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Kaddish.com
From the Pulitzer prize shortlisted author of What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, a brilliant, streamlined comic novel, reminiscent of early Philip Roth.
Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for 11 months. To the horror and dismay of his mother and sisters, Larry refuses-thus imperiling the fate of his father's soul. To appease them, and in penance for failing to mourn his father correctly, he hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called Kaddish.com to recite the daily prayer and shepherd his father's soul safely to rest.
This is Nathan Englander's freshest and funniest work to date-a satire that touches, lightly and with unforgettable humor, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both. A novel about atonement; family and duty; about spiritual redemption; and about the soul-sickening temptations of the internet, which, like God, is everywhere.
Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for 11 months. To the horror and dismay of his mother and sisters, Larry refuses-thus imperiling the fate of his father's soul. To appease them, and in penance for failing to mourn his father correctly, he hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called Kaddish.com to recite the daily prayer and shepherd his father's soul safely to rest.
This is Nathan Englander's freshest and funniest work to date-a satire that touches, lightly and with unforgettable humor, on the conflict between religious and secular worlds, and the hypocrisies that run through both. A novel about atonement; family and duty; about spiritual redemption; and about the soul-sickening temptations of the internet, which, like God, is everywhere.
160 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 26, 2019
421 people are currently reading
3924 people want to read
About the author
Nathan Englander
47 books407 followersNathan Englander is a Jewish-American author born in Long Island, NY in 1970. He wrote the short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, published by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., in 1999. The volume won widespread critical acclaim, earning Englander the 2000 PEN/Faulkner Malamud Award and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Sue Kauffman Prize, and established him as an important writer of fiction.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 455 reviews
March 25, 2019
“Kaddish.com” is a novel, but its first part serves as another reminder of Nathan Englander’s extraordinary skill as a short story writer. Set 20 years before the rest of the book, it describes a contentious family gathering following a patriarch’s death. Larry — the black sheep — has come from Brooklyn to stay with his Orthodox sister in Memphis as they sit shiva. Despite hearing the “quiet, muttering stream of well-wishers,” he feels harshly appraised. “I want them not to judge me just because I left their stupid world,” he hisses at his sister in the kitchen. These two siblings lash out at each other with words sharpened by grief. Larry insists he be allowed to mourn in his own way. His sister upbraids him for thoughtlessly ignoring their traditions. “It’s no reason to treat me like a freak,” he cries. “They’re just stupid rules.”
But of course, they’re not just stupid rules — not to his sister and not even to Larry. One of the fascinating points Englander explores in “kaddish.com” is the way ardent followers and angry apostates both regard religious tradition with awe — but from different sides. “Sometimes the rejection is a way to let people know that the thing we reject truly matters,” Larry says much later. “It is its own kind of faith, even if it’s the opposite of faith.”
Larry and his sister may lose control, but Englander. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
But of course, they’re not just stupid rules — not to his sister and not even to Larry. One of the fascinating points Englander explores in “kaddish.com” is the way ardent followers and angry apostates both regard religious tradition with awe — but from different sides. “Sometimes the rejection is a way to let people know that the thing we reject truly matters,” Larry says much later. “It is its own kind of faith, even if it’s the opposite of faith.”
Larry and his sister may lose control, but Englander. . . .
To read the rest of this review, go to The Washington Post:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entert...
August 1, 2020
People compare Nathan Englander to Philip Roth and it's a fair comparison only in that they are both Jewish and they both have a talent for writing scenes that include masturbation.
But Roth lived at a time when he felt his goals included defining for his readers what it meant to be a secular American Jew--with the emphasis on "American." His characters are Jewish, yes, but in a mostly secular way, where the obligation and identity are sublimated, and where their greater goal as characters is to be as mainstream-American as possible. Roth lived through a time when redlining was still an open secret, and when people went out of their way to not hire Jews, or allow them in their clubs; his novels worked, on one level, to unmask the absurdity that Jewish Americans were different from any other Americans.
Englander is a couple of generations younger than Roth. The goal of his Jewish characters feels different. They are thinking about the downside of being as secular and as assimilated as possible. Englander makes his characters think more deeply about their faith than Roth does. They think about the weight of obligation they have to remain Jews, and to carry forward faith traditions intact from one generation to the next.
In kaddish.com the protagonist, Larry, seems at first as if he has wandered out of a Roth novel. He has left his traditions behind. He is an atheist and a sensualist. When his father dies he refuses to take on the obligation that would fall on him traditionally, were he observant, of reciting the Kaddish. The refusal catapults him into a very different direction for his life than what he'd planned.
Most of the novel is an exploration of what it might be like for an American Jew to turn away from mainstream American life and to return to an Orthodox way of life. And it is like nothing Roth ever wrote, because from about page 45 on it immerses the reader in the rhythms of Orthodox-Jewish traditions, where the characters are people of deep faith, who believe, for instance, that their prayers have consequences in the afterlife, and who observe traditions with, well, religious intensity.
There is a thread of the surreal here that reminds me of Englander's first story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and there is also a touch of the comic, but on the whole I experienced the novel as a serious reflection on what it means to be an observant Jew in the modern world.
But Roth lived at a time when he felt his goals included defining for his readers what it meant to be a secular American Jew--with the emphasis on "American." His characters are Jewish, yes, but in a mostly secular way, where the obligation and identity are sublimated, and where their greater goal as characters is to be as mainstream-American as possible. Roth lived through a time when redlining was still an open secret, and when people went out of their way to not hire Jews, or allow them in their clubs; his novels worked, on one level, to unmask the absurdity that Jewish Americans were different from any other Americans.
Englander is a couple of generations younger than Roth. The goal of his Jewish characters feels different. They are thinking about the downside of being as secular and as assimilated as possible. Englander makes his characters think more deeply about their faith than Roth does. They think about the weight of obligation they have to remain Jews, and to carry forward faith traditions intact from one generation to the next.
In kaddish.com the protagonist, Larry, seems at first as if he has wandered out of a Roth novel. He has left his traditions behind. He is an atheist and a sensualist. When his father dies he refuses to take on the obligation that would fall on him traditionally, were he observant, of reciting the Kaddish. The refusal catapults him into a very different direction for his life than what he'd planned.
Most of the novel is an exploration of what it might be like for an American Jew to turn away from mainstream American life and to return to an Orthodox way of life. And it is like nothing Roth ever wrote, because from about page 45 on it immerses the reader in the rhythms of Orthodox-Jewish traditions, where the characters are people of deep faith, who believe, for instance, that their prayers have consequences in the afterlife, and who observe traditions with, well, religious intensity.
There is a thread of the surreal here that reminds me of Englander's first story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, and there is also a touch of the comic, but on the whole I experienced the novel as a serious reflection on what it means to be an observant Jew in the modern world.
April 17, 2019
I’ve read many short stories by Nathan Englander, but this is the first novel I’ve read by him.
When the story begins, we learn that Larry’s father has just died. He’s at his sisters house in Memphis, Tennessee - ‘having’ to sit shivah when the story begins. Larry’s sister, Dina, is driving him insane. She’s ruthless about the ancient rituals. They must be observed correctly according to Jewish law.
Larry, Dina, and their family grew up in an ultra-orthodox Jewish home in Royal Hills, Brooklyn.
Larry had turned away from the strict orthodox observances years ago. ( very similar to Nathan Englander himself).
I wanted to slap Dina for using profanity- force - guilt - and righteous indignation onto Larry....
