your car). The material in the book, while no frills, appears to be accurate and gets straight to the point. The cultural notes are a nice, but the book could use some color and pictures. I've looked through several other 'inexpensive' german course, and I believe this one to be the best for the money. Sure there are probably better courses out there, but they are very expensive. The college textbook I am using is very good (its called "wie geht's", but the book alone was $107, and it only comes with a single CD. I would recommend Ultimate German to anyone who wants to learn German. I would recommend picking up some other reading, as you might get bored with only this course.
Books:
- The Glass Castle: A Memoir
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The Measure of a Man: A Spiritual Autobiography (Oprah's Book Club)
- The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (20 Volume Set
- The Purple Emperor (The Faerie Wars Chronicles)
- The Registration of Baroque Organ Music
- The Secret (Unabridged, 4-CD Set)
- The Song of Hannah : A Novel
- The Sound Reinforcement Handbook
Books Index
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Enemies, A Love Story
Zlateh the Goat and Other Stories
The Complete Stories
