The Sensualist

by Daniel Torday

Fiction. Jewish Studies. Winner of the 2012 National Jewish Book Award for Outstanding Debut Fiction. Raised in Baltimore in the '90s, 17-year-old Samuel Gerson is ready to be rid of his high school baseball team, his protective upbringing, and the tight-knit Jewish community in which he's spent his whole life. But when he befriends enigmatic Dmitri Zilber, a recent Russian Jewish immigrant who is obsessed with the works of Dostoevsky, Samuel's world begins to shift. In the wake of his grandfather's suicide, as his life increasingly entangles with that of Dmitri and his beautiful sister Yelizaveta, it sets in motion a series of events that culminates in a disturbing act of violence. A quietly devastating portrait of late adolescence, THE SENSUALIST examines the culture we inherit as it collides with the one we create.

"I throw at you, without reservation, this masterful. This book is fast and warm, fraught and intimate—and no slouch in the funny department, either. Daniel Torday's voice is entirely his own. Baltimore is his. Dmitri Zilber is a brilliant character, and I am in love with his sister. I am constantly happy to be in their presence."—Adam Levin

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Novella, Historical Fiction

177 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Daniel Torday is a two-time National Jewish Book Book Award recipient and winner of the 2017 Sami Rohr Choice Award for THE LAST FLIGHT OF POXL WEST. Torday's work has appeared in Conjunctions, The New York Times, Paris Review Daily, Tin House, and on NPR, and has been honored in both the Best American Short Stories and Best American Essays series. He is the Director of Creative Writing at Bryn Mawr College.

Reviews

[Cheryl Gatling]

Samuel Gerson is a good Jewish boy, a straight A student, who has never been in any trouble (except for staying up too late at night talking on the phone). Then he meets Dmitri Zilber, a recent Russian immigrant kid, and everything begins to get complicated.

Dmitri is the sensualist of the title. I expected that sensualist would mean a hedonist, a person who indulges in physical pleasures. Dmitri is a sensualist of a different, Dostoyevskian, sort. It is his proud philosophy to experience all his emotions in their entirely, and to be ruled by them. He says what he feels. He does what he feels.

There is something undeniably attractive about this. Samuel and Dmitri meet in the class of an overbearing, borderline sadistic gym teacher. Dmitri talks back. Dmitri disobeys. Dmitri is not afraid of punishment. Samuel is fascinated, and drawn to this person who does not kowtow. The two boys become friends.

Complications arise when Sam falls for Dmitri's beautiful sister, Yelizaveta. She seems to like him, too, and Sam believes the time (and intimacy) they have shared means they are boyfriend/girlfriend. But Yelizaveta also spends time with Jeremy Goldstein, a privileged football star. Jealousy and rage ensue.

I have said that Dmitri's sensualism is attractive. It is when he is stubbornly honest, and when he is loyal to his friends, but freely expressing all one's emotions includes freely expressing one's rage, and that can only lead to violence. (I am assuming that the little trickle on the book cover is supposed to represent dripping blood, although it it so dark in color, I first took it for crude oil.)

And there are other complications. There are conflicts of class and status. There are the experiences the grandfathers endured in WWII, so painful that confronting them leads to despair. How does one be true to oneself, and yet get along with people in society? That you'll just have to read to find out. And then maybe you still won't know.

[Grady · Rating 5 out of 5]

`I say what I feel, when I feel it, and do what I like when I like.'

There are times when a book is sent for review and the moment it arrives it rises to the top of the stack, not only because the theme of the book is inviting, but also because in this world of ether books and chap books along comes an author and a publisher who retain the dignity of the concept of a limited edition form of a story - an homage to the history of great literature that is so very refreshing. THE SENSUALIST by new author Daniel Torday is presented by Nouvella Publishers in a limited edition (mine is 176/600) small scale form that matches the `novella' size of the story, and places it on fine paper with an elegant colophon (design is by Daniel A'Arcy). It is inviting even before beginning to read.