Dina was a ‘bitch’.
She insisted her younger brother grow up - ( he was 30 and plenty grown up), and take responsibility for the Jewish laws.
According to Dina there was only one way to morn the dead.
Too bad Dina wasn’t born male.. she could have had the responsibility and pleasure of following the perfect traditional laws in Judaism.
But, the responsibility belongs to the male son.
NO WAY does Larry want to say the Kaddish every day for ***11***months.
Larry refuses. He loves his father - and wants to morn his father’s death his own damn way. I was cheering him on.
When a Rabbi tells Larry that he could pass his responsibility off to a proxy to recite the Kaddish - (***3***times a day) - every day - for those 11 months - he turns to a website Kaddish.com ... a Jewish website to find the perfect replacement..... (a
Talmudic student, ‘Chemi’, in Jerusalem).
Jewish law allows an emissary can be hired.
The story takes a huge leap into the future. Larry repents what he has done. Guilt and regret overtake him.. (twenty years later?/!)...
but even more than guilt itself - Larry really loved his father. He begins seeking Jewish spirituality
and religious connections.
We are taken on a fascinating ethnical journey.
We witness Larry’s religious transformation. He changes his name to Shuli.
Larry/Shuli leaves his wife ( bless her), and children. He flies from his now home in Brooklyn where he’s been a professor/ rabbi of Hebrew studies to Jerusalem to meet Chemi.
Chemi is Shuli’s guide for religious transformation.
The book makes many references to Biblical religious texts.. and Talmudic laws.
I can’t imagine much of this being understood by non- Jews.... but the heart of the issue... (inquiry into Jewish Orthodox believers vs. secular non Jewish believes)... everyone can understand.
Believe or not believe?
Compassion for each other’s Jewish points of view and lifestyle choices for a modern day Jew is what I most thought about.
I’ve seen some nasty - ugly Jewish righteousness from the ultra Orthodox community. Just sayin!
This book has a satire edge to it - but there’s some deep thought going on.
We tap into the Jewish faith, prayers, laws
and beliefs. An inquiry
about the role of religious prayer for a modern American Jew is at the heart of the matter.
As for style: Nathan’s writing:
I found it mostly effective...( flaws in storytelling development), but with a clear purpose. Under all the satire/ish scenes- Nathan’s
prose shines with love.
Religious Jews vs. non religious Jews ...AS IN LETS TALK ABOUT THIS ISSUE.... is a great book choice for Jewish book clubs.
Jews ‘really’ hearing each other’s point of view - in my opinion and experience- is a challenge!!!
Beware: ( ha)...
There is a sex scene with a fish.
I think it was suppose to be funny.
I was a little squeamish with the visual Nathan created.
I admit my emotions were ‘triggered’ several times. I felt a range of emotions from anger - laughter - to warmth & love ...and everything in between.
Overall:
This tongue-n-cheek novel
was insightful with sparking compelling dialogue.
When the story begins, we learn that Larry’s father has just died. He’s at his sisters house in Memphis, Tennessee - ‘having’ to sit shivah when the story begins. Larry’s sister, Dina, is driving him insane. She’s ruthless about the ancient rituals. They must be observed correctly according to Jewish law.
Larry, Dina, and their family grew up in an ultra-orthodox Jewish home in Royal Hills, Brooklyn.
Larry had turned away from the strict orthodox observances years ago. ( very similar to Nathan Englander himself).
I wanted to slap Dina for using profanity- force - guilt - and righteous indignation onto Larry....
Dina was a ‘bitch’.
She insisted her younger brother grow up - ( he was 30 and plenty grown up), and take responsibility for the Jewish laws.
According to Dina there was only one way to morn the dead.
Too bad Dina wasn’t born male.. she could have had the responsibility and pleasure of following the perfect traditional laws in Judaism.
But, the responsibility belongs to the male son.
NO WAY does Larry want to say the Kaddish every day for ***11***months.
Larry refuses. He loves his father - and wants to morn his father’s death his own damn way. I was cheering him on.
When a Rabbi tells Larry that he could pass his responsibility off to a proxy to recite the Kaddish - (***3***times a day) - every day - for those 11 months - he turns to a website Kaddish.com ... a Jewish website to find the perfect replacement..... (a
Talmudic student, ‘Chemi’, in Jerusalem).
Jewish law allows an emissary can be hired.
The story takes a huge leap into the future. Larry repents what he has done. Guilt and regret overtake him.. (twenty years later?/!)...
but even more than guilt itself - Larry really loved his father. He begins seeking Jewish spirituality
and religious connections.
We are taken on a fascinating ethnical journey.
We witness Larry’s religious transformation. He changes his name to Shuli.
Larry/Shuli leaves his wife ( bless her), and children. He flies from his now home in Brooklyn where he’s been a professor/ rabbi of Hebrew studies to Jerusalem to meet Chemi.
Chemi is Shuli’s guide for religious transformation.
The book makes many references to Biblical religious texts.. and Talmudic laws.
I can’t imagine much of this being understood by non- Jews.... but the heart of the issue... (inquiry into Jewish Orthodox believers vs. secular non Jewish believes)... everyone can understand.
Believe or not believe?
Compassion for each other’s Jewish points of view and lifestyle choices for a modern day Jew is what I most thought about.
I’ve seen some nasty - ugly Jewish righteousness from the ultra Orthodox community. Just sayin!
This book has a satire edge to it - but there’s some deep thought going on.
We tap into the Jewish faith, prayers, laws
and beliefs. An inquiry
about the role of religious prayer for a modern American Jew is at the heart of the matter.
As for style: Nathan’s writing:
I found it mostly effective...( flaws in storytelling development), but with a clear purpose. Under all the satire/ish scenes- Nathan’s
prose shines with love.
Religious Jews vs. non religious Jews ...AS IN LETS TALK ABOUT THIS ISSUE.... is a great book choice for Jewish book clubs.
Jews ‘really’ hearing each other’s point of view - in my opinion and experience- is a challenge!!!
Beware: ( ha)...
There is a sex scene with a fish.
I think it was suppose to be funny.
I was a little squeamish with the visual Nathan created.
I admit my emotions were ‘triggered’ several times. I felt a range of emotions from anger - laughter - to warmth & love ...and everything in between.
Overall:
This tongue-n-cheek novel
was insightful with sparking compelling dialogue.
April 3, 2019
2.5
Like many secular Jews, I am a fan of Philip Roth, whose irreverent audacious writing did not shy away from tackling the issue of Jewish identity in the United States, especially the generational conflicts between the more conservative religious generation and younger and more secular liberal youth that shaped the community in the post WW2 years.
So I was excited to see Nathan Englander’s new book, Kaddish.com, be compared to the early writing of Roth. Englander was a Pulitzer finalist for a previous short story collection that seemed to also tackle issues of contemporary Jewish identity (admittedly I have not read it) so this seemed promising. While there are definitely echoes of Roth and Englander certainly writes well, this newest novel missed the mark and felt dated, better situated alongside Goodbye Columbus rather than a more modern take with its finger on the pulse of a Jewish identity in conflict and in flux.
