Forest Dark

by Nicole Krauss

From the bestselling, twice Orange Prize-shortlisted, National Book Award-nominated author comes a vibrant tale of transformation: of a man in his later years and a woman novelist, each drawn to the Levant on a journey of self-discovery

Jules Epstein has vanished from the world. He leaves no trace but a rundown flat patrolled by a solitary cockroach, and a monogrammed briefcase abandoned in the desert.

To Epstein's mystified family, the disappearance of a man whose drive and avidity have been a force to be reckoned with for sixty-eight years marks the conclusion of a gradual fading. This transformation began in the wake of Epstein's parents' deaths, and continued with his divorce after more than thirty-five years of marriage, his retirement from a New York legal firm, and the rapid shedding of possessions he'd spent a lifetime accumulating. With the last of his wealth and a nebulous plan, he departs for the Tel Aviv Hilton.

Meanwhile, a novelist leaves her husband and children behind in Brooklyn and checks into the same hotel, hoping that the view of the pool she used to swim in on childhood holidays will unlock her writer's block. But when a man claiming to be a retired professor of literature recruits her for a project involving Kafka, she is drawn into a mystery that will take her on a metaphysical journey and change her in ways she could never have imagined.

Bursting with life and humour, this is a profound, mesmerising, achingly beautiful novel of metamorphosis and self-realisation – of looking beyond all that is visible towards the infinite.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Israel, Contemporary, Literary Fiction, Novels, Unfinished

305 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2017

About the author

Nicole Krauss is an American author best known for her four novels Man Walks into a Room (2002), The History of Love (2005), Great House (2010) and Forest Dark (2017), which have been translated into 35 languages. Her fiction has been published in The New Yorker, Harper's, Esquire, and Granta's Best American Novelists Under 40, and has been collected in The Best American Short Stories 2003, The Best American Short Stories 2008, and The Best American Short Stories 2019. In 2011, Nicole Krauss won an award from the Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards for Great House. A collection of her short stories, To Be a Man, was published in 2020 and won the Wingate Literary Prize in 2022.

Reviews

[Elyse Walters · Rating 4 out of 5]

"But at a certain point the helplessness of our shared love for the children had reached a kind of apex, and then began to decline until it was no longer helpful to our relationship at all, because it only shone a light on how alone each of us was, and, compared to our children, how unloved".

"In our own ways, we had each come to understand that we had lost faith in our marriage. And yet we didn't know how to act on this understanding, as one does not know how to act on the understanding, for example, that the afterlife does not exist".

Nicole, ....( yes, I did a double take with this character's name choice), is a novelist with
writers block and a failing marriage. My mind did somersaults with this name choice.
I was instantly 'sad'.
Clearly I'm in the dark about the personal lives of Nicole Krause and Jonathan Safran Foer.....but wondered about the parallels between "Forest Dark" and their relationship.

I have been thinking about this novel on and off for the past 72 hours. I have mixed feelings. For one thing - I can't for the life of me understand why The Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv was 'chosen' as the central sanctuary. The Hilton Hotel may be a big fancy hotel on the beach but it's no SHRINE. And why Tel Aviv? It's the most Americanized city in Israel. I really don't get it.

The beginning was great. We are first introduced to Jules Epstein. It's very clear about what's going on with this wealthy high powered New York Attorney. He's 68 years old ...and something has changed him. No longer speaking out with gusto as he usually did .....instead an unnatural stillness began to settle over everything after his parents died...... Plus the divorce from his wife, Lianne, of more than 30 years, and he retired from his law firm. His behavior changed dramatically by giving possessions away...HUGE EXPENSIVE POSSESSIONS. His three children Jonah, Lucie, and Maya's future inheritance was definitely being jeopardize. ---
However .. it was clear that Epstein was having some type of spiritual awakening.
There's a couple of hilarious scenes about a "lost coat". My personal favorite 'funny'.

EVERYONE RUNS TO ISRAEL WHEN LIFE IS FEELING SUCKIE... I did it!!!!
I ran away to Israel hoping to find answers, too, in 1973. Ha, I got sidetracked by the Yom Kippur War. Living in a bomb shelter was no 'Hilton'.

So.... Jules Epstein goes to Israel ....hoping to honor his parents
Nicole goes to Israel ..... hoping the Hilton will inspire her writing.
It's where she has many childhood memories.

Both Epstein and Nicole - who don't know each other - never meet - both get sidetracked once in Tel Aviv. ( like all people who visit Israel). You can laugh now! :)

HERE IS WHERE THE STORY WAS 'SOMETIMES' BORING TO ME..... and 'unclear' of what was the purpose.
Nicole Krause begins to turn this novel into a more intellectual- thought provoking quest about theology. Epstein meets with Rabbi Klausner and tells Epstein that he is a descendent of King David.
Nicole meets a retired literature professor ( Friedman), that begins to engage in
conversations about 'the truth' about Franz Kafka.

I felt .... while Nicole Krauss was taking us on meta-physical journey .... that she was hiding something personal and emotional. The two excerpts that I included in the beginning of this review... never emotionally got explored leaving me feeling empty and sad... even somewhat resentful that I had to read about The Old Testament and debates about Kafka-- but I wasn't getting the truth about the depths of pain from either one of the leading characters. I felt cheated. I wanted more - something more gut truthful about Epstein and Nicole by the time the book ended.

So? Do I like this book? Yes and No.
Do I recommend it? Absolutely to everyone who is smarter than me. That's about everybody. This novel does require some 'thinking'.

Nicole Krause wrote a compelling novel -- I believe Nicole wrote this with purpose - I highly respect and admire her - at the same time - I am grappling to understand some things.
3.7 rating

Thank You Harper Collins Publishing and Nicole Krause

[Violet wells · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve read all three of Nicole Krauss’ previous novels and one thing they all have in common is the writer is well concealed behind all the formal artistry. In this new novel of hers there’s a character called Nicole speaking in the first person with an intelligence at the height of its powers. So the first exciting thing about this was the feeling of intimacy with which Krauss seems to speak her mind.

There are two narratives here. The writer Nicole is struggling to write a new novel and is about to split with her husband; the parallel narrative, also about a lost character who runs away to Israel, is perhaps the story the writer is struggling to bring into existence, though they never once obviously connect at any point. Both characters are undergoing break downs; both struggling with the form their lives have taken. Both trying to reconnect with a purer self within. Form itself is one of the themes of this novel. As is the idea of the double lives we all live. In this sense the Nicole of the narrative is both Nicole Krauss and not Nicole Krauss. Kafka too will get to lead a double life in this novel. Krauss in this book focuses on the unlived double life we all sense we’ve forgone for one reason or another.

Both Epstein and Nicole meet mysterious strangers who lead them into what might almost be called alternate realities. Nicole is told an extraordinary story about Kafka. That he staged his death in 1924 and lived out a kind of afterlife in Israel. Eventually she will be in possession of a suitcase of his lost papers. Epstein is told he is a descendent of King David. Both narratives build to fabulous denouements. I especially enjoyed Nicole’s epiphany. There were shades of Fellini’s brilliant 8 ½ in the Nicole narrative, the quest to find a new form of inspiration in the annals of memory. And there was some fabulous absurd humour in the Epstein narrative. It’s not difficult to follow the various threads of this novel; but it’s hard to work out what Krauss intended to convey as a whole. The big picture, how the two narratives related to each other, left me scratching my head. Both narratives could probably stand alone as novellas without losing much, if any, significance. I didn’t feel one was feeding the other with vitality or a reciprocal deeper understanding. At times it felt like she was sloughing all the artifice involved in writing a novel, opening a window directly onto the mind’s struggle to compose narrative – perhaps exemplified by the sense that the coalescing of two disparate narratives felt forced and flimsy. It’s perhaps an act of mischief on Krauss’ part that she structures the novel as if in subordination to convention’s laws of order which both Nicole and Epstein are eager to escape from but that this structure seems more like a smoking mirror than robust intricate engineering.

In a nutshell, it starts really well, shows some signs of huff and puff towards the middle and winds up brilliantly. It feels like a laboured novel rather than an inspired one. Perhaps cathartic in that she is breaking with her reputation, moving onto new ground, which I found exciting. Don’t expect another History of Love. There’s no whimsy, no attempt to charm the pants off the reader in this novel. It still fascinates me who most influenced who in her marriage with Jonathan Safran Foer – the similarity in tone and subject of History of Love and Extremely Loud is too uncanny to be coincidence. I have a hunch he influenced her more except she bettered him at his own game (which must have been galling!) Personally I’ve always found more depth in Nicole’s books. And this was the case again in their post-divorce books. Forest Dark for me is more poetic and honest and courageous than Here I Am.

[Angela M]

Giving up after 100+ pages . I have definitely enjoyed Krauss's other novels but I just did not connect with either of the two characters in the dual story lines. Just too much of an effort to wade through .

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I were a professional book reviewer—which I’m not—I might well have given Forest Dark five stars. After all, it’s cerebral, intelligently written, thought provoking, and brilliantly complex.

But I am simply a reader who likes to capture my reading experience and share my thoughts with others. And for me, this book was a thing to be admired rather than loved.

There are two parallel stories. One is the story of Jules Epstein, who goes missing in Israel after going through a sort of metamorphosis where he sheds much of his wealth. In the second thread, a novelist—who just happens to be named Nicole—also heads to Israel, where she, too—metaphorically and physically—disappears, at least temporarily. While there, her interest is peaked by some unsettling news about Franz Kafka, who—no coincidence—famously wrote The Metamorphosis.