Daniel Torday is an effortless storyteller, a writer who has the ability to let words flow onto the page with elegant simplicity yet rich with imagery and atmosphere, but who never lets `style' get in the way of sharing the story at hand. As extensive the number of coming of age stories is Torday creates a new one - simple yet peppered with all the emotions of that special and terrifying time of life when childhood memories are less accessible and the realities of discovering love - of the opposite and of friends and of parents and grandparents and all progenitors - crack open the bubble of the world outside and insist on entrance. Torday takes that rite of passage and alters it with a healthy subset of story in that his best friend is form Russian (a recent immigrant) and brings with him an entirely different palette of experience - or is it? The answers lie within.

We quickly learn to love Samuel Gerson, a fine young Jewish student, baseball player, and sheltered son who soon after story's start meets Dmitri Zilber, a recently immigrated Russian Jew who soon makes it apparent by his obsession with Russian literature that he is the sensualist of the title. `I say what I feel, when I feel it, and do what I like when I like it.' The two lads become the brunt of the older sadistic gym coach Mr. Stephanopoulos: Samuel is acquiescent and Dmitri is confrontive, unafraid to face the consequences of his easily stated feelings. The two lads become fast friends, face fights with one Jeremy Goldstein, share the problems Samuel has with his first experience with love with Dmitri's sister Yelizaveta (who happens to be a bit loose and has a simultaneous affair with Goldstein), and when Dmitri is faced with Samuel's dilemma he is stubbornly honest: he is loyal to his friends, even though honestly expressing all emotions includes freely expressing one's rage, and that can only lead to violence. The boys become involved with drugs - Samuel tastes, Dmitri abstains but is caught up in the complexities of the youth obsession with drugs.

Woven through this exploration of life in Baltimore, Maryland at the turning point are stories of each of the boy's grandparents - Samuel's grandfather was incarcerated in a Hungarian concentration camp in WW II while Dmitri's grandfather was sent to a gulag in Russia - the differences in class distinction the boys encounter, a family death by suicide, and Dmitri's incarceration for breaking and entering as he refuses to be anything less than honest about his and his friends' involvement with fighting and drugs. In the end Daniel Torday invites us to question our culture - how a true sensualist can survive in a society that does not share the same innate honesty. The manner in which he poses these questions is his extraordinarily fine-tuned decision to place his story in the microcosm of a near claustrophobic Jewish community in Baltimore, which happens to have been the home of some of America's greatest writers and thinkers such as HL Mencken, Edgar Allen Poe, etc.

Offering a small example of Torday's mastery of the language, in a discussion of Russian writers, Dmitri states (in his well-written Russian influenced English dialect), ` What is so great? All is great! As with Dmitri Karamazov, these men do as they feel when they feel, and they feel very much. They are sensualists. Today people hide feelings - if they are angry, if they are depressed, they want to talk to a psychiatrist so they don't show feelings. They get in fight in school. School send them to therapist. But why shouldn't we feel all times? What man would not want to act as he feel?' Welcome to Daniel Torday. He is a gifted writer and a powerful humanist.

Grady Harp

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fans of Philip Roth (apologies for the easy comparison here) may have found their new favorite author.

[Angela Paolantonio · Rating 4 out of 5]

'Fans of Philip Roth (apologies for the easy comparison here) may have found their new favorite author.'

I too felt more than a few comparisons to Philip Roth in Torday's approach and writing. Direct. Masculine. With story-command at all times and of the times, 70s Baltimore and Americana.

[F]

I read this because Professor Torday taught me. It wasn't as good as I thought it would be.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A unique read on male teenage angst and turmoil in the late 20th century.

[Aaron (Typographical Era) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stacked with an overabundance of concise, beautiful language which is delicately wielded to construct a truly awe inspiring story, Daniel Torday’s award-winning debut novella The Sensualist tells the coming of age tale of a Jewish high school student growing up in suburbs of 1990s Baltimore.