We follow the story of a thirty year old Larry, at his father’s deathbed, trying to justify his own rejection of more orthodox traditions and the religious obligations his father now demands of him as the oldest son. Being asked to engage in The Mourners Kaddish, a prayer done for eleven months after a loved ones death, Larry shirks the responsibility and signs up for a website service that promises to perform the ritual on the mourner’s behalf. Many years later, now a rabbi, the regretful son tries to track down those running the website so that he can re-acquire the Kaddish responsibility and do his father right. In doing so he must confront what his past failings mean to his spiritual self and what he must do to seek penance.
The story in itself is told well, although significantly less acerbic and less funny than Roth, more sentimental and moralistic compared to the master’s despondency towards such feelings in his writing. But that bothered me less than the relevancy of the story. While orthodox vs liberal conflicts (individual and in the community as a whole) occur these are hardly the most important in American Jewry compared to when the classic Goodby Columbus came out in 1959. Instead the kinds of divisions that are fracturing the community deal largely with Israel and whether that state should form something intrinsic to our Jewish identity. More and more, young Jews are saying no and are forming quite different identities than their parents, identities that embrace more radical political traditions inside Judaism. Englander is of course not obligated to delve into this in his fiction, but to revert to the realm of orthodox v secular as the framing of a novel very much about Jewish identity he has produced a work that feels stale and not particularly relevant to the questions many Jews, including myself, want our fiction to grapple with. For that read this novel fails and I continue to wait for our generation’s Roth, our Goodbye Columbus.
Like many secular Jews, I am a fan of Philip Roth, whose irreverent audacious writing did not shy away from tackling the issue of Jewish identity in the United States, especially the generational conflicts between the more conservative religious generation and younger and more secular liberal youth that shaped the community in the post WW2 years.
So I was excited to see Nathan Englander’s new book, Kaddish.com, be compared to the early writing of Roth. Englander was a Pulitzer finalist for a previous short story collection that seemed to also tackle issues of contemporary Jewish identity (admittedly I have not read it) so this seemed promising. While there are definitely echoes of Roth and Englander certainly writes well, this newest novel missed the mark and felt dated, better situated alongside Goodbye Columbus rather than a more modern take with its finger on the pulse of a Jewish identity in conflict and in flux.
We follow the story of a thirty year old Larry, at his father’s deathbed, trying to justify his own rejection of more orthodox traditions and the religious obligations his father now demands of him as the oldest son. Being asked to engage in The Mourners Kaddish, a prayer done for eleven months after a loved ones death, Larry shirks the responsibility and signs up for a website service that promises to perform the ritual on the mourner’s behalf. Many years later, now a rabbi, the regretful son tries to track down those running the website so that he can re-acquire the Kaddish responsibility and do his father right. In doing so he must confront what his past failings mean to his spiritual self and what he must do to seek penance.
The story in itself is told well, although significantly less acerbic and less funny than Roth, more sentimental and moralistic compared to the master’s despondency towards such feelings in his writing. But that bothered me less than the relevancy of the story. While orthodox vs liberal conflicts (individual and in the community as a whole) occur these are hardly the most important in American Jewry compared to when the classic Goodby Columbus came out in 1959. Instead the kinds of divisions that are fracturing the community deal largely with Israel and whether that state should form something intrinsic to our Jewish identity. More and more, young Jews are saying no and are forming quite different identities than their parents, identities that embrace more radical political traditions inside Judaism. Englander is of course not obligated to delve into this in his fiction, but to revert to the realm of orthodox v secular as the framing of a novel very much about Jewish identity he has produced a work that feels stale and not particularly relevant to the questions many Jews, including myself, want our fiction to grapple with. For that read this novel fails and I continue to wait for our generation’s Roth, our Goodbye Columbus.
April 14, 2019
"Larry is an atheist in a family of orthodox Memphis Jews. When his father dies, it is his responsibility as the surviving son to recite the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, every day for eleven months. He hatches an ingenious if cynical plan, hiring a stranger through a website called kaddish.com...."
This novel is a quick read and not as dense as the last one from this author, but Larry is a likeable fool of a character who is still able to go on a deeper journey of self-examination, in what he owes to his family, how much of his identity comes from being Jewish and what that should ultimately mean for his life.
My rating is more like 3.5 stars. It's very readable and Larry is a good character, but there is a major character shift that the author doesn't take the reader through but rather makes a big time jump, and I can't help but think the best novel would have at least included that story.
I had a digital copy from the publisher through Edelweiss. It came out March 26, 2019.
This novel is a quick read and not as dense as the last one from this author, but Larry is a likeable fool of a character who is still able to go on a deeper journey of self-examination, in what he owes to his family, how much of his identity comes from being Jewish and what that should ultimately mean for his life.
My rating is more like 3.5 stars. It's very readable and Larry is a good character, but there is a major character shift that the author doesn't take the reader through but rather makes a big time jump, and I can't help but think the best novel would have at least included that story.
I had a digital copy from the publisher through Edelweiss. It came out March 26, 2019.
April 15, 2019
When Larry’s father dies in 1999, sitting shiva at his sister’s house in Memphis is as much as he can cope with; he knows he’ll never manage to pray for his father’s soul for a whole year, as is his duty in Orthodox Judaism. Once he’s back in New York City he’s unlikely to even set foot in a synagogue. Camping out in his nephew’s room, he breaks off from Internet porn long enough to find a website that promises a yeshiva student in Jerusalem will say the Kaddish for his father – for a price.
Twenty years later, that slob Larry doesn’t exist anymore; he’s become a rabbi, Shuli, teaching seventh grade at a yeshiva in Brooklyn and married with two kids. When a favorite student loses his father, it brings back all the shame of failing to do his duty by his own father, and Shuli decides to find the people behind kaddish.com and take back the burden he never should have passed off to someone else. The deeper he digs with the help of his technology-minded students, though, the more it seems like kaddish.com might not exist.
The novel’s tone is a cross between Shalom Auslander and Dave Eggers, and there’s something haunting about the idea of responsibility coming back to claim you, but a fundamental problem I had with the book was the sharp contrast between Part I (Larry) and Part II (Shuli): I’m not sure I ever fully bought that this was the same character, religiously rehabilitated. And Shuli’s quest to Jerusalem – though it’s a locale described in vivid detail – left me cold.
I was surprised to realize that this is actually the first novel I’ve read by Englander; I’ve only ever read his short stories before. I will certainly try more of his books, and would say this is worth a try if you’ve enjoyed classic Philip Roth and recent Jonathan Safran Foer.
Twenty years later, that slob Larry doesn’t exist anymore; he’s become a rabbi, Shuli, teaching seventh grade at a yeshiva in Brooklyn and married with two kids. When a favorite student loses his father, it brings back all the shame of failing to do his duty by his own father, and Shuli decides to find the people behind kaddish.com and take back the burden he never should have passed off to someone else. The deeper he digs with the help of his technology-minded students, though, the more it seems like kaddish.com might not exist.
The novel’s tone is a cross between Shalom Auslander and Dave Eggers, and there’s something haunting about the idea of responsibility coming back to claim you, but a fundamental problem I had with the book was the sharp contrast between Part I (Larry) and Part II (Shuli): I’m not sure I ever fully bought that this was the same character, religiously rehabilitated. And Shuli’s quest to Jerusalem – though it’s a locale described in vivid detail – left me cold.
I was surprised to realize that this is actually the first novel I’ve read by Englander; I’ve only ever read his short stories before. I will certainly try more of his books, and would say this is worth a try if you’ve enjoyed classic Philip Roth and recent Jonathan Safran Foer.
May 30, 2019
How has it come to this?