The Metamorphosis is, of course, about transformation and both Epstein and Nicole are in the process of becoming transformed. This is, at its core, a novel about the idea of self-invention as one sheds one’s society-imposed skin. It also has some fascinating thoughts on the endurance and need of literature, in particular, Jewish literature. Lastly, it’s hard to ignore the uncanny resemblances between the character Nicole and the author herself; the ruminations on a crumbling marriage (in her case, to Jonathan Safran-Foer).

So why did I merely admire and not love the book? Perhaps because, for me, it was too cerebral at the expense of emotional. Too often, I felt as if I were reading a contemplative essay – on the outside looking in rather than enveloped by the story.

For those who are most attracted to elegant novels that make you think and challenge your perceptions on true identities, by all means, give this a try. For others, though, who are also seeking more of an emotional immersion, be prepared to lower your expectations. In any event, it's well worth the read.

[Brina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last month I was finally introduced to the writing of Nicole Krauss. Craving Jewish themed books to read over the holidays, I had selected her National Book Award finalist Great House and neither the subject matter nor the writing disappointed. Shortly after completing this work starring a desk, I starting seeing reviews for Krauss' new book Forest Dark. Seeing that it is similar in format and that it takes place in Israel, I decided to make reading Krauss' latest work before the end of the year a priority of mine. As with her previous book, Krauss has spun a gem with Forest Dark that left me awed.

Recently I read the work of Clarice Lispector who has been called by many the greatest Jewish writer since Franz Kafka. While Lispector's work was powerful and existential, it did not leave me wowed. Krauss', who has noted that she has been influenced by Kafka and features him greatly in her work, has left me wowed on now more than one occasion. In Forest Dark an aging Jewish philanthropist named Jules Epstein has been reeling from the death of his parents and from the divorce of his wife of over thirty years. As a coping mechanism Epstein decides to sell the majority of his prized material possessions as a means of financing endowments in his parents' names in both Israel and New York. Yet, the spiritual is not enough for Epstein, who subconsciously craves happiness on a spiritual level. Upon meeting the kabbalist rabbi Menachem Klausner, Epstein finds himself on a plane to Israel, on a voyage meant to bring closure to the depression that has permeated his life.

Meanwhile, a writer grappling with a messy divorce also finds herself on an El Al flight to Israel in hopes of rekindling her novel writing magic at the Tel Aviv Hilton. The writer is meant to be Krauss herself who recently divorced from her husband, the writer Jonathan Safran Foer. Foer has written books that mirror Krauss' but since their real life divorce, their writing has deviated. Fictionally, Krauss reveals biographical information about her family vacations to Israel as a child, her awe and appreciation of Kafka, and her deep, inherent love for her children. In the chapters featuring the writer, it was hard for me to separate fact from fiction as the writer finds herself on a mission to recover Kafka's lost writings in hopes of starting her own next novel. Israeli myth says that Kafka is not buried in a Prague cemetery but was smuggled out and lived the last two decades of his life in the Jewish state. An older cousin named Effie tipped off a friend who is a former Hebrew University professor to meet with the writer, as he chooses her to be Kafka's torch bearer. This shared love of Kafka leads the writer on a spiritual journey of her own through the Israeli countryside.

Krauss alternates her chapters to feature either Epstein or the writer. While their stories never intersect, it is obvious that they are on similar spiritual journeys to find themselves. Krauss use of prose is so deep that it borders on Kafkaesque language. At the surface, the plot features an aging philanthropist named Epstein and an anonymous writer, but their stories are much deeper than how to move on from a divorce. Epstein is left to grapple with how to honor the memory of his parents and this internal struggle ends up including new found information that the Epstein family is actually part of a direct descent from King David. Whether Epstein memorializes his parents with a lasting legacy or a more physical reminder becomes a major theme of the novel. The novelist is also left to decide whether Kafka's legacy or being a good mother to her children is more important to her. It becomes apparent that Krauss may still be battling this issue in real life, but, thankfully, she got over her writing block enough to write this existential novel. The writer's place preserving Kafka's writing ends up being the novel's other major theme. I was left on edge hoping that the two stories would meet, but, while the two protagonists waged similar spiritual battles, they were never meant to encounter one another on the physical plane.

Whether Nicole Krauss is the greatest Jewish author since Kafka is up for debate. Her work is deeply Jewish and engages readers in issues that continue to be relevant to Jews in the 21st century. She is clearly well versed in Kafka and his history and quotes him in her writing. Her prose does approach Kafkaesque status, especially as she has her protagonists engage in their own spiritual gilgul, loosely translated as metamorphosis. Krauss work has left me awed for the second time, and has me desiring to tackle to difficult prose of Kafka. Yet, Krauss prose is exquisite in its own right, including discussions of the great Kafka. Perhaps after reading Nicole Krauss, Franz Kafka will not seem as difficult as previously thought.

4.5 sparkling stars

[Cecily · Rating 3 out of 5]

“No young child naturally believes that reality is firm”.
Experiencing “a small tear in the fabric of reality” can keep the door of doubt ajar.

From my late teens to early twenties, I earnestly sought a mystical, personal relationship with God. I cast my net narrowly (the Anglican church) but deeply, devoting hours to bible study, prayer, services, singing, and so on. Sometimes I felt a ripple in the waters around me, but whatever caused it always slipped through the net, leaving me wondering if I’d imagined it. I never caught god, and grew content to find fulfilment elsewhere.



My experience with this book is similar. I adored everything about Krauss’ The History of Love (see my review HERE), except perhaps the title, and read it twice in less than a year. I also love Kafka (see my reviews HERE), so I came to this with high hopes. There is much to admire, and many similarities of theme. And yet. Like Epstein, Nicole, and Kafka, my quest for enlightenment was ever elusive. My failing, I think.

Three In One

“What if life… in truth occurs in only one place… from which one dreams of those other places?”

This is three stories, disguised as two, told as one.

Jules Epstein is a wealthy 68-year old Jewish New Yorker with three adult children. He recently lost his parents, cast off his wife, and is now divesting himself of his material possessions. It started with “the loss of his interest in pleasure”, he “lived separately from his purchase of exquisite beauty” and so adopted “the disease of radical charity”.

Nicole (no surname) is a 39-year old Jewish New Yorker with two young children, a stale marriage, and writer’s block. (Rather heavy-handed similarities with the author's own life at the time of writing?) “The love… had either dried up or been withheld.”

Their chapters alternate, but they never knowingly meet. Both have seminal lifelong links to Tel Aviv, specifically the Hilton Hotel. Both go there alone, hoping to find meaning in their lives. Both meet a (different) charismatic stranger who takes them out of the city on an obscure but specific spiritual-cum-creative quest relating to Jewish history. Or maybe a wild good chase.

One of those arises from the third story, perhaps from an alternate reality: that Kafka didn’t really die in Prague in 1924, but instead, moved to Israel, where he lived under a new name (Anshel Peleg) for 35 years, tended gardens, and continued to write, while his friend and executor, Max Brod, tended the cult of Kafka.

Constructing Narrative

“It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

A strong theme is the power of stories, sacred and secular, epistemology, and the struggle of creating and telling them. Turning that round on this book is a puzzle. Nicole tells her own story, but Epstein’s is related by a person unknown, and the alternative history of Kafka is told to Nicole by a man of uncertain authority, and maybe uncertain reality. What is real within this world, let alone mine?

Nicole mentions her “permeable” mind, has “slightly altered consciousness” when ill, and despite her quote at the top of my "Three in One" section, believes in the multiverse because more than once she experiences
“The idea of being in two places at once… that I, in my uniqueness, might possibly be inhabiting two separate planes of existence”.

Is some - or all - of her story imagined, and if so, imagined by fictional Nicole or only by the real Nicole (Krauss)? Or maybe fictional Nicole is telling the story of her alternate self? And how does Epstein fit in - is he just a character included by one or both Nicoles for parallels?

Those thoughts reminded me of the “riddle” quote, above, though I didn’t recall the source. A shiver ran down my spine when I looked it up, just a few days after Mueller’s indictments of thirteen Russians for meddling in the US election of 2016. Churchill’s longer version, in 1939, was:
"I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest."

Filling the Void

“A broken heart is more full than one that is content: because a broken heart has a vacancy, and the vacancy has the potential to be filled with the infinite.”

It all comes back to this numinous quest.

In my youth, I believed the priests who said the hole inside was God-shaped. Perhaps there was no hole. More likely, god, love, or whatever you want to call it, is a formless, shape-shifting entity.

We need to continually remake and refill - metamorphose - to find and retain peace, happiness, and wholeness. A Christian chorus comes unbidden to mind. It includes the refrain “Melt me, mould me, fill me, use me”. Nowadays, I address that to myself, rather than the "spirit of the living God".

“He felt the ballast gone. Everything and everyone that held him to the pattern of himself was gone now… He probed tenderly and discovered, as one discovers with all absences, that the emptiness was far larger than what had once filled its place.”

Epstein, Nicole, and (allegedly) Kafka attempt that by returning to their roots. That fits with my serendipitous purchase of this book. I was on the way to my mother’s: the home she has lived in since I was six. I stopped off in a nearby town, and found my feet taking me to the small independent bookshop I frequented as a child and teen. Only the design of the free bookmarks had changed. They had a single copy of this book.