Samuel Gerson seems to be living a fairly good life. He comes from a good home, he’s a straight A student, and he’s blessed with the powerful throwing arm of an above average baseball pitcher. His life is fairly uncomplicated. That is until he meets Dmitri Zilber in gym class one afternoon. Almost immediately, Samuel is captivated by the Russian emigrant’s brash, outspoken, no-nonsense approach to life. The boy is everything Samuel isn’t, and quite frankly, possesses pieces of who he wishes he could be. The two quickly become friends.

READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/the-s...

[Signora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a compelling read for me. A small book that fits nicely into a pocket or purse, the novella held me captive. I appreciated it on two levels. The story itself was very well drawn...the friendship of the narrator, Samual Gerson, with a young Russian immigrant boy, Dimitri Zilber. It is a story of adolescence that is compounded by the past experiences of each of the boys and their families. Dimitri is the sensualist! And his philosophy of life while clear and true also leads to dramatic changes in his life's path. The second aspect is the writing itself. Torday has the most beautifully unfolding style. Not ornate but not crisp, the words create an atmosphere that holds you. Rich description and almost lyrical phrasing caused me to stop, reread passages and even read them aloud to hear them with my ears. A truly enjoyable read.

[J.C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has a sense of humor that doesn't detract from the coming of age story that molds the story together. The worst kind of humor is one that is obvious and ruins the tone but here it blends very well and when the story gets to the most serious parts, it doesn't feel contradictory or out of place.

The characters are also well written, rounded, without the narrator having whole paragraphs at times to explain who these people are and what they're like. The dialogue, one of the strengths of the story, is what I think enables this.

Well worth a read.

[Marc · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thoroughly engaging and beautifully written, The Sensualist stands alongside such works as The Catcher in the Rye and The Basketball Diaries as that rare breed of book that perfectly captures the ambivalence of youth, a delicate balance of absolute certainty and uncertainty held together by the undeniable anxiety of looming adulthood. In short, an excellent read.

See my full review here: http://www.coniumreview.com/the-sensu...

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some incredibly strong scenes, and a number of well-rendered moments, but the number of secondary characters and the large span of time covered by such a short work made it all feel pretty diffuse. It's personal, but I expect a certain tightness in novellas, a drive of some sort, and that was lacking here. That said, there's a lot of good stuff about how frustrating the trappings of youth are, especially when you're cognizant that those trappings will be gone in a matter of months.

[Kendall · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's a well written book, with excellent pacing and interesting characters. having had the chance to speak with Torday myself, I can say he's a very interesting dude and dedicated to his craft. But I just can't entirely get down with the premise and the ending leaves no discernible deep meaning that a reader can easily take away.

[Nomi Eve · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a modern classic. Read it now! It's right up there with The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, My Antonia and The Virgin Suicides as an example of a gorgeous well-wrought literary elegy. I read it in one sitting, and couldn't put it down. Read it now, and tell your friends to read The Sensualist. I can't wait for Daniel Torday's novel to come out next year. Sure to be a treat as well.

[jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good stuff! Part of the style here was to just leave out some details here and there, and because of this, I felt like I was going back to catch things a lot. Overall, though, I liked the tone/mood here, and would love to read more by Torday.

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice read, well constructed. Sometimes the narratorial voice slipped a little, the author broke out the vocab. too much for me to believe, and there were a few loose ends, but well worth it nonetheless.

[Evan Kingston · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well paced and plotted novella, with lots of moving and funny moments. I usually like works that are more ambitious, even if it means they get messy or fail a little, but it is hard to fault Torday for never miss-stepping.

[Gregory Frost · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superbly written narrative of two teenage boys and their families in Baltimore, on the line of a cultural divide not often characterized in fiction. The prose is exquisite, the many voices captured perfectly.

[Lou Breault · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting little read. Perfect for a 3 hour flight. The characters voices ring through clearly and authentically.

[Joey Gremillion · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story. Reminds me so much of the movie, Liberty Heights, which also took place in Baltimore. KUDOS!

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was debating between a three or four because the ending was more real than reader satisfying. Torday is an excellent writer, though, and thinking back, his ending challenges our expectations.