Nathan Englander may well be the finest current practitioner of the Jewish short story. His “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges,” “How We Avenged the Blums,” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” are all at least minor masterpieces, and I can’t imagine teaching a Jewish-American literature class without at least mentioning him these days.
But someone, maybe him and maybe his agent, has told him he has to turn out a novel in order to be genuinely big time.
His first attempt, The Ministry of Special Cases, had some powerful moments, including its remarkable opening conceit of a character who literally erases history. (His job is to scour grave markers so that the children and grandchildren of the criminal element can deny their ancestors’ crimes.) It goes on too long and descends into an unrelieved darkness, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
His second, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, strikes me as almost a great novel. It has a couple scenes – the one of Ariel Sharon reliving a moment when he was blown sky-high by a mortar – that are masterful, and it asks some brutal and powerful questions about Israeli hopes for peace. It ends on a somewhat unearned note, but I highly recommend it. When it came out two years ago, I assumed our next Englander would finally be a great novel.
But this one, his third, isn’t merely flawed like its predecessors. It’s a flat-out bad book.
For starters, this is a highly contrived story. Our protagonist, whom we meet in the days of his irreligiousity, hires an on-line company to say the Jewish prayer for the dead twice a day for his recently deceased father. Years later, he comes to think of himself as having sold a crucial birthright, and he sets out to buy it back.
I’ll skip the convoluted descriptions of how he comes to track down the people behind the website, but I’ll point out that there’s nothing inherently “modern” about hiring people to say Kaddish. It’s a central plot point in Israel Zangwill’s The King of the Schnorrers, published 125 years ago, and it’s a long and nearly honored practice. There may not be a full transfer of “birthright” as takes place here, but the distinction is so narrow that – without more reflection than Englander offers – it comes across as a particular complaint of a particular individual. It’s not a moral issue, and it isn’t really even an issue of Jewish law. It’s just a man who won’t forgive himself (as his wife repeatedly tells him) and a plot contrived to give him excuses not to do so.
In addition, there’s no substantive character development. Our protagonist is so anti-religious at the start that he – in line with Alexander Portnoy – streams porn on his nephew’s computer right after sitting shiva for his father. Then, without pretense of explanation, he becomes devout, marries, and takes a job teaching at his own childhood religious school. We never see why he’s so transformed and, while there might be intrigue in that omission, it seems as if it’s central to his motivation to track down the people behind the website. That is, the lesser part of his thinking is crucial to what’s happening in the novel while the larger question goes by without giving us opportunity to ponder it.
And, finally, this undermines much of what makes Englander’s short stories so powerful. As someone raised in the Orthodox world, he has always had the capacity to show us Orthodoxy without exoticizing it. His characters are three-dimensional; they take the world as they find it.
Here, though, we’re left to look on the world of the Orthodox as implicitly peculiar. They’re wedded to rituals, well, because. Because they’re wedded to rituals. Their character is less who they are and more how they define themselves through actions. If it had been much blunter, we might have gotten a glossary at the back translating the ‘strange’ conduct of our characters into ‘real and comprehensible’ English.
I’ll acknowledge there’s a residue of serious question here, and there are a couple of scenes where Englander seems within two steps of his best and most sublime work, but I am deeply disappointed on the whole. He’s shown us that he has it in him to be among our very best writers. With this, I have come to doubt it.
Nathan Englander may well be the finest current practitioner of the Jewish short story. His “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges,” “How We Avenged the Blums,” and “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” are all at least minor masterpieces, and I can’t imagine teaching a Jewish-American literature class without at least mentioning him these days.
But someone, maybe him and maybe his agent, has told him he has to turn out a novel in order to be genuinely big time.
His first attempt, The Ministry of Special Cases, had some powerful moments, including its remarkable opening conceit of a character who literally erases history. (His job is to scour grave markers so that the children and grandchildren of the criminal element can deny their ancestors’ crimes.) It goes on too long and descends into an unrelieved darkness, but it’s certainly worthwhile.
His second, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, strikes me as almost a great novel. It has a couple scenes – the one of Ariel Sharon reliving a moment when he was blown sky-high by a mortar – that are masterful, and it asks some brutal and powerful questions about Israeli hopes for peace. It ends on a somewhat unearned note, but I highly recommend it. When it came out two years ago, I assumed our next Englander would finally be a great novel.
But this one, his third, isn’t merely flawed like its predecessors. It’s a flat-out bad book.
For starters, this is a highly contrived story. Our protagonist, whom we meet in the days of his irreligiousity, hires an on-line company to say the Jewish prayer for the dead twice a day for his recently deceased father. Years later, he comes to think of himself as having sold a crucial birthright, and he sets out to buy it back.
I’ll skip the convoluted descriptions of how he comes to track down the people behind the website, but I’ll point out that there’s nothing inherently “modern” about hiring people to say Kaddish. It’s a central plot point in Israel Zangwill’s The King of the Schnorrers, published 125 years ago, and it’s a long and nearly honored practice. There may not be a full transfer of “birthright” as takes place here, but the distinction is so narrow that – without more reflection than Englander offers – it comes across as a particular complaint of a particular individual. It’s not a moral issue, and it isn’t really even an issue of Jewish law. It’s just a man who won’t forgive himself (as his wife repeatedly tells him) and a plot contrived to give him excuses not to do so.
In addition, there’s no substantive character development. Our protagonist is so anti-religious at the start that he – in line with Alexander Portnoy – streams porn on his nephew’s computer right after sitting shiva for his father. Then, without pretense of explanation, he becomes devout, marries, and takes a job teaching at his own childhood religious school. We never see why he’s so transformed and, while there might be intrigue in that omission, it seems as if it’s central to his motivation to track down the people behind the website. That is, the lesser part of his thinking is crucial to what’s happening in the novel while the larger question goes by without giving us opportunity to ponder it.
And, finally, this undermines much of what makes Englander’s short stories so powerful. As someone raised in the Orthodox world, he has always had the capacity to show us Orthodoxy without exoticizing it. His characters are three-dimensional; they take the world as they find it.
Here, though, we’re left to look on the world of the Orthodox as implicitly peculiar. They’re wedded to rituals, well, because. Because they’re wedded to rituals. Their character is less who they are and more how they define themselves through actions. If it had been much blunter, we might have gotten a glossary at the back translating the ‘strange’ conduct of our characters into ‘real and comprehensible’ English.
I’ll acknowledge there’s a residue of serious question here, and there are a couple of scenes where Englander seems within two steps of his best and most sublime work, but I am deeply disappointed on the whole. He’s shown us that he has it in him to be among our very best writers. With this, I have come to doubt it.
May 7, 2019
At first I wasn't sure if I would like this book but after about 50 pages or so I was reeled in. Not being Jewish myself I didn't understand a few of the Yiddish words and was unaware of some of the traditions. But I feel the overall concept of youthful rebellion and then returning as we age to practice and observe family values is something many of us can relate to. An interesting take on what it means to be an observant Jew in modern America.
March 31, 2023
I have very mixed feelings about this novel (as, apparently, does the world of book reviews, because the professional reviews have ranged from 90% praise to 90% critical).
