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The Oracle of Spring Garden Road
“Crazy Eddie” is a homeless man who inhabits two squares of pavement in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia. In this makeshift office, he panhandles and dispenses his peerless wisdom. Well-educated, fiercely intelligent with a passionate interest in philosophy and a profound love of nature, Eddie is an enigma for the locals. Who is he? Where did he come from? What brought him to a life on the streets? Though rumors abound, none capture the unique worldview and singular character that led him to withdraw from the perfidy and corruption of human beings. Just as Eddie has decided to plan his return to society after nearly two decades on the streets, he encounters Jane, a kind woman whose intelligence and integrity rival his own. Jane makes it her mission to uncover the painful secrets of his past, to make him whole again. But will she heal Eddie or will he save her?
A dizzying ride between past and present, The Oracle of Spring Garden Road is a tour de force of love, betrayal, tradition, the transformative beauty of nature, and the heavenly music of life.
A dizzying ride between past and present, The Oracle of Spring Garden Road is a tour de force of love, betrayal, tradition, the transformative beauty of nature, and the heavenly music of life.
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About the author
Norrin M. Ripsman
15 books11 followersNorrin M. Ripsman writes two kinds of books. He is a literary fiction author who has published a short story collection, Song Book, and a novel, The Oracle of Spring Garden Road.
He is also a professor of international relations, who has published nine books on neoclassical realism, the politics of peacemaking, and the political economy of security.
He was born in Canada and has lived in eleven cities in six countries. Currently, he lives in the United States and teaches in the International Relations department at Lehigh University, where he is the Monroe J. Rathbone Distinguished Professor.
He is also a professor of international relations, who has published nine books on neoclassical realism, the politics of peacemaking, and the political economy of security.
He was born in Canada and has lived in eleven cities in six countries. Currently, he lives in the United States and teaches in the International Relations department at Lehigh University, where he is the Monroe J. Rathbone Distinguished Professor.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 7, 2024
How does a promising young man wind up living on the street? Is it possible there’s a good reason for it?
“The Oracle of Spring Garden Road” by Norrin M. Ripsman may not give you the best answers in its 407 pages — when is there ever a satisfying explanation for homelessness? — but the ride will be compelling, fascinating, heartbreaking.
This is the question that drives this story from first to last. How does Gabriel Klein — brilliant student, Talmud scholar, orthodox Jew — become “Crazy Eddie” — homeless man.
It’s not like we don’t know him. Through many chapters Ripsman carries us along watching Gabriel’s life unfold.
We meet both his guises at the beginning: Eddie the adult derelict who keeps an “office” on the sidewalk before a bank and sleeps in a Halifax park; and Gabriel the precocious child beloved of parents and teachers, who aces all his classes and augurs nothing but success in later life. Throughout the book, we jump between them.
But all is not well. As a young man, Gabriel is gifted but troubled, judgmental, severe in his orthodoxy, solitary.
We follow the course of his development from grade school through high school and college and partake with him of all those trials that make the big signposts in life: we see him falling afoul of the law. We see him skirmishing with roommates. We see him fighting with his parents and opening to the first entreaties of love.
It’s a long journey but interest remains strong in the character, thanks to Ripsman’s skillful detail and deep feel for the drama of life. Gabriel’s challenges seem all the more immediate for being so familiar and real. We can see ourselves in him, and his trials resemble our trials, which makes his move to the sidewalk all the more frightening.
Tension builds as he grows up and draws nearer his strange apotheosis on Spring Garden Road, which, until the end and even beyond, seems an unlikely end for a young prodigy. But certainly not more unlikely than many stories of homelessness.
Events in the story could push anyone including the reader to despair; yet the author is brave enough to let the question remain somewhat unanswered, to let Gabriel’s disposition grow naturally out of his peculiar character.
In the end, “Oracle” is about all the beautiful sorrows of life and how we address them or fail to. With Ripsman behind the pen, reading dull books is not on that list.
“The Oracle of Spring Garden Road” by Norrin M. Ripsman may not give you the best answers in its 407 pages — when is there ever a satisfying explanation for homelessness? — but the ride will be compelling, fascinating, heartbreaking.
This is the question that drives this story from first to last. How does Gabriel Klein — brilliant student, Talmud scholar, orthodox Jew — become “Crazy Eddie” — homeless man.
It’s not like we don’t know him. Through many chapters Ripsman carries us along watching Gabriel’s life unfold.
We meet both his guises at the beginning: Eddie the adult derelict who keeps an “office” on the sidewalk before a bank and sleeps in a Halifax park; and Gabriel the precocious child beloved of parents and teachers, who aces all his classes and augurs nothing but success in later life. Throughout the book, we jump between them.