I recently saw the stunning, beautiful, weird film. The Shape of Water. These words are shown just before the closing credits:


Symbolic Snippets

There will be many that I missed in my ignorance of Jewish and Israeli matters:

• The Man Who Disappeared was the original title of Kafka’s novel that is better known as Amerika (see my review HERE). It was published three years after Kafka died (or disappeared). In Forest Dark, there’s a man who disappears, perhaps two, a woman who disappears, a man who was maybe never there in the first place, and documents that disappear. Some are sought and found.

• Hidden coins: in a swimming pool (for fun) and buried (from guilt).

• A suitcase with mysterious contents: in a dream and - maybe - in reality.

• The ideas of Freud, Descartes, Spinoza, and Kafka - as well as Genesis and religious texts.

• Black birds: crows, jackdaws, and blackbirds. A pun on Kafka’s surname in Czech and thus his father’s business logo, and also the meaning of his alleged new name, Anshel.

• Doors, thresholds, and boundaries, especially between this world and paradise: a common Kafka trope, carried through here. (See my review of Kafka’s very short story, Before the Law, HERE.)

• Roots: the physical landscape and buildings, as well as culture and family, especially where one was conceived and born.

• Recurrence and circularity, but also parallels - a tangle around Tel Aviv.

• In someone’s last known residence, “A cockroach strutted majestically across the stone floor”. (See my review of Kafka’s Metamorphosis HERE.)

Quotes

• “Asserting the importance of accidental beauty over that of keeping up appearances.” (Tel Aviv)
• “Erased so that she could be filled up with the son of God.” (Mary, in The Annunciation, a favourite picture of Epstein’s)
• “What had begun as an act of freedom had become another form of binding.” (Writing)
• “The whole city seems to have agreed collectively to deny the existence of winter… an aspect of their reality, because it conflicts with what they believe about who they are - a people of the sun, of salt air and sultriness.”
• “The weary but satisfied faces of those who have just drunk from the world’s authenticity.” (Tourists)
• “The twilight years where reality, of less and less use, begins to dissolve at the edges.”
• “When you look at something for long enough, there is a point at which familiarity passes into strangeness.”
• “[We] had gone to such lengths to fortify their lives against sadness, that they had learned to fear it.”
• “Even to reach the threshold requires a susceptibility to hope and vivid yearning.”
• “Epstein… entered the way a man enters into his own solitude, without hope of filling it.”
• A melanoma removed “it was his death that had been growing there, unfurling its colors… The years passed, and the little white scar on his chest faded… His death became imperceptible.”
• “Nothing was ever finished here: the world was built over and over again on the same ground, with the same broken materials.”
• “Floating in a concentration of history reduced by the slow evaporation of time.” (In The Dead Sea)
• “‘Do what you want, you’re a free person,’ his mother used to yell at him” [but] “Inside the hem of his independence she’d sewed her command, so that at his greatest moments of freedom he felt her pull on him lie gravity.”
• “On the outside Israel is obsessed with borders, on the inside it lives without boundaries.”
• “Some of us are touched too much, and some too little.”

Some of Nicole’s observations on Kafka:
• “Franz was drawn to transmogrification between human and animal, and that at times the writer identified with the animal side more.”
• “Kafka was master at revealing… the projection of a conflicted inner desire.”
• “[Kafka] had always been posthumous to himself… [and] had been staging his own death for years.”
• “To be trapped and confined in a bewildering environment hostile to one’s inner conditions, in which one is fated to be obtusely misunderstood and mistreated because one can’t see the way out.” But none of his characters change direction, so can’t “escape their absurd existential conditions; all they can do is die of them.”
• Kafka had to die to come to Israel, a death that effectively killed his estranged father, and Brod invented and cultivated the myth.

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sometimes when writing a review I'm torn between expressing my personal opinion of the book I've read and trying to imagine how others will feel about the book. In other words I don't want to recommend a book others won't like! This is a book I loved reading but suspect others will struggle with. Because the narrative threads are at times obscure and difficult to reconcile.

Forest Dark is a very Jewish novel. Krauss has already shown she's a writer one of whose strengths and weaknesses is a desire to charm her readers. Often here it's as if Krauss is writing expressly for Jewish approval. So, though this is a far less self-consciously charming novel than History of Love ,she is again deploying charm as a tool. She is writing for and imagining the response of a specific audience. Or that's how it often felt.

The entire novel is set in Israel. Early on, the author confides that she is having problems writing and in many respects this is a novel about the processes of composing a novel, the virtual world between the writer and her fiction. The third person narrative about a rich successful Jewish businessman in the grip of an existential crisis is, we assume, the novel, the author is struggling with. The first person narrator who is once named as Nicole is mired in a failing sterile marriage and visits Israel in pursuit of her novel. She adopts a confessional voice as if she is telling us the truth and nothing but the truth. Except her life soon becomes more fictional than that of her novel's protagonist. True things happen in the virtual world; deception is often the reality in the real world. The narrator is embroiled in a madcap conspiracy theory about Kafka which Krauss does a good job of convincing us might be true. Everyone in the novel, including Kafka, has a divided self and is engaged in a struggle to reconcile outer and inner worlds. This is cleverly dramatized towards the end when Epstein, the fictional character, finds himself on a film set, dressed, in the guise of an extra, as King David. Nothing is what it seems in Forest Dark and yet it is a relentless excavation of truth.

I wasn't entirely convinced it worked as a novel - but then, often, it is asking the question, what is a novel? Krauss remains stringently loyal throughout to her themes and her writing is often wonderful. She has lots of interest to say about life and in the end I loved reading it.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Empty Space

I read this book eagerly and with absorption; my reactions ranged from admiration to love. All the same, I could easily describe it in such a way that no one would buy it: a first-person narrative by an author unable to overcome her writer's block, interleaved with the story of a wealthy lawyer who gradually withdraws from normal life. The two stories are not even connected, for heaven's sake! In the hands of a lesser writer, this could spell disaster. But Krauss is not a lesser writer; she remains her magnificent self. I found this one of the most stimulating new novels I have read since, well, Krauss's own Great House. I'll try to explain why.

It's a small point, but I enjoyed the setting. The one time I worked in Israel, I stayed in the next hotel down the beach from the block-like Tel Aviv Hilton, which plays a significant part in both stories (a connection of a kind, I suppose). I have visited the hill town of Safed (S'fat), cradle of Jewish mysticism. I have at least seen the Dead Sea and the Negev Desert. But even without those personal associations, I would have appreciated Krauss's knack of finding a special place to enclose a special purpose. Her Israel, without ever being touristic, is as real as her New York City, especially in terms of the reality of the minor characters who inhabit each locale.

As with minor characters, so with major ones. When I finished the first chapter, about the disappearance of the billionaire Jules Epstein, I posted a reading-progress note calling this a masterpiece. To be honest, I never experienced quite this high again, but there was nothing to contradict it either; the initial charge remained in place until the end. This chapter is one of the best pieces of character exposition I have ever read. Not just because Krauss so beautifully establishes the facts about Epstein, his former marriage, his family, his fabulous purchases on the art market and subsequent sales, but because she takes us deep into his mind and, more importantly, his soul.

For that is the distinguishing feature of this, more than any of the other three Krauss novels that I have read. All the characters are defined by their spiritual concerns. Of course, these are specifically Jewish concerns, expressed in terms of rabbinic philosophy, and I am not a Jew. But this doesn't matter, for the questions she raises about existence are questions that belong to all of us, whatever our religious or philosophical context. One of Krauss's strengths is that she so often poses her questions through lively anecdotes, like the one told by Israeli rabbi who gate-crashes a dinner held by New York Jewish leaders to open a dialogue with Mahmoud Abbas. Another strength is that she never quite answers them, but leaves the questions to resonate with both the characters and the reader.

The title comes from Dante's Inferno, which in the Longfellow translation begins like this:

Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

Krauss will have literal forests later on in the novel, but at the beginning they are mostly a metaphor for some of the big questions that she poses: Why are we here and what have we lost? What is our responsibility to life? What is the purpose of religion? Her thinking is not always easy to follow, but it impresses me nonetheless:

Just as religion evolved as a way to contemplate and live before the unknowable, so now we have converted to the opposite practice, to which we are no less devoted: the practice of knowing everything, and believing that knowledge is concrete, and always arrived at through the faculties of the intellect. […] The more [Descartes] talks about following a straight line out of the forest, the more appealing it sounds to me to get lost in that forest, where we once lived in wonder, and understood it to be a prerequisite for an authentic awareness of being and the world.

Krauss avoids the easy answers and tidy endings, as I said, but the novel has an impressive consistency, and the forest darkness does not last for ever. Here is Epstein checking into a run-down studio apartment on the waterfront in Jaffa:

Epstein, new again to everything—new to the blazing white light off the waves, to the crying of the muezzin at dawn, new to the loss of appetite, to the body lightening, to a release from order, to the departing shore of the rational, new again to miracles, to poetry—took an apartment where he would never have lived in a thousand years, had he been living a thousand years, which, new again most of all to himself, he might have been.

Finally, I come to that elephant in the room: the potential dead weight of a self-obsessed writer gazing into her navel instead of just telling a story. Yes, I recognize this, and there were times when my patience wore thin, for example when she has people claim that her novels belong to world Jewish literature rather than the unnamed author herself. But there was also a striking personal honesty here, as she examines her ten-year marriage and its imminent collapse. In these sections, Nicole Krauss is not the sage philosopher cloaking herself in big ideas, but a hurting woman puzzled at how the great love between her and her husband could have turned to cold politeness. The theme of emptiness and separation comes up again and again, and always it is painful—but she discovers that it is not always negative. As the gate-crashing rabbi tells Epstein:

God created Eve out of Adam's rib. Why? Because first an empty space needed to be made in Adam to make room for the experience of another. Did you know that the meaning of Chava—Eve, in Hebrew—is 'experience'?

There is a chapter called Lech lecha, which are the Hebrew words in which God commands Abram to go to the land of Canaan and become the founder of the Jewish people:

But Lech lecha was never really about moving from the land of his birth over the river to the unknown land of Canaan. To read it like that is to miss the point, I think, since what God was demanding was so much harder, was very nearly impossible: for Abram to go out of himself so that he might make space for what God intended him to be.

When one knows that Krauss in fact separated from her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer, shortly before writing this novel, and later began a relationship with an Israeli writer, suddenly all this Biblical exegesis becomes very personal indeed.

======



My Top Ten list this year is selected from a smaller than usual pool. I really only started reading again in May, and even then deliberately kept new books to under 50% of my total. In compiling the list, I also did not exactly follow my original star ratings, but rather the takeaway value after time has passed. In particular, there are two books, Lincoln in the Bardo and Go, Went, Gone) to which I gave only 4 stars, but which I recognize as important books, with more staying power than many that I enjoyed more at the time, but have since forgotten.

For some reason, three of the ten books (Forest Dark, A Horse Walks into a Bar, and Three Floors Up) are by Jewish authors, set in Israel. To those, I would add a fourth: Judas by Amos Oz, read at the same time and of similar quality, but actually published at the end of 2016.

The ten titles below are in descending order (i.e. with The Essex Serpent being my favorite). The links are to my reviews:

1. The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
2. Autumn by Ali Smith
3. Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss
4. The Heart's Invisible Furies by John Boyne
5. Reservoir 13 by Jon McGregor
6. A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman
7. Exit West by Moshin Hamid
8. Three Floors Up by Eshkol Nevo
9. Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
10. Go, Went, Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck

And half that number again that didn't quite make it, in alphabetical order by authors:

11. Souvenirs dormants by Patrick Modiano
12. All We Shall Know by Donal Ryan
13. Improvement by Joan Silber
14. Anything Is Possible by Elizabeth Strout
15. Rose & Poe by Jack Todd

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Impressive in scope and structure, yet rather frustrating. If you’re hoping for another History of Love, you’re likely to come away disappointed: while that book touched the heart; this one is mostly cerebral. Metafiction, the Kabbalah, and some alternative history featuring Kafka are a few of the major elements, so think about whether those topics attract or repel you. Looking deeper, this is a book about Jewish self-invention and reinvention, and in that respect is a bit more successful than Krauss’s ex-husband Jonathan Safran Foer’s uncannily similar contribution, Here I Am (a failing marriage, an old dog, a trip to Israel). She’s taken a page from Foer’s first book, though, in making one of her protagonists a Jewish writer named Nicole whose marriage is coming to an end. Blink and you’ll miss it: her name is given only once, at 19% in the Kindle book: “Nicole’s necklace, found in Hilton pool.”

There are two stories here: 1) Jules Epstein (his first name deliberately sounds like “Jews”) leaves everything behind – his reputation as a lawyer, his ex-wife and three grown children, the fortune he’s invested in works of art – to take up an ascetic life in Israel. His new ambitions are to plant 400,000 trees as a memorial forest in honor of his late parents and to fund a biopic of the life of King David, his ancestor. 2) While Epstein’s narrative is in the third person, Nicole is the first-person narrator of the alternating sections. She’s paralyzed by writer’s block and heads to Tel Aviv in search of inspiration, but instead finds herself caught up in a project to uncover the lost works of Kafka.

Now, when I read a novel with a dual narrative, especially when the two strands share a partial setting – here, the Tel Aviv Hilton – I fully expect them to meet up at some point. In Forest Dark that never happens. At least, I don’t think so, unless they do at the very end (if Epstein is the man who jumps off the roof at the hotel just before Nicole leaves Israel, which may also be the same jumper she hears about towards the start of the novel – but I’m more inclined to think that he just disappears into the wilderness at the end of the book) or they’ve been interlocked the whole time (if Epstein’s story is what Nicole eventually sets down after she gets over her writer’s block). I was so desperately looking for a meet-up between the central characters and thought I’d found one at 53% – Aha! He’s stumbled on a young woman in a bathtub! That must be her! – but it turned out to be a false lead. Ultimately, I concluded that Jules Epstein and Nicole never met because she was never actually in Israel: this was all her illness-induced hallucination, or her written fantasy of where she’d go and what she’d do if she wasn’t stuck in an imploding family situation (“the idea came to me of dreaming my life from the Hilton … having always been solidly somewhere, only dreaming of being lost”), meaning that this is a novel within a novel. The only thing that undeniably links these characters, then, is that both find themselves in a Dantean dark wood (“forest dark” is the phrase used in the Longfellow translation of the opening of the Inferno) of doubt about life’s purpose, and have to decide what comes next.

My favorite subplot was about Kafka; my favorite passages were descriptions of the Israeli landscape; my favorite individual scenes were the mix-up about Epstein’s coat and Haroon’s screw-up with the painting, rare pinpricks of humor in an otherwise highly serious (worthy, to use a Briticism) novel. Overall I loved Epstein’s story line: it’s a picture of a biblical-style patriarch renouncing life’s pleasures. But put these elements together and you still don’t have a fully satisfactory novel, especially because I sometimes found the Nicole character almost insufferably clever and inward gazing.

All told, there’s a lot to think about in this novel: more questions than answers, really. If you don’t mind that in your fiction, you should be fine here. Just keep in mind that of Krauss’s previous novels, this is most like her first, Man Walks into a Room: dreamy, uncertain, highbrow. (Whereas I compared Here I Am to Howard Jacobson, I’d compare this to David Grossman – and Krauss-as-Nicole even uses the phrase “falling out of time,” one of his novel titles.) Interesting, for sure, but not the return to form I’d hoped for.

[Cosimo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tu esci di casa

“Alla fine ci siamo ammalati di sapere. Ad essere sinceri, io detesto Cartesio e non ho mai capito per quale motivo il suo assioma debba essere fiduciosamente ritenuto la base incrollabile di ogni cosa. Più lui parla di seguire sempre la stessa direzione per uscire dalla foresta, più io mi sento attratta dall'idea di perdermi in quella foresta, dove un tempo vivevamo nella meraviglia, nella consapevolezza che il nostro stupore è il prerequisito di un'autentica coscienza dell'essere e del mondo. Ormai ci resta ben poca scelta a parte abitare negli aridi campi della ragione, e quanto all'ignoto, che un tempo baluginava agli estremi del nostro campo visivo, convogliando le nostre paure, ma anche le nostre speranze e i nostri desideri, possiamo solo guardarlo con ostilità”.

Krauss dice di voler perdere il controllo quando lavora e di ritenere che l'amore non esista senza una parte di violenza, e di credere nell'incertezza, negatività esistenziale necessaria. Così i suoi personaggi ne hanno bisogno per superare una crisi di identità, per trovare una soluzione alla solitudine labirintica dalla quale non possono uscire. Jules è un avvocato milionario e filantropo che, dopo aver deciso di dissipare francescanamente la propria ricchezza, insegue le parole dei libri sacri e di uno strano e fantomatico rabbino fino a Tel Aviv; e qui giunge anche Nicole, scrittrice disillusa e instancabile, che viene coinvolta in un mistero letterario sull'eredità di Kafka (i manoscritti appartengono a Israele) e cerca se stessa oltre il dolore e il senso di fallimento. Si incrociano senza incontrarsi le due storie, dialogano poeticamente sul tema delle radici ebraiche, della memoria e del tempo, della relazione minacciosa tra verità e finzione. Nicole Krauss scrive con gentile dolcezza, con carisma, fantasia e invenzione, senza smettere di interrogarsi e indagare il cuore delle cose. L'infanzia è un processo di lenta ricomposizione di se stessi con i materiali presi in prestito dal mondo. In un momento qualsiasi, ogni bambino perde l'ultimo atomo ricevuto dalla madre. Si è ricostituito del tutto, e a quel punto è soltanto e interamente mondo. Su un piano ancora filosofico, scrive Krauss che la dimensione della soglia è appartenuta più che altro a Kafka: soglia di fuga, trasformazione e metamorfosi, di comprensione predisposta alla speranza e al desiderio. Di questo Kafka, l'autrice traccia una biografia filologica e fantastica, che va oltre ciò che possiamo riconoscere in questa sola vita: è suggestivo il concetto di Tzimtzum, la divina contrazione che crea il vuoto dove fare spazio all'universo, sciogliendo la coppia finito e infinito. Secondo l'autrice, Kafka gioiva all'idea di lasciare questo mondo: non perché volesse porre termine alla propria vita, ma perché sentiva di non aver mai vissuto veramente. Scrive Krauss che perciò noi umanità moderna e residuale temiamo di distruggere la forma, così non pensiamo il futuro e abbiamo paura del caos informe, dell'altro da sé (l'opposto dell'ordine appare così inevitabile alla vita). Inserendo nella trama numerosi elementi speculativi, la scrittrice tesse una storia doppia, irreale e sospesa, romanzesca e improbabile, abitata tanto da ombre, atmosfere, progetti e ipotesi che da promesse mantenute, fatti persistenti e figurazioni decisive. Il romanzo narra la fragilità dell'io, l'incoerenza della realtà fattuale, il desiderio di uscire dall'oscurità, il deserto notturno, spazio vuoto di forma e di luce, nel quale soltanto siamo liberi di essere noi stessi e creare. Per un ritorno sì, che non ha niente di rimosso.

“E se la vita, che sembra aver luogo in un numero incalcolabile di lunghi corridoi, in sale d'aspetto e città forestiere, su terrazze, in ospedali e giardini, in camere in affitto e treni affollati, si svolgesse in realtà in un solo luogo, un singolo posto da cui sogniamo tutti gli altri?”

[Sid Nuncius · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought Nicole Krauss's Great House was excellent and I was looking forward to this very much. Sadly, I thought Forest Dark was self-regardingly flashy and ultimately empty.

The book centres around two Jewish characters who are, in their different ways, having crises of identity and reassessing both their lives and their relationships with Israel and Judaism. Jules Epstein is a hugely successful businessman who begins to give away his possessions and have a sort of holiday from being himself, while Nicole is a writer struggling with writer's block who leaves her family to…well…find herself wouldn't be an inappropriate cliché. The two stories intercut with each other – although I don’t really know why, other than that it's the fashion at the moment.

There is a huge amount of intellectualising here, which would be fine by me if it made some sense or had real depth – but most of it doesn't. I know a lot of professional critics think this is a brilliant masterpiece, but it just made me cross in the end and I'm glad that neither the characters nor the author (nor Kafka, come to that) could hear what I was saying about them because I was driven to some thoroughly reprehensible language as I was reading. Leaving aside the almost invariably ghastly idea of a writer writing about a writer who is struggling to write and the undoubtedly postmodern something-or-other of naming the fictional writer after herself, Krauss goes in for a lot of what seemed to me to be show-off cleverness for its own sake – much of which isn't really clever at all.

For example, there's a long passage where Nicole hears a radio broadcast about modern cosmology and then considers the nature of knowledge. We get stuff like this: "But in a multiverse, the concepts of known and unknown are rendered useless, for everything is equally known and unknown," which, frankly, is unmitigated tosh. Or: "In the end we have made ourselves ill with knowledge." Really? How have we done that, exactly? I suspect that quite a few people who are alive because of modern medical knowledge might well have something to say on the matter. Or "Now, we have little choice but to live in the arid fields of reason." What, you really think *that* is the problem at the moment? Allow me to present you with some alternative facts. There's also a sort of variation on solipsism which sounds as though a hippy, still tripping on the acid they took at Woodstock, has been taken to see The Matrix and, having speculated that each of us, in our own mind, may create space itself and everything in it for ourselves, Nicole says "In that moment I knew unequivocally that if I was dreaming my life from anywhere, it was the Tel Aviv Hilton." Er…that would be the Tel Aviv Hilton which only exists in your dream, would it? And so on and so on.

I suspect that Krauss is trying to suggest that we have lost sight of the wonder of the unknown and the numinous, a view with which I have a good deal sympathy, but writing this sort of nonsense certainly doesn't make the case. (And in my view, Eliot's "Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?" says much of it better in two brief sentences.) I do realise that this is a novel and not a philosophical treatise, but in order to have any real content it surely requires some semblance of rationality, or at least originality of imagery. Much of this just read to me like someone trying to show off how clever they are and getting it embarrassingly wrong.

So, I'm afraid I hated Forest Dark. There have been some very fine novels about identity in the modern world recently (including Jewish identity). Salman Rushdie's The Golden House, David Grossman's A Horse Walks Into A Bar and even Will Self's Phone all spring to mind. This doesn't begin to compare, I'm afraid. Nicole Krauss can still write a good sentence and come up with an arresting image from time to time, but as a novel I thought this was very poor. I'm sorry to have to say this about a writer whom I respect, but my advice is to avoid this book.

[Lucy Banks · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received a copy of this book from Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Beautiful prose and a fascinating subject matter - but I was left wondering what the central point was...

Right from the start, I was wowed by the author's stunningly elegant writing; such thought-provoking language, laid out beautifully in this novel which is half about people, half about the nature of Judaism (and indeed, theology in general).

It's a story about Epstein - a man who has it all, then literally gives it all away to pursue the humble life (before he mysteriously goes missing), and an author, who gets coerced into embarking on a project about Kafka.

The two narratives are cleverly written and the level of research is evident - there were so many parts that I was quite captivated by, especially with regards to the major theological questions. However, whilst I was totally involved with the quality of the narrative, I found myself floundering with the plot. It didn't seem to have much drive to it - and I couldn't quite work out what the author was trying to say. Perhaps nothing beyond what was there on the page - perhaps that was the whole point.

I sense it's my ignorance rather than the author's writing ability that's to blame here. It might be one of those books that I'll come back to in the future, to see if I can get anything more from it. Certainly it's spectacularly written though.

[Ron Charles · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some readers may wonder if there’s a connection between the narrator of "Forest Dark" and the critically acclaimed novelist Nicole Krauss, who also has two sons and is separated from her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer. Nothing in these pages discourages the assumption that Krauss is revealing her own laments about the failure of their marriage, which makes “Forest Dark” feel uncomfortably passive aggressive: an act of relationship revenge with deniability built into its fictive frame.

“In the years that followed, he behaved in ways that continually shocked me despite their near constancy,” Nicole writes of her brainy husband. “We walked away from. . . .

To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest: I don't know whate the heck Krauss aimed at with this novel. It’s a double story she presents us: that of the 68-year-old Jewish American Jules Epstein and that of the 39-year-old writer Nicole, also of Jewish descent, who looks remarkably hard like Krauss herself. Epstein has had a sparkling career as a top-lawyer in which he amassed a fortune but also dealt with people very manipulatively. But after the death of both his parents, he seems lost: he hands out his fortune, divorces his wife, falls under the spell of Jewish mystics and moves to Israel. “the storm that was being Epstein no longer raged outside. A great, unnatural stillness descended on everything, as happens before extreme meteorological conditions. Then the wind changed, and from now on the wind would blow inwards.” In the other passages writer Nicole also just had a divorce (giving a rather wry portrait of her former husband), she just as much is lost and she also ends up in Israel.

You guessed it: Krauss was inspired by the beginning sentencess of Dante's Divina Commedia ("In the middle of my life I ended up in a dark forest …"). In alternating passages, she describes the strange adventures of both protagonists. Those of Epstein quite frankly are rather vague and banal. The story of writer Nicole intrigues a little more, among other things because of the connection with Kafka, who is claimed to have spent the last years of his life in Palestine (a rather incredible twist). In these passages, Krauss offers interesting philosophical reflections on the desperate attempts of people to get a grip on reality through stories (the phenomenon of narrativity). And of course Kafka, with his focus on people and alienation, also has written intriguing things about that. The introspective style of Krauss reminded me a bit of Siri Hustvedt, albeit that Krauss especially zooms in on the bond with the Jewish identity. But also the story of Nicole herself ends up fairly confused. Again, it is a mystery to me what Krauss wanted to tell us. Perhaps this book is simply the result of a therapeutic writing session. Anyway, it did not captivate me and I clearly ended up in a … dark forest.

[switterbug (Betsey) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nicole Krauss has always delivered 5 star books, but FOREST DARK is easily her best and most mesmerizing one to date. Poised, elegant, and numinous, it also moved me close to tears and left me exhilarated. She explores that liminal space between darkness and light, the internal and external, emptiness and fullness, and between life and death.

Two unrelated but connected characters and their stories are linked thematically in their quests for spiritual, immaterial completion. Jules Epstein, a wealthy lawyer, is left hollowed out after the death of his parents and divorce after 30+ years of marriage. After audaciously retiring, giving away all his material wealth, he now seeks fulfillment by pursuing an equitable donation to charity in his parents’ name. The pull of otherness preoccupies his thoughts.

”He had rarely lifted his head above the powerful currents of his life, being too busy plunging through them. But there were moments now when he saw the whole view, all the way to the horizon. And it filled him equally with joy and with yearning.”

A charismatic rabbi, insisting that Epstein was a descendant of King David, is pursuing him to attend a reunion of Davidic descendants in Jerusalem. He is convinced that Jules is one of them. The rabbi also intends to inspire Epstein with wisdom and knowledge and to seek elevation toward the transmigration of the soul. “…a broken heart is more full than one that is content: because a broken heart has a vacancy, and the vacancy has the potential to be filled with the infinite.”

Nicole (interestingly), a writer of Jewish literature, feels lost and blocked. Her marriage is stagnating, and the only love in their home is the love that she and her husband have for their children. Both Nicole and Jules are compelled to make another trip, a place familiar to both of them. This may be the vision quest journey of each of their lives.

An aspect of Nicole’s existential crisis and writer’s block, other than her stilted, loveless marriage, had to do with her philosophical outlook of the mystical, and how it impinged on the narrative form. She understood that, in order to create a story, one must take the chaos of the world—the disorder and incoherence—and obscure it to design a form. But it seemed now misguided to her. The things she wrote, she felt, had a greater degree of artifice than truth, “That the cost of administering a form to what was…formless was akin to the cost of breaking the spirit of an animal that is too dangerous to live with.” It didn’t feel impossible, but it felt elusive, and she hoped that the Hilton in Tel Aviv(where she was conceived) held the promise of its aspiration.

In Tel Aviv, Nicole meets an older man, Eliezer Friedman, a retired literature professor and possibly an ex-Mossad agent. He tells the writer that Kafka never died in Prague, but was in fact smuggled to Palestine and tended his gardens for the rest of his days. Friedman wants her to go to this alleged house and also to write, for a screenplay, the conclusion of THE TRIAL, which was incomplete at the end of Kafka’s life—or as Friedman would have it—when he faked his own death. As ambivalent as Nicole is, she was driven to embark on this liminal otherness and achieve self-realization.

The writer remembers a book about ancient Greece that went into the ancient Greek word for time, for which there were two: “chronos, which referred to chronological time, and kairos, used to signify an indeterminate period in which something of great significance happens, a time that is not quantitative but rather has a permanent nature, and contains what might be called ‘the supreme moment.’”

Both Epstein and the melancholy writer are on similar paths to find the presence in the absence, the Tikkun olam, the transformation of the world, which can only proceed from our own internal transformation. The rarefied denouements to their different narratives are written with utter grace and beauty, as is the whole novel. This is a book I can read repeatedly and continue to be astonished at new discoveries. This is certain to be on my top two books of the year, and receive a special place on my shelf. Nicole Krauss is at the pinnacle of her talent. This one didn’t blow my mind—it blew it open.

[Kathleen · Rating 2 out of 5]

My review for the Chicago Tribune: http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifesty...

Nicole Krauss' highly anticipated fourth novel, "Forest Dark," is preceded with a variation on the standard this-is-a-work-of-fiction disclaimer: "References to real people, events, establishments and organizations or locales are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author's imagination and are not to be construed as real."

What is real? stands as one of the book's crucial questions; or maybe, How do we end up in certain realities and not others? One of the ways Krauss chooses to explore these worthy inquiries is by making 50 percent of the book's alternating two-part structure center on a character named Nicole, a middle-aged Brooklyn-based novelist very much like Krauss herself, also struggling with a failing marriage to a fellow intellectual and the rearing of two children, while grappling with writer's block.

Autobiographical fiction is nothing new, of course, and the move of making oneself not just a veiled but an overt character in one's own book can succeed. Joan Didion does it to magnificent effect in her classic novel "Democracy," as does Michael Chabon in his most recent book, "Moonglow." Unfortunately, the Nicole sections of "Forest Dark" suffer from a humorless tone and a foregrounded self-regard in which both writer and character seem to think themselves more insightful than they actually are.

Krauss has Nicole punctuate her didactic first-person discourses with such fatuous rhetorical questions as, "Doesn't part of the awe that fills us when we confront the unknown come from understanding that, should it at last flood into us and be known, we would be altered?" Superficial and self-satisfied, these passages seem intoxicated with their own Intro to Philosophy-style pontification. In a disquisition that follows Nicole's listening in her kitchen to a program on the radio about the multiverse, she expresses her hatred of Descartes and concludes: "Now we have little choice but to live in the arid fields of reason, and as for the unknown, which once lay glittering at the farthest edge of our gaze, channeling our fear but also our hope and longing, we can only regard it with aversion."

Such statements seem intellectually and ethically irresponsible, not to mention out-of-touch. Reason, in the current age of fake news and fear, hardly seems like a place where a majority of people definitively live, arid or not, and one begins to grow increasingly uncomfortable with being forcibly lumped into Nicole's jaded and world-weary "we."

This disappointing narrative comes off as all the more unfortunate when one considers that the other half of the book is more engaging and dynamically written. The third-person parallel story follows Jules Epstein, an immensely wealthy retired New York lawyer, divorced after 35 years and looking to change his life. He unleashes a spate of "radical charity," giving away virtually all his fortune and possessions before heading off to Israel with vague notions of doing something to memorialize his beloved — albeit complex — dead parents.

Epstein tells his adult son Jonah, who tries to dissuade him from his frantic philanthropy, that "he was clearing a space to think," but keeps to himself that "this was thought of an entirely different nature: a thinking that didn't already know its own point."

Although their stories never intersect, both characters wind up at the Tel Aviv Hilton tracking down heady mysteries and feeling flush with the fleeting "American enthusiasm" for Israel that Krauss has a rental agent describe as "so sexy, the sea and the strength, the nearness to violence and the hunger for life." Epstein entangles himself with a rabbi from the United States who argues that both of them are among the descendants of King David, while Nicole encounters a retired literature professor and embarks on an intrigue involving Franz Kafka.

"Forest Dark" draws its title from the opening of Henry Longfellow's translation of Dante's "Inferno": "Midway upon the journey of our life/ I found myself within a forest dark,/ For the straightforward pathway had been lost," which Krauss explains in her author's note was quoted to her "some years ago on a long drive to Jerusalem."

Ultimately, the novel itself loses its way amid rambling solipsism and forced plot twists. Given the critical and popular success of her three previous novels, one hopes that Krauss' fifth book will see her finding her way again.

[Rachel León]

Nicole Krauss is hands down one of my favorite novelists. I'm in awe of her brilliance. Yes, she is a poetic writer who can writes well-crafted beautiful sentences, but her intelligence seems other worldly. She can craft such a rich story that appears simple on the surface, but is deceptively layered with meaning--such is the case with FOREST DARK.

The story juxtaposes the lives of Epstein, a retired attorney, and Nicole, a novelist. The presence of the character of Nicole and the parallels she shares with the author brought to mind EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED. Yet somehow Krauss pulls it off in a subtle way that doesn't feel gimmicky the way the tactic in Safran Foer's debut felt. Epstein and Nicole both go in Tel Aviv, where the story of metamorphosis unfolds. Enter Krauss's brilliant mind: Kafka references and religious history are embedded into the fabric of the novel seamlessly, resulting in a story much deeper than it appears. Krauss's trademark wit and humor make the novel a pleasure to read.

To be honest, I'm still trying to wrap my head around the novel. It wasn't my favorite of Krauss's work, but it's notable in its quiet strength and utter brilliance.

[°°°·.°·..·°¯°·._.· ʜᴇʟᴇɴ Ροζουλί Εωσφόρος ·._.·°¯°·.·° .·°°° ★·.·´¯`·.·★ Ⓥⓔⓡⓝⓤⓢ Ⓟⓞⓡⓣⓘⓣⓞⓡ Ⓐⓡⓒⓐⓝⓤⓢ Ταμετούρο Αμ · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Εγώ δεν μπορώ να ζω με ανθρώπους. Μισώ απεριόριστα όλους τους συγγενείς μου, όχι επειδή είναι συγγενείς μου, [..] αλλά απλώς επειδή είναι οι άνθρωποι που ζουν πλάι μου».
Φ. Κάφκα.

Ο Τζουλς Έπστιν μετά απο εξήντα επτά έτη επιθετικής και πετυχημένης επιβίωσης έχοντας καταφέρει στην
Ν. Υόρκη να δημιουργήσει με απόλυτη επιτυχία πλούτο, σύζυγο, παιδιά,και πολλά υπαρξιακά ερωτήματα, εγκαταλείπει τα πάντα , μοιράζει σχεδόν ολόκληρη την αμύθητη περιουσία του και επιστρέφει στη γενέτειρα του.
Στο ξενοδοχείο Χίλτον του Τελ Αβίβ βγαίνει απο τη σπηλιά της σκυφτής ζωής του, σπάει όλα τα κλισέ της καθημερινής ζωής, αρνείται κάθε σχέση με την κοσμική συνύπαρξη, παραιτείται, παραχωρεί και αισθάνεται την ελαφρότητα, τη δίψα και την αρχαιότητα με ευελιξία και μια αψηφισιά που τον κάνει να νιώθει μεθυσμένος απο χρώματα μιας ευρύτερης ύπαρξης.
Χάνει το όριο ανάμεσα στον ίδιο και τον κόσμο.
Έμπλεος φύσης θεϊκής και ανήθικης νομοτέλειας, αισθανόταν αέναος όπως τα κύματα της ερυθράς θάλασσας,
όπως ο ξηρός άνεμος της ερήμου.
Επαναλαμβανόμενος μέσα στην μεταβατική μοναξιά του προς την τελική μεταμόρφωση γίνεται πλήρης και ζει μια αθέατη ζωή. Σιγά σιγά καταφέρνει τον αυτοσκοπό του, απεκδύθηκε και το δέρμα του.

Περίεργο και μυστηριακό αυτό το βιβλίο μυρίζει έντονα καφκικό άρωμα και διαπνέεται απο μεταφυσικές ανησυχίες αναφορικά με την πραγματικότητα την τόσο υποκειμενικά υπερεκτιμημένη που νιώθουμε πως τη ζούμε και με κάποια άλλη ανεξήγητα αδιαμόρφωτη ζωή η οποία τρέχει παράλληλα με τη συνειδιασιακή μας άγνοια.

Ο τίτλος προέρχεται από την Κόλαση του Δάντη:

«Στου δρόμου της ζωής τη μέση
σε σκοτεινό βρέθηκα δάσος
γιατί το μονοπάτι είχα μπλέξει».