First, a quick plot summary: Larry, a 30-year-old New Yorker working in the advertising industry, has rejected his Orthodox Jewish upbringing but remains close to his father. After his father dies, his older sister, Dina, points out that Jewish law requires-- and his father expected-- Larry, as the only son, to say the mourner's kaddish prayer three times a day for 11 months. Both of them know that Larry can't be relied on to fulfill what he sees as a meaningless routine. Then he learns that he can fulfill that obligation by hiring a proxy like kaddish.com, which he finds through the Internet. Problem solved? Not really, because the process has somehow transformed Larry: When the book picks up next, 20 years later, he is back in the Orthodox fold as a contented husband, father, and yeshiva teacher. But he is hounded by guilt over a particular aspect of kaddish.com--the fact that he symbolically turned over his filial role to the proxy. His obsession to get back his symbolic role risks his marriage, his job, and maybe his commitment to his faith.
The book was engrossing and original. I sure didn't foresee the plot twists, and as a secular Jew myself, I was fascinated by the debates over Jewish beliefs and laws, and the description of a traditional lifestyle.
But.
For one thing, the plot and characters don't cohere. While this was obviously not intended to be a novel about the transformation of a secular man into a religious one, that huge change was nevertheless too abrupt. If the reader is going to care about Larry (renamed Shuli) and accept that his actions make sense, the reader needs to understand him better. For many readers, I suspect that Shuli's motivation will seem too obscure or picayune.
Furthermore, both Shuli's naivete and his wife Miri's patience are just not believable. Shuli (in his Larry days) had spent a decade in the cutthroat business world, after all. And even in the most cloistered religious community, there are always a few gonifs (thieves). Would Shuli really, really believe that the reason kaddish.com isn't answering his emails is because the rabbi who heads it is so humble that he doesn't want fame or thanks?
But even with those unbelievable personality traits, ultimately the best part of this book is the characters. They are largely well-meaning people written with love, sympathy, and humor.
First, a quick plot summary: Larry, a 30-year-old New Yorker working in the advertising industry, has rejected his Orthodox Jewish upbringing but remains close to his father. After his father dies, his older sister, Dina, points out that Jewish law requires-- and his father expected-- Larry, as the only son, to say the mourner's kaddish prayer three times a day for 11 months. Both of them know that Larry can't be relied on to fulfill what he sees as a meaningless routine. Then he learns that he can fulfill that obligation by hiring a proxy like kaddish.com, which he finds through the Internet. Problem solved? Not really, because the process has somehow transformed Larry: When the book picks up next, 20 years later, he is back in the Orthodox fold as a contented husband, father, and yeshiva teacher. But he is hounded by guilt over a particular aspect of kaddish.com--the fact that he symbolically turned over his filial role to the proxy. His obsession to get back his symbolic role risks his marriage, his job, and maybe his commitment to his faith.
The book was engrossing and original. I sure didn't foresee the plot twists, and as a secular Jew myself, I was fascinated by the debates over Jewish beliefs and laws, and the description of a traditional lifestyle.
But.
For one thing, the plot and characters don't cohere. While this was obviously not intended to be a novel about the transformation of a secular man into a religious one, that huge change was nevertheless too abrupt. If the reader is going to care about Larry (renamed Shuli) and accept that his actions make sense, the reader needs to understand him better. For many readers, I suspect that Shuli's motivation will seem too obscure or picayune.
Furthermore, both Shuli's naivete and his wife Miri's patience are just not believable. Shuli (in his Larry days) had spent a decade in the cutthroat business world, after all. And even in the most cloistered religious community, there are always a few gonifs (thieves). Would Shuli really, really believe that the reason kaddish.com isn't answering his emails is because the rabbi who heads it is so humble that he doesn't want fame or thanks?
But even with those unbelievable personality traits, ultimately the best part of this book is the characters. They are largely well-meaning people written with love, sympathy, and humor.
March 24, 2019
I have tried to appreciate Englander's humour but all I can manage is the occasional wry smile. Larry is an Orthodox Jewish apostate who delegates reciting Kaddish for his father to an unknown yeshiva student via a web site but later returns to his faith and tries to trace the student, with a little (not unexpected) twist at the end of his quest.
As a plot, it's a bit thin and Larry/Shuli is not a convincing character. If the book is intended as satire, it was so gentle that I missed it. His exploitation of the young student who shows him how to use the internet made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, which may have been the author's intention. And there is a very weird dream scene featuring glass sex toys, the meaning of which was entirely lost on me.
As a plot, it's a bit thin and Larry/Shuli is not a convincing character. If the book is intended as satire, it was so gentle that I missed it. His exploitation of the young student who shows him how to use the internet made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, which may have been the author's intention. And there is a very weird dream scene featuring glass sex toys, the meaning of which was entirely lost on me.
June 15, 2020
Quando il senso di colpa s’innesta nel restare orfani di un genitore, allora, forse il modo migliore per far tornare i conti è quello di ricorrere a mezzi anche poco ortodossi, pur di garantire il riposo eterno al genitore defunto.
È quello che fa Larry, un ebreo poco osservante, che si dimentica di adempiere ai riti del Kaddish: per undici mesi, ogni giorno, il primogenito, alla presenza di almeno dieci ebrei, deve pregare per aiutare il defunto a espiare i propri peccati ed ascendere in Paradiso.
La pigrizia di Larry ha la meglio su questi riti, il tempo passa, lui continua a vivere la sua vita, fino a quando non si ricorda che forse è opportuno adempiere a quei riti.
“Gli viene da gridare «papà». E gli viene da gridare «mamma». Ed è questa autentica regressione, in aggiunta al dolore, a spaventarlo. Un uomo adulto, frustrato dalla propria frustrazione, che lotta per reprimere la propria sofferenza.”
L’eternità non è un tempo da sottovalutare: “– Si studia per l’eternità. Nient’altro. Senza pause. Non c’è giorno, non c’è notte, non ci sono fine settimana né vacanze, niente yemei chag o yemei chol. Perché questo è l’aldilà. Tempo ininterrotto, tutto dedicato a un unico scopo.”
La sorella Dina gli ricorda i suoi doveri “Da sua sorella arriva un pietoso: – Invece sí. Invece sí. Invece sí –. Stende le braccia, prende i polsi del fratello, delicatamente, con amore. – Era il suo desiderio, – dice. – Nostro padre ti amava tanto. Ma aveva il terrore che tu lo abbandonassi. – No, – dice Larry, scuotendo la testa. – È l’ultima cosa che mi ha detto prima di morire. «Il Kaddish. Non lasciare che tuo fratello mi abbandoni». Davanti a quei due uomini. La gravità di quell’affronto.”
Tutto questo spinge Larry a cercare aiuto sul web. E finalmente trova un sito kaddish.com che risolve i suoi problemi: sorprendete scoprire che non è solo in quesii inadempienze. Anche perché non è proprio una passeggiata recitare le preghiere ogni giorno per undici mesi davanti ad almeno dieci ebrei. Ma i riti hanno la loro importanza: “È questo che fanno i riti. Creano un legame nel tempo che ci protegge dal caos.”
Si paga e si ottiene un servizio: in cambio, qualcun altro fa al posto di Larry quello che avrebbe dovuto fare lui.
Ma non vanno proprio così le cose. Un giovane studente di Larry lo aiuta a scoprire cosa c’è dietro «quest’opera di bene», e in questo senso, il romanzo si tinge di giallo.
E dopo tanto peregrinare, che lo porterà da Brooklyn a Gerusalemme, Larry impara che “Tuttavia, in questa vita… [.] È lecito anche perdonare se stessi.”
E concludo riportando la parte finale della recensione di Giorgio Montefoschi ne La Lettura n 446 del 14/06/2020:
“Espiare è bello. E non è così importante. Parecchio più importante sarebbe riflettere sulla preghiera.
Che cosa vuol dire pregare? È così necessario, se pensiamo di pregare, voler usare delle nostre parole o non è meglio, come accade nelle celle dei monasteri greci, raggomitolarsi, falsi piccoli, inesistenti aspettare che le parole arrivino nel silenzio?
Infine, non è sublime, la preghiera più bella di tutte, quella che facciamo per uno sconosciuto? Anche a pagamento?”
È quello che fa Larry, un ebreo poco osservante, che si dimentica di adempiere ai riti del Kaddish: per undici mesi, ogni giorno, il primogenito, alla presenza di almeno dieci ebrei, deve pregare per aiutare il defunto a espiare i propri peccati ed ascendere in Paradiso.
La pigrizia di Larry ha la meglio su questi riti, il tempo passa, lui continua a vivere la sua vita, fino a quando non si ricorda che forse è opportuno adempiere a quei riti.
“Gli viene da gridare «papà». E gli viene da gridare «mamma». Ed è questa autentica regressione, in aggiunta al dolore, a spaventarlo. Un uomo adulto, frustrato dalla propria frustrazione, che lotta per reprimere la propria sofferenza.”
L’eternità non è un tempo da sottovalutare: “– Si studia per l’eternità. Nient’altro. Senza pause. Non c’è giorno, non c’è notte, non ci sono fine settimana né vacanze, niente yemei chag o yemei chol. Perché questo è l’aldilà. Tempo ininterrotto, tutto dedicato a un unico scopo.”
La sorella Dina gli ricorda i suoi doveri “Da sua sorella arriva un pietoso: – Invece sí. Invece sí. Invece sí –. Stende le braccia, prende i polsi del fratello, delicatamente, con amore. – Era il suo desiderio, – dice. – Nostro padre ti amava tanto. Ma aveva il terrore che tu lo abbandonassi. – No, – dice Larry, scuotendo la testa. – È l’ultima cosa che mi ha detto prima di morire. «Il Kaddish. Non lasciare che tuo fratello mi abbandoni». Davanti a quei due uomini. La gravità di quell’affronto.”
Tutto questo spinge Larry a cercare aiuto sul web. E finalmente trova un sito kaddish.com che risolve i suoi problemi: sorprendete scoprire che non è solo in quesii inadempienze. Anche perché non è proprio una passeggiata recitare le preghiere ogni giorno per undici mesi davanti ad almeno dieci ebrei. Ma i riti hanno la loro importanza: “È questo che fanno i riti. Creano un legame nel tempo che ci protegge dal caos.”
Si paga e si ottiene un servizio: in cambio, qualcun altro fa al posto di Larry quello che avrebbe dovuto fare lui.
Ma non vanno proprio così le cose. Un giovane studente di Larry lo aiuta a scoprire cosa c’è dietro «quest’opera di bene», e in questo senso, il romanzo si tinge di giallo.
E dopo tanto peregrinare, che lo porterà da Brooklyn a Gerusalemme, Larry impara che “Tuttavia, in questa vita… [.] È lecito anche perdonare se stessi.”
E concludo riportando la parte finale della recensione di Giorgio Montefoschi ne La Lettura n 446 del 14/06/2020:
“Espiare è bello. E non è così importante. Parecchio più importante sarebbe riflettere sulla preghiera.
Che cosa vuol dire pregare? È così necessario, se pensiamo di pregare, voler usare delle nostre parole o non è meglio, come accade nelle celle dei monasteri greci, raggomitolarsi, falsi piccoli, inesistenti aspettare che le parole arrivino nel silenzio?
Infine, non è sublime, la preghiera più bella di tutte, quella che facciamo per uno sconosciuto? Anche a pagamento?”
March 12, 2022
In "Kaddish.com," Englander ventures into territory more commonly explored by writers like Jonathan Tropper, and maybe early Philip Roth and Joseph Heller. Quick bursts of humor, characters drawn in broad satirical strokes, serious questions cloaked in jester's garb, and beneath it all a hunger for what religion and tradition are for and what it means to be a Jew in the world.
The books opens at a shiva (a Jewish ritual performed when a loved one dies) in Tennessee. The deceased was father to Larry, an angry secularized Jew, the book's protagonist, and Dina, who retains her Orthodox identity. In Jewish tradition it is the responsibility of a son to say the kaddish, a prayer for the dead, for 11 months. Unwilling to commit to this obligation, Larry goes online and discovers the website kaddish.com ("like Jdate for the dead," as Larry thinks of it) that will for a small fee have someone else -- a young Talmudic student in Israel, for example -- say the prayer in his place. Larry clicks "Accept" and considers himself done with an obligation he neither wants or believes in. This decision is what sets everything in motion when, years later Larry returns to his Orthodox roots, marries, has a family, and transforms himself into Shuli, a rabbi at a New York yeshiva.
I won't -- I can't -- try to provide a broad summary of "kaddish.com." Wracked by guilt, and as driven as any yeshiva Ahab, Larry/Shuli's efforts to undo his decision throw his life into disarray, threaten his job and his marriage (I loved his smart, level-headed wife), and lead him into the world where modernity and tradition, technology and faith, uneasily coexist. For all that it is a father's death that drives events in the book, "kaddish.com" is definitely not sombre or dark or even reverent or polite. (Lots of f-bombs here where you'd least expect them.) One of my favorite passages explains why Shuli keeps a twenty shekel Israeli note -- old currency that is no longer of value -- in his wallet. "He’d kept that twenty as mad money for when the Moshiach brings the world’s Jews back to the Holy Land. Shuli thought it might be nice to be able to buy a cold drink or a falafel when they arrived." There are lots of laugh out loud moments in the book, in fact, but there's a lot of serious thought underlying it all. Scattered among the laughs -- or is it the other way round? -- are passages like these:
Even at thirty, as Larry’s hair showed its first flecks of gray and the bags under his eyes began to puff out, the life he’d chosen was to his father temporary, a junction that would end with Larry, as his father phrased it, “coming home.” ... Home... To his father and his sister, home was not a singular place one hailed from. It was any outpost, anywhere on the planet, that held like-minded, kosher, mikvah-dipping, synagogue-attending, Israel-cheering, fellow tribespeople, who all felt, and believed, and did the very same things in the very same way.
And this:
He thinks about how he'd loved his father. And how his father loved him, had accepted him, and displayed -- for a religious man -- a different kind of faith. He'd believed in Larry's Larryness. He'd held sacred, his son. But part and parcel with his father’s belief in him as a person, came a committed disbelief in all that Larry held true.
And:
Shuli had prided himself on the belief that all knowledge was contained inside the Torah. And now… he’s forced to admit that inside this terrible machine is a different kind of all-knowingness. A toxic, shiftless omniscience... The Internet knows, and it has no compass to guide it and no will to guard what was meant only for the Maker. Here, it all waits to be plucked out of the air by a child.
As I said, this is a very different kind of book for Englander: more open and unrestrained, more playful. Apart than this, the novel is filled with Hebrew words and allusions to old Jewish texts and commentary with which many readers will be completely unfamiliar. Many of these words and allusions are given meaning and context in the book, but many aren't. All the allusions, etc., are necessary, of course, because everything Larry/Shuli does is at heart a matter of trying to make his way through ways of thinking and understanding that are shaped by two epistemologies that don't quite intersect. Indeed, a great deal of the humor in "kaddish.com" comes from watching Shuli struggling to apply Talmudic reasoning to events in a digital world.