But all is not well. As a young man, Gabriel is gifted but troubled, judgmental, severe in his orthodoxy, solitary.
We follow the course of his development from grade school through high school and college and partake with him of all those trials that make the big signposts in life: we see him falling afoul of the law. We see him skirmishing with roommates. We see him fighting with his parents and opening to the first entreaties of love.
It’s a long journey but interest remains strong in the character, thanks to Ripsman’s skillful detail and deep feel for the drama of life. Gabriel’s challenges seem all the more immediate for being so familiar and real. We can see ourselves in him, and his trials resemble our trials, which makes his move to the sidewalk all the more frightening.
Tension builds as he grows up and draws nearer his strange apotheosis on Spring Garden Road, which, until the end and even beyond, seems an unlikely end for a young prodigy. But certainly not more unlikely than many stories of homelessness.
Events in the story could push anyone including the reader to despair; yet the author is brave enough to let the question remain somewhat unanswered, to let Gabriel’s disposition grow naturally out of his peculiar character.
In the end, “Oracle” is about all the beautiful sorrows of life and how we address them or fail to. With Ripsman behind the pen, reading dull books is not on that list.
September 11, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. The author has created such an interesting and complex protagonist. His life journey is in some ways sad but in some ways it is his chosen path. We see his faults but also respect him for his intelligence, grit, and uncompromising choices.
July 18, 2024
Book Title: The Oracle Of Spring Garden Road
Author:
Norrin M. Ripsman
Genre:
Contemporary Literature & Fiction
Pub Date:
June 10, 2024
Print Length:
410 pages
Book Reviewed By Sylvia J.
Eddie is a man who is homeless and lives on the sidewalk in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Waking up each, and every morning was considered a gift to him.
He went to a shelter in the cold weather so he wouldn’t freeze.
He felt free as he didn’t have to answer to anyone for anything.
Sometimes he would hear one of the bank tellers arguing on the phone with her husband about car loans and the cost of orthodontics for their son.
He learned about the owner of the dress boutique across the way, who had inherited a successful shop from his parents, but didn’t know how to keep the business going successfully.
All these people were on their cell phones and he pretty much would hear all the conversations that went on.
One would imagine he pretty much heard everything that went on outside the bank and in the surrounding areas.
Eddie didn’t own a cell phone and said to himself that he never wanted one. He felt that no conversation was ever private with these devices. Eddie would wonder, how could people walk around all day with something that looked no bigger than a playing card and be so glued to it? He realized that everything was on these phones that looked like a playing card. However, Eddie felt that these people were ignoring the beauty that surrounded them like the clouds, the harbor, the store fronts on Spring Garden, the people passing by that were all unique but had different temperaments.
Eddie saw everyone else rushing around to make appointments and always looking at their watches. He felt they had no freedom as he felt he was free but was he really free?
Eddie slept in the streets, and wandered the city's parks, public gardens, the Citadel, the waterfront, the university as he thought Halifax was part of him.
People who would pass him felt bad for him and called him the poor one, the unfortunate one.
Most people called him crazy Eddie. Crazy because he lived outside and he didn’t care. Crazy because he freely told everyone his views on life and philosophy. He told them to anyone that would listen to him.
People viewed Eddie as a curiosity as he appeared to be quite intelligent. Some viewed him as a landmark. How did he come to occupy this area? He was here on this street in front of this bank for two decades already. He occupied only two squares of the sidewalk.
Who was Eddie? What was his past? There was much talk around town as people were trying to guess. People came to him and asked him many questions. Eddie saw himself as a sage.
Eddie meets someone named Jane. She is very kind to him. Does Jane find out what Eddie’s past is ? Can Jane heal Eddie or will Eddie save Jane? What will Happen? Will Eddie decide to return to Society?
Was his name really Eddie or was it Gabriel? We learn the life story of this homeless man and what his life was before he became homeless.
Will we learn that Gabriel is the child of a Jewish immigrant family from Hungary. Did Gabriel have a grandfather that survived the Holocaust?
5 stars is my rating of this book.
Author:
Norrin M. Ripsman
Genre:
Contemporary Literature & Fiction
Pub Date:
June 10, 2024
Print Length:
410 pages
Book Reviewed By Sylvia J.
Eddie is a man who is homeless and lives on the sidewalk in front of a bank in downtown Halifax, Nova Scotia.
Waking up each, and every morning was considered a gift to him.
He went to a shelter in the cold weather so he wouldn’t freeze.