Το Ισραήλ της ιστορίας μας χωρίς ποτέ να είναι τουριστικό, είναι τόσο πραγματικό όσο και η Νέα Υόρκη αντίστοιχα, ειδικά όσον αφορά την πραγματικότητα των δορυφορικών χαρακτήρων που κατοικούν σε κάθε περιοχή, χώρα, ήπειρο, πλανήτη, σύμπαν.


Παράλληλα με την εκούσια εξαφάνιση του Νεοϋορκέζου εκατομμυριούχου διαβάζουμε την ιστορία μιας νέας γυναίκας που τυραννιέται απο το λευκό πανί της συγγραφικής της δεινότητας. Με κάποιο φυσικό ή και μεταφυσικό τρόπο και η συγγραφέας καταλήγει να διαμένει στα πάτρια χώματα καταλύοντας στο Χίλτον του Τελ Αβίβ, εκεί όπου είχε ζήσει σχεδόν τη μισή της ζωή.


Το δημιουργικό της αδιέξοδο δείχνει να γκρεμίζεται και παρότι εμμονική και αδιάλλακτη μπαίνει με συστολή στην ζωή και το έργο του Φράντς Κάφκα, αυτό που δεν εκδόθηκε ποτέ, μα δεν καταστράφηκε και ποτέ σύμφωνα με τις επιθυμίες του πιο ευαίσθητου, ερωτεύσιμου αξιόλογου, μοναδικού, σπουδαιότερου και αναντικατάστατου Γερμανόφωνου, Εβραίου συγγραφέα.

Πέρα απο το αρνητικό στοιχείο του βιβλίου αναφορικά με την ανώνυμη συγγραφέα που όσοι την αναγνωρίζουν διατείνονται πως τα έργα της αποτελούν κληρονομιά της εβραϊκής γραμματείας υπάρχει μια εντυπωσιακή προσωπική ειλικρίνεια εδώ, καθώς εξετάζει τον δεκαετή γάμο της και την επικείμενη κατάρρευσή της ζωής της.

Σε αυτά τα κεφάλαια , η Νικόλ Κράους δεν είναι η σοφή, πνευματικά ανυψωμένη και ρομαντική φιλόσοφος που κρύβεται σε μεγάλες ιδέες, σε μεταφυσικά και υπαρξιακά ερωτήματα θρησκευτικού παγιωμένου θυμιατού μετά απο γάμους και κηδείες, αλλά μια πληγωμένη γυναίκα που προβληματίζεται για το πώς η μεγάλη αγάπη μεταξύ αυτής και του συζύγου της θα μπορούσε να μετατραπεί σε ψυχρή ευγένεια.
Το θέμα του κενού, του χαοτικού προσανατολισμού και του χωρισμού εμφανίζεται ξανά και ξανά, και πάντα είναι οδυνηρό και πάντα ραγίζει καρδιές που μετέπειτα εξαερώνουν τα χημικά αέρια της πίκρας ευκολότερα και γεμίζουν με φρέσκο αεράκι ευτυχίας πιο εύκολα - έτσι ανακαλύπτει ότι δεν είναι πάντα αρνητικό.

Οι δυο ιστορίες δεν έχουν καμία σχέση μεταξύ τους και αυτό ίσως να σημαίνει και την ύπαρξη ταλέντου και επιδεξιότητας απο την λογοτεχνική δομή και λειτουργικότητα που μεταχειρίζεται η δημιουργός.



Όλοι οι χαρακτήρες καθορίζονται από τις πνευματικές τους ανησυχίες. Φυσικά, αυτές είναι συγκεκριμένα εβραϊκές ανησυχίες, εκφρασμένες με όρους ραβινικής φιλοσοφίας. Αλλά αυτό δεν έχει σημασία, γιατί τα ερωτήματα π��υ θέτει σχετικά με την ύπαρξη είναι ερωτήματα που απασχολούν όλους μας, ανεξάρτητα από το θρησκευτικό ή φιλοσοφικό μας πλαίσιο.
Η Νεοϋρκέζα συγγραφεας Νικόλ Κράους ποτέ δεν απαντά, αλλά αφήνει τις ερωτήσεις να έχουν απήχηση τόσο στους χαρακτήρες όσο και στον αναγνώστη.

«Όπως η θρησκεία εξελίχθηκε ως τρόπος να σκεφτούμε και να ζήσουμε
πριν από το άγνωστο, έτσι και τώρα έχουμε στραφεί στην
αντίθετη πρακτική, στην οποία δεν είμαστε λιγότερο αφοσιωμένοι:
πρακτική της γνώσης των πάντων και της πίστης ότι η γνώση
είναι συγκεκριμένη, και πάντα επιτυγχάνεται μέσω των ικανοτήτων της
νόησης.
[…] Όσο περισσότερο [ο Ντεκάρτ] μιλάει με σκοπό να
ακολουθήσει μια ευθεία γραμμή έξω από το δάσος, τόσο πιο
ελκυστικό μου φαίνεται να χάνομαι σε αυτό το δάσος, όπου
κάποτε ζούσαμε με θαυμασμό, και καταλάβαινα ότι ήταν
προϋπόθεση για ένα αυθεντικό πλαίσιο κατανοητής επίγνωσης της ύπαρξης και του κόσμου»



Καλή ανάγνωση
Πολλούς και σεμνούς ασπασμούς.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've given up 30% through this book. It's not that I didn't find some enjoyment in reading it, it's that it became harder and harder to pick it up. I'm not a fan of the two thread novel format generally and, for me, this is a clear example of why.

Essentially we have two unrelated people, a female author who feels trapped in both her domestic and professional lives - she's held as an icon by the Jewish people who feel she champions them in her writing and resents the role - and Epstein, a successful man who feels trapped by his wealth and is earnestly trying to give away as much of it as he can. Both were born in Tel Aviv, were living in the US but have been drawn back to Israel. With Epstein's character, nothing much happens except that he's grumpy. The female author is approached by a professor of literature she doesn't know who wants her to work on some of Kafka's unfinished, not yet public, work. I thought oh no! we're going to analyse Kafka now.

I found the style wearily didactic at times. Characters have clunky conversations about religion or philosophy that read like a school book. I began to wonder where this was all going and then wondered if it was going anywhere. I read a few Goodreads reviews, realised it wasn't really going anywhere, looked at my to-read shelf and thought nope! life is too short! There will be those who love this style of writing but it's just not for me.

With thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for an ARC.

[Annet]

Just got this one in house.
Here's a review from the NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/12/bo...

[Marialyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Midway upon the journey of our life
I found myself within a forest dark,
For the straightforward pathway had been lost" (Dante)

Nicole Krauss has written a book of discovery, one that questions what life is and what one needs or doesn't need to lead a life well lived or possibly just plain lived. She has created two characters both of them searching for themselves in the land of Israel. She makes these characters go through an internal metamorphosis as the land of Israel has done growing into a vibrant strong nation even though being built upon desert sand.

I have always been fascinated with the Jewish culture. I was fortunate enough to have lived in a predominately Jewish neighborhood for thirty plus years and so much of what Ms Krauss wrote of is what I have witnessed in Jewish friends and neighbors. They, as Ms Krauss' characters, have a restlessness, a zeal for learning not only the kind that comes in books but also the learning of self which is what Jules Epstein, a retired extremely successful lawyer who was divorced and a female writer, Nicole, (could this be the author who recently divorced her husband) who seems to have lost her writing skill as well as the love that she once felt for her husband. Jules being an "Epstein" is convinced he has descended from the line of David from which eventually the Messiah will come.

These two characters never meet, yet their journey to self realization takes them down paths that balance on their successes and brings them to the realization that they truly want to breathe again unencumbered by their successes. They are looking for freedom in all things including the ability to fail. Jules gives everything up, money, power, and all that they entail. Nicole gives up her life with her husband and though we do not ever find it out, perhaps she also gives up her career as a writer.

There was so much going on in this book as it entangled the reader into going down various roads to searching along with the characters for who knows what. Do they find it? Who knows? However, what they do find is their freedom and that is quite important is it not?

[♑︎♑︎♑︎ ♑︎♑︎♑︎ · Rating 4 out of 5]

It feels likely that if this novel were sent over the transom from a previously unpublished writer it would never have found an agent much less a publisher. The adjectives that came to mind as I read included "turgid," "boring," "overwrought," "portentous," "pointless," and "self-absorbed." Even so I was determined to set all these judgments aside. I tried instead to think of this novel as a kind of found art. What if I had found this manuscript in a trash receptacle in a Greyhound bus station in Topeka, for instance? I would have read it with relish, and I would have marveled at the mind that had created it. As I read I let go of any standard I might have for Nicole Krauss, successful literary author, and to take the text on its own terms. By approaching my reading with this frame of mind, the many awfulnesses of the novel were not only tolerable, but endearing.

[Joachim Stoop · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nope.

I liked Man walks into a room, loved The history of love and even adored Great house, but this last one was more a drag than a pleasure to read.

I don't mind diving into Jewish culture, identity and historical inner struggles, but it felt as distant to me and yet claustrophobic as Howard Jacobson's The Finkler question.

I felt that parts of the story just didn't concern me so I wasn't engaged. Other parts were long inner monologues and analysis about parenthood, marriage, jews and writing. These were interesting and well written (of course, it's still Nicole Krauss) but seemed to belong more in an essay than in this novel.