I'm eager to see what the world makes of it.
The books opens at a shiva (a Jewish ritual performed when a loved one dies) in Tennessee. The deceased was father to Larry, an angry secularized Jew, the book's protagonist, and Dina, who retains her Orthodox identity. In Jewish tradition it is the responsibility of a son to say the kaddish, a prayer for the dead, for 11 months. Unwilling to commit to this obligation, Larry goes online and discovers the website kaddish.com ("like Jdate for the dead," as Larry thinks of it) that will for a small fee have someone else -- a young Talmudic student in Israel, for example -- say the prayer in his place. Larry clicks "Accept" and considers himself done with an obligation he neither wants or believes in. This decision is what sets everything in motion when, years later Larry returns to his Orthodox roots, marries, has a family, and transforms himself into Shuli, a rabbi at a New York yeshiva.
I won't -- I can't -- try to provide a broad summary of "kaddish.com." Wracked by guilt, and as driven as any yeshiva Ahab, Larry/Shuli's efforts to undo his decision throw his life into disarray, threaten his job and his marriage (I loved his smart, level-headed wife), and lead him into the world where modernity and tradition, technology and faith, uneasily coexist. For all that it is a father's death that drives events in the book, "kaddish.com" is definitely not sombre or dark or even reverent or polite. (Lots of f-bombs here where you'd least expect them.) One of my favorite passages explains why Shuli keeps a twenty shekel Israeli note -- old currency that is no longer of value -- in his wallet. "He’d kept that twenty as mad money for when the Moshiach brings the world’s Jews back to the Holy Land. Shuli thought it might be nice to be able to buy a cold drink or a falafel when they arrived." There are lots of laugh out loud moments in the book, in fact, but there's a lot of serious thought underlying it all. Scattered among the laughs -- or is it the other way round? -- are passages like these:
Even at thirty, as Larry’s hair showed its first flecks of gray and the bags under his eyes began to puff out, the life he’d chosen was to his father temporary, a junction that would end with Larry, as his father phrased it, “coming home.” ... Home... To his father and his sister, home was not a singular place one hailed from. It was any outpost, anywhere on the planet, that held like-minded, kosher, mikvah-dipping, synagogue-attending, Israel-cheering, fellow tribespeople, who all felt, and believed, and did the very same things in the very same way.
And this:
He thinks about how he'd loved his father. And how his father loved him, had accepted him, and displayed -- for a religious man -- a different kind of faith. He'd believed in Larry's Larryness. He'd held sacred, his son. But part and parcel with his father’s belief in him as a person, came a committed disbelief in all that Larry held true.
And:
Shuli had prided himself on the belief that all knowledge was contained inside the Torah. And now… he’s forced to admit that inside this terrible machine is a different kind of all-knowingness. A toxic, shiftless omniscience... The Internet knows, and it has no compass to guide it and no will to guard what was meant only for the Maker. Here, it all waits to be plucked out of the air by a child.
As I said, this is a very different kind of book for Englander: more open and unrestrained, more playful. Apart than this, the novel is filled with Hebrew words and allusions to old Jewish texts and commentary with which many readers will be completely unfamiliar. Many of these words and allusions are given meaning and context in the book, but many aren't. All the allusions, etc., are necessary, of course, because everything Larry/Shuli does is at heart a matter of trying to make his way through ways of thinking and understanding that are shaped by two epistemologies that don't quite intersect. Indeed, a great deal of the humor in "kaddish.com" comes from watching Shuli struggling to apply Talmudic reasoning to events in a digital world.
I'm eager to see what the world makes of it.
October 12, 2022
Actual rating: 2.5 stars because this book betrayed me.
Have you ever sat Shiva in a city you don't live in?
Or maybe, a more universal question - have you ever gone to the funeral of a relative who lives in a different city, one you've never lived in? Then you find yourself awkwardly fielding condolences from people you've never met before, people you've barely heard of in your life, who all knew your relative in a much different manner than you did. That emotion is captured perfectly in the first 50 pages of this novel. It's awkward, it's personal, and it's a struggle.
And then there's a time skip.
The cover flap of this novel talks about Larry's inability to handle the burden of saying Kaddish for his father for the requisite amount of time. It's a big commitment - hours of prayer, emotional labor, etc. He has also become quite secular, leaving his Orthodox family's way of life behind. So, he pays someone else to perform the duty for him, in the most roundabout but still halachiclly Kosher way he can find.
Based on that description, I thought it would be a meditation on grief, a son coming to terms with his secular lifestyle while still honoring his religious father. Maybe a nice reconciliation with his sister. Coming to terms with his father's wishes. Still being loved despite their familial differences.
Nope. There's a time skip, he's an Orthodox teacher at a religious school in Brooklyn, married with kids, and an entirely different person. His "true" self or whatever. Because he had to be Orthodox to find that. None of that was mentioned anywhere in any blurb and, honestly, I felt kind of betrayed by the turn the story took. The first act writing was literally four or five star material. It was moving and relatable and I really felt for Larry. But when he became Shuli? Not so much.
I am a secular/Reform Jew. I don't keep glat kosher, I'm not shomer shabbat, and I definitely wear shorts and a tanktop when it's hot outside. But I have my own experiences with kaddish and yartzeit that are just as meaningful to me as the strictly halachic version that the characters in this book strive for.
While I understand that Englander himself is (Modern?) Orthodox (?? I think?? At least that's what it seems like from what I've read of him.) and he has his own definitions for what fulfilling a religious duty and living a fulfilling life mean, I did not, could not, click with that. More than the problem of the writing, I really think the publishers who put up the blurb are to fault for this misunderstanding. They sold me something that wasn't at all what it appeared to be and it wasn't the story I wished I could be reading.
The story I wanted was coexistance of Orthodoxy and secularism, family love, coming to terms, and acceptance of those you may not understand. Instead, I got a man who flipped entirely while he was off the page and making up for all the times he didn't meet his father's expectations in a way that felt more like wish-fulfillment than character growth.
Have you ever sat Shiva in a city you don't live in?
Or maybe, a more universal question - have you ever gone to the funeral of a relative who lives in a different city, one you've never lived in? Then you find yourself awkwardly fielding condolences from people you've never met before, people you've barely heard of in your life, who all knew your relative in a much different manner than you did. That emotion is captured perfectly in the first 50 pages of this novel. It's awkward, it's personal, and it's a struggle.
And then there's a time skip.
The cover flap of this novel talks about Larry's inability to handle the burden of saying Kaddish for his father for the requisite amount of time. It's a big commitment - hours of prayer, emotional labor, etc. He has also become quite secular, leaving his Orthodox family's way of life behind. So, he pays someone else to perform the duty for him, in the most roundabout but still halachiclly Kosher way he can find.
Based on that description, I thought it would be a meditation on grief, a son coming to terms with his secular lifestyle while still honoring his religious father. Maybe a nice reconciliation with his sister. Coming to terms with his father's wishes. Still being loved despite their familial differences.
Nope. There's a time skip, he's an Orthodox teacher at a religious school in Brooklyn, married with kids, and an entirely different person. His "true" self or whatever. Because he had to be Orthodox to find that. None of that was mentioned anywhere in any blurb and, honestly, I felt kind of betrayed by the turn the story took. The first act writing was literally four or five star material. It was moving and relatable and I really felt for Larry. But when he became Shuli? Not so much.