He felt free as he didn’t have to answer to anyone for anything.
Sometimes he would hear one of the bank tellers arguing on the phone with her husband about car loans and the cost of orthodontics for their son.
He learned about the owner of the dress boutique across the way, who had inherited a successful shop from his parents, but didn’t know how to keep the business going successfully.
All these people were on their cell phones and he pretty much would hear all the conversations that went on.
One would imagine he pretty much heard everything that went on outside the bank and in the surrounding areas.
Eddie didn’t own a cell phone and said to himself that he never wanted one. He felt that no conversation was ever private with these devices. Eddie would wonder, how could people walk around all day with something that looked no bigger than a playing card and be so glued to it? He realized that everything was on these phones that looked like a playing card. However, Eddie felt that these people were ignoring the beauty that surrounded them like the clouds, the harbor, the store fronts on Spring Garden, the people passing by that were all unique but had different temperaments.
Eddie saw everyone else rushing around to make appointments and always looking at their watches. He felt they had no freedom as he felt he was free but was he really free?
Eddie slept in the streets, and wandered the city's parks, public gardens, the Citadel, the waterfront, the university as he thought Halifax was part of him.
People who would pass him felt bad for him and called him the poor one, the unfortunate one.
Most people called him crazy Eddie. Crazy because he lived outside and he didn’t care. Crazy because he freely told everyone his views on life and philosophy. He told them to anyone that would listen to him.
People viewed Eddie as a curiosity as he appeared to be quite intelligent. Some viewed him as a landmark. How did he come to occupy this area? He was here on this street in front of this bank for two decades already. He occupied only two squares of the sidewalk.
Who was Eddie? What was his past? There was much talk around town as people were trying to guess. People came to him and asked him many questions. Eddie saw himself as a sage.
Eddie meets someone named Jane. She is very kind to him. Does Jane find out what Eddie’s past is ? Can Jane heal Eddie or will Eddie save Jane? What will Happen? Will Eddie decide to return to Society?
Was his name really Eddie or was it Gabriel? We learn the life story of this homeless man and what his life was before he became homeless.
Will we learn that Gabriel is the child of a Jewish immigrant family from Hungary. Did Gabriel have a grandfather that survived the Holocaust?
5 stars is my rating of this book.
January 10, 2025
Gripping
A great read. Fascinating journey from beginning to end. It will keep you wondering till you reach the last pages.’
A great read. Fascinating journey from beginning to end. It will keep you wondering till you reach the last pages.’
October 27, 2024
Homeless by choice, the protagonist of this deeply meaningful book, Gabriel, is both fascinatingly brilliant and fascinatingly flawed. Moving back and forth in time, Ripsman adeptly portions out revelations about Gabriel's past life and, ultimately, the reasons for his current predicament come into clear focus. There are valuable lessons in these pages about the consequences of religious rigidity. But there are also lessons about the restorative power of simple acts of human kindness. And about how one might lose everything material in one's life but hold onto what is most important, namely one's dignity and compassion. Well worth reading.
July 24, 2024
Rife with beautiful imagery, The Oracle of Spring Garden was a book that made me want to hug my family close and revisit all the priorities I’d ever based my life around. What a gift to eschew the “keeping with the Joneses” type of thinking and instead focus only on a minimalist lifestyle. Eddie’s gift as a character was his presence itself; he’s quirky, fiercely intelligent, and loyal. I loved his backstory, and the way Norrin developed his character through flashback chapters. I was endlessly fascinated by the characters who could see through Eddie’s acerbic caricature and into his true intentions. Eddie’s presence in this story makes the storyline fun to follow and intriguing to dive into. I loved the story development as well rife with rich setting descriptions and a beautiful take on life itself.
June 19, 2024
The Oracle of Spring Garden is a marvelous novel. It chronicles the life of ‘Crazy Eddie,’ a homeless man we meet on the streets of Halifax. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so let me just say that Eddie isn’t his real name. The novel digs into the mystery of who he is and why he lives on the streets. It’s a fascinating tale. We also learn about his plan to escape he streets after many years, relying on the kindness of a friend he made in front of his bank, Jane.
The backstory is rich and wonderful. But the novel also does a vivid and sensitive job of portraying homeless life. The greatest skill the author has is of getting inside his characters heads and showing their inner conflicts and personalities. Truly an amazing book, well worth reading.
The backstory is rich and wonderful. But the novel also does a vivid and sensitive job of portraying homeless life. The greatest skill the author has is of getting inside his characters heads and showing their inner conflicts and personalities. Truly an amazing book, well worth reading.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews