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Title: Fabulous Small Jews by Joseph Epstein ISBN: 0-395-94402-3 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Co Pub. Date: 07 July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.86 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Epstein at his very best
Comment: What's not to love?? Humor, wit, pathos. Epstein delivers. The wonderfully written short stories are as relevant to the human conditon as they are to the Chicago Jewish experience.
If you liked the Goldin Boys, you will definitely like this one.
Rating: 4
Summary: Fabulous Small Stories, Almost
Comment: The title was in poor enough taste to draw my attention. The writing quickly drew me in. And once drawn in, I found it hard to put this book down. What is it? A collection of dark, brooding stories about old guys (mostly) facing loss, disillusionment and despair. Most of these guys have never had a meaningful long-term relationship. If they married, it didn't work out. If they had children, they typically abandoned them. If they did have good marriages, they lost them.
Most of the characters are old or aging men, most of the action takes place in Chicago. Most are Jewish, in a Seinfeldian, cultural sense, and have little relationship to Judaism, the religion. They are often uncomfortable with or embarrassed by their Jewish origins. Still, they display that typical Jewish penchant for ruminating, philosophizing, wondering who they really are.
Author Joseph Epstein is an extremely talented writer. He does a great job with these stories, injecting bits of manic humor into these otherwise gloomy tales. Still, there is something troubling about the collection, something that leaves--well--a certain unpleasant aftertaste. The stories that start out with so much punch, that are so entertaining, almost always seem to end with a whimper, with nothing learned, nothing gained, nothing to hope for. Sometimes those endings seemed contrived, as though the author simply didn't know how to end the story.
Still, even with its shortcomings, this is a most entertaining collection, and I can certainly recommend it. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.
Rating: 1
Summary: Like The Title--Distatseful
Comment: A small work of distasteful stories that exploits the underbelly of human experience. This is a book for the dispirited and those without hope. It is no more than a breadcrumb trail of dispair masquerading as nourishment--it substitutes irony for redemption, craft for insight. The title tells it all-small stories of a self-hating author. If you want to be depressed and pretend you are thinking, better get a mediocre bottle of scotch and smack it a against your head instead of spending time with this little book.
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Title: Snobbery : The American Version by Joseph Epstein ISBN: 0618340734 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 07 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Envy: The Seven Deadly Sins by Joseph Epstein ISBN: 0195158121 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
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Title: A Line Out for a Walk: Familiar Essays by Joseph Epstein ISBN: 0393308545 Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: July, 1992 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
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Title: The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz ISBN: 047146502X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: An Hour in Paradise: Stories by Joan Leegant ISBN: 039305439X Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $23.95 |
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