I'm still looking forward to her next one. Please make it more compelling and engaging

[Cheryl · Rating 3 out of 5]

And yet isn't this true of all of us? That there are things we feel to be at the heart of our nature that are not borne out by the evidence around us, and so, to protect our delicate sense of integrity, we elect, however unconsciously, to see the world other than the way it really is? And sometimes it leads to transcendence, and sometimes it leads to the unconscionable.

Imagine the idea of being both here and there, of seeing the world in a modified way. Or living in a reality that is different from what others see; a transcendence into some other, some Forest Dark. Think, Kafka: The Metamorphosis.

Epstein submerges into some sort of realm that his loved ones do not understand. At first a wealthy, stoic man, he starts to sell off his wealth in a confusing manner that ends with his living in squalor. And then he disappears. What happened to him and where did he go, his family wants to know. The reader wants to know. Interestingly enough, Epstein, on his journey, does not seem to know either.

In Tel Aviv, at the Hilton, a writer tries to overcome writer's block that perhaps stems from a marriage falling apart. As she fights to maintain a grip on her thoughts, Kafka becomes her muse and she enters this world of strange nuances with characters that exist but maybe do not exist. Or maybe this is where I was just honestly confused.

What if life, which appears to take place down countless long hallways, in waiting rooms and foreign cities, on terraces, in hospitals and gardens, rented rooms and crowded trains, in truth only occurs in only one place, a single location from which one dreams of those other places?

Of course I would have been reading this book while at a conference at the Hilton (in America). (I did try to stay away from the windows because I did not want to see the shadow of a man leaning against the balcony... ) I may seem elusive, but the book and story is elusive. Epstein remained a mystery to me and our writer character, well you never really see her, the husband, or children clearly, even though you hear of the crisis. She is the most elusive. There is also so much and more going on in this 290 page book that makes it a laborious read. There is Kafka. There is religion. There is transformation. There is rich history. And of course there's the Hilton and the mysterious man. Finally, there's the prose: beguiling and gorgeously layered.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story of a young writer paralyzed by writer's block (a writer named Nicole, instantly evoking questions about Krauss' own life) and a parallel story to hers of a 68 year old lawyer who has forced his way to success throughout his life. Both crave a different kind of experience, one of openness, emptiness, an acceptance of the here and now. But not in their homes in New York City but in Israel, a country to which both have strong ties.

One step leads to another until both find themselves in a kind of wilderness, far from home and the selves they are familiar with. They each have an encounter with wildness, a new receptivity to life that does not fit their pre-formed expectations.

I found both stories gripping and the writing mesmerizing. There were so many lines I wanted to memorize. Lines about who we think we are and the difficulty of getting past that prison. Lines about the temptation of both form and chaos. And many sentences regarding Jewish mysticism that I found so tantalizing I wanted to break off from this story and explore those topics more fully (a lifetime of learning).

There was also a fascinating speculative story about Franz Kafka. Somehow it seemed connected to the stories of the woman and the man but I couldn't quite pinpoint the connection. Perhaps something to do with lives not lives, alternative, possible lives. Just as the woman can apparently see into her own future, into her own alternative stories, we are given a beautifully woven story about an alternative ending to the story of Kafka.

Interesting for its connections to Jewish life and thought, the book is also a fascinating story that I didn't want to put down. Although the ending, when it came, felt both right and necessary and I had that feeling of completion that only comes with a satisfying ending. The book's strength is in its intellectual content, less so the emotional, but I found that pleasing enough.

Although I found the book most interesting in its intellectual content, the stories of the people were also intriguing. And the writing was stunning and often thought-provoking.

I must know go read Krauss's other novels.

[Christine Bonheure · Rating 1 out of 5]

‘De geschiedenis van de liefde’ vond ik vijf sterren waard. ‘Donker woud’ situeert zich aan het andere eind van de appreciatieboog. Wat een afschuwelijk boek! Het heeft nochtans de prijs beste boek 2017 gewonnen en krijgt overal voortreffelijke recensies. Maar ik vind er niks aan. Na 163 pagina’s zat ik nog niet in het verhaal. Ik heb dan maar wijselijk besloten het boek dicht te slaan om nooit meer te openen. Al die uitweidingen, dat gefilosofeer, die zelfmoordende balkonspringers, die geniale Kafka. Verhaal? Onbestaand, enkel geouwehoer en theorietjes daarover. Vrouw bevindt zich met een writer’s block in een hotelkamer in Tel Aviv en mijmert onder meer over de ontstaansgeschiedenis van de Koran met al zijn details. Zo saai, zo vervelend. Ik wil een verhaal, geen oeverloos gefilosofeer. Gelukkig was dit een boek uit de bib.

[είναι η θεία Κούλα · Rating 5 out of 5]

Μαστόρισσα η Νικόλ Κράους και μάγκισσα η (μεταφράστρια) Ιωάννα Ηλιάδη. Απολαυστική, ηδονική λογοτεχνία.
Χαμένες ψυχές που ψάχνονται, διπλές ζωές που δεν τις έζησαν, εναλλακτικές πραγματικότητες, η ιστορία μιας επιστήμης σε κάποιο κεφάλαιο, μεταφυσική σε 3 απλά βήματα, μυστηριώδεις ξένοι, αποκόλληση από τις φόρμες, μεταμεθοδολογική μέθοδος, και μεταμόρφωση. Του Κάφκα.
Λοιπόν, λίγο λιγότερο επιγραμματικά και πολύ περισσότερο με δικά μου λόγια.
(Μπορείς να σταματήσεις αυτή την ανάγνωση ΤΩΡΑ δηλαδή)
Έχουμε εδώ ένα διχασμένο μυθιστόρημα. Δύο παράλληλες αφηγήσεις που φαινομενικά δεν συναντώνται πουθενά, αλλά εγώ άλλα κατάλαβα.
Αφήγηση 1. Ένας ζάμπλουτος ογδοηκοντούτης Αμερικάνος κληρονομικά Εβραίος που ονομάζεται Τζουλς Έπστιν, εξαφανίζεται. Αρχίζει να ρετάρει, τα βροντάει όλα κάτω και φεύγει. Κλειστόν λόγω βλάβης. Πάει στο Ισραήλ όπου ένας μυστήριος ραβίνος, εκ πεποιθήσεως Εβραίος, του λέει ότι είναι απόγονος του βασιλιά Δαβίδ. Λίγο τον απασχολεί, άλλα ζητεί η ψυχή του, γι’ άλλα κλαίει. Την ανάπαυση, την ελαφρότητα, τη ζωή που δεν έζησε. Και δέντρα. Θέλει να φτιάξει ένα δάσος.
Αφήγηση 2. Μια συγγραφέας, που τήνε λέν’ Νικόλ κι αυτήνανε, στα πρόθυρα διαζυγίου (το οποίο και πήρε η δικιά μας, η Κράους για, από τον Τζόναθαν τον Σάφραν) και νευρικής κρίσης, κλείνει προσωρινά, λόγω βλάβης κι αυτή σαν τον Έπστιν, την οικογενειακή επιχείρηση φροντίδας ανηλίκων και διάσωσης γάμου, παίρνει κει χάμου δυο βρακιά και πάει Ισραήλ να βρει το μυθιστόρημα που θα γράψει, το οποίο για κάποιο περίεργο λόγο πιστεύει ότι της παίζει κρυφτούλι στο Hilton του Τελ Αβίβ. Εκεί της λέει ένας μυστήριος τύπος ότι ο Κάφκα, που πέθανε το 1924 στην Πράγα, έφυγε μετά θάνατον για Ισραήλ όπου έζησε ανέμελα ως κηπουρός για χρόνια πολλά και τα λοιπά. Έρευνες, στοχασμοί, παράνοιες, πυρετοί. Δεν θα κάνω spoilers.
'Ομως εκείνα τα άλλα που έλεγα πριν πως κατάλαβα εγώ είναι ότι ίσως η ιστορία που κυνηγάει να βρει να γράψει η Νικόλ να είναι η ιστορία του Έπστιν. Έλα ρε, γιατί όχι. Διαβάσέ το να συμφωνήσουμε αγαπημένα μπροστά στο τζάκι με ένα ποτήρι στο χέρι και δάκρυα χαράς να στραφταλίζουν από τις φλόγες σαν μαργαριτάρια στα μάτια μας.
Ακόμα ένα ωραιότατο μυθιστόρημα για τον παλιό τον χρόνο που πάει. Φίνο βγήκε το δύοχιλιάδεςδεκαοχτάρι. Φτου φτου.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I 95% chalk this rating to user error, but I honestly have no idea what was going on in Forest Dark. That's not to say that I couldn't follow the plot. I could. Mostly.

The story, though? I am at a complete loss on the significance--the meaning--of the whole thing. I have a strong sense that someone more versed in/familiar with Israel and Judaism's scripture/stories would be able to decode what Nicole Krauss is going for. To me, however, the plot (plots) never accreted into a recognizable story.

[Roula · Rating 1 out of 5]

Απίστευτα βαρετό, δε μπορω να γράψω τίποτε άλλο πέρα από αυτό, γιατί θα προϋπέθετε ότι πρεπει να το ξανασκεφτώ και είναι ΑΠΊΣΤΕΥΤΑ ΒΑΡΕΤΌ... 😭🤣

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

Review TK.