I am a secular/Reform Jew. I don't keep glat kosher, I'm not shomer shabbat, and I definitely wear shorts and a tanktop when it's hot outside. But I have my own experiences with kaddish and yartzeit that are just as meaningful to me as the strictly halachic version that the characters in this book strive for.
While I understand that Englander himself is (Modern?) Orthodox (?? I think?? At least that's what it seems like from what I've read of him.) and he has his own definitions for what fulfilling a religious duty and living a fulfilling life mean, I did not, could not, click with that. More than the problem of the writing, I really think the publishers who put up the blurb are to fault for this misunderstanding. They sold me something that wasn't at all what it appeared to be and it wasn't the story I wished I could be reading.
The story I wanted was coexistance of Orthodoxy and secularism, family love, coming to terms, and acceptance of those you may not understand. Instead, I got a man who flipped entirely while he was off the page and making up for all the times he didn't meet his father's expectations in a way that felt more like wish-fulfillment than character growth.
Read
April 13, 2019This book delighted me. A short but thought-provoking novel about a religious man who goes OTD (off the derech, aka, becomes no longer religious). His religious family insists he say kaddish, the mourner's prayer, for his father. Because he knows he won't, he finds a website where he can pay someone to say kaddish for him. The bulk of the book takes place about 20 years later, when he's religious and has to pay the emotional consequences of what he did. The book is by turns charming, funny, sad, but overall, I enjoyed it. I do wonder, though, how much of this book would be accessible to someone who isn't Jewish. I think there is still something to be gained from reading it, but there is a lot in here that I wasn't sure of the meanings.
February 16, 2019
Short and amusing, kaddish.com is about an American Jewish religious man's quest to properly say Kaddish for his father. Although I am Jewish, I didn't understand the what I assume are Yiddish words, but I got the gist of it. I found the beginning, when the main character was not religious, particularly funny, but I enjoyed the whole book. I easily predicted where the book was going, but that didn't matter either. It is an interesting, light picture of a religious Jewish man and his family.
I received an Advance Readers Copy of the book, which will be published in March 2019.
I received an Advance Readers Copy of the book, which will be published in March 2019.
December 21, 2018
A hilarious and moving story about a man who is searching for meaning in his life. Larry, who has left the folds of Orthodox Judaism, is sitting shiva for his father at his sister's Memphis home. When his sister urges him to make a promise to say Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead), Larry reluctantly agrees. He then finds a website, kaddish.com, that employs students who will say the prayer for mourners for the requisite 11 months. He pays the fee, gets a confirmation, and goes back to his life in Brooklyn.
Two decades later Larry has transformed into Reb Shuli. Having come back into his faith, he is married to an observant woman, has two children, and is teaching in the school he attended as a child. When a young student begins to show signs of trouble, Shuli takes him under his wing, and, through his counseling, begins to revisit his own regrets. His soul-searching threatens to undermine everything he has worked to achieve, both physically and spiritually.
I've always been a huge fan of Englander's writing and this novel lived up to my expectations. His prose is insightful, poetic, and, at times, laugh out loud humorous. He has a talent for analyzing the human experience in a way that pays attention to the smallest details with cutting accuracy.
Two decades later Larry has transformed into Reb Shuli. Having come back into his faith, he is married to an observant woman, has two children, and is teaching in the school he attended as a child. When a young student begins to show signs of trouble, Shuli takes him under his wing, and, through his counseling, begins to revisit his own regrets. His soul-searching threatens to undermine everything he has worked to achieve, both physically and spiritually.
I've always been a huge fan of Englander's writing and this novel lived up to my expectations. His prose is insightful, poetic, and, at times, laugh out loud humorous. He has a talent for analyzing the human experience in a way that pays attention to the smallest details with cutting accuracy.
May 2, 2019
I found nothing to like in this completely improbable story of a lapsed Jew who returns to the fold but can’t exorcize his guilt. Although not a bad premise I found the characters and plot twists unbelievable and not worth suspending my disbelief.
So disappointed as I’ve liked this author’s works in the past. Go figure.
So disappointed as I’ve liked this author’s works in the past. Go figure.
May 22, 2020
The year is 1999 and Larry is in Memphis, Tennessee, at his sister's house, preparing for the funeral and shiva of his father. The father, who seems to have been a fairly wise man, has sickened suddenly and died, while visiting his daughter. Larry, who at the age of 30, has left the rigorous practice of Orthodox Judaism he was raised in. He and his father talked before his death about Larry saying Kaddish for the required eleven months after his father's death. Larry couldn't commit to saying Kaddish either to his father before his death or to his sister, during the shiva period. Larry has left the faith and all the yelling by his sister and her Orthodox rabbi cannot change Larry's mind. The rabbi tells him that he can hire someone else to say the daily prayers. Larry goes on www.kaddish.com and hires a student in Israel to do the job Larry, as the only son, should have done.
Okay, fast forward 20 years and Larry has returned to the religious fold in which he was raised. He becomes observant Orthodox, teaches in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and now has a wife and two children. He's now Rev Shuli and life is good. Life is good for the Rev but as he regained his religious beliefs and practices, he is feeling increasingly guilty about having off-loaded the prayers and responsibilities of saying Kaddish. That is the beginning of the story in Nathan Englander's new novel, "Kaddish.com".
There's a bit of magic realism in Englander's story as he moves Rev Shuli from Brooklyn to Jerusalem as Shuli tries to track down the owner of the website he used 20 years earlier. I'm not a big fan of magic realism as it gives an author the ability to make facts implausible to a plot. But a little MR in Englander's book is okay as Shuli finds his way in Jerusalem's kaleidoscope of colors, foods, music, and people. I almost began to view the pages through the lens of a Marc Chagall painting.
I was raised as a Reform Jew but I "got" most of the references to religious practices far away from my own. The book also comes with a question/answer section to use in a book club format. I'd like to read more about the book and what motivated Nathan Englander to write it. It is a very interesting story.
Okay, fast forward 20 years and Larry has returned to the religious fold in which he was raised. He becomes observant Orthodox, teaches in a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and now has a wife and two children. He's now Rev Shuli and life is good. Life is good for the Rev but as he regained his religious beliefs and practices, he is feeling increasingly guilty about having off-loaded the prayers and responsibilities of saying Kaddish. That is the beginning of the story in Nathan Englander's new novel, "Kaddish.com".
There's a bit of magic realism in Englander's story as he moves Rev Shuli from Brooklyn to Jerusalem as Shuli tries to track down the owner of the website he used 20 years earlier. I'm not a big fan of magic realism as it gives an author the ability to make facts implausible to a plot. But a little MR in Englander's book is okay as Shuli finds his way in Jerusalem's kaleidoscope of colors, foods, music, and people. I almost began to view the pages through the lens of a Marc Chagall painting.
I was raised as a Reform Jew but I "got" most of the references to religious practices far away from my own. The book also comes with a question/answer section to use in a book club format. I'd like to read more about the book and what motivated Nathan Englander to write it. It is a very interesting story.
March 6, 2019
Keep your eye out for a Morning Edition conversation with Nathan Englander in March. We'll see if it works out.
Don't want to divulge too much of my opinion, but one of my graduate student instructors in college told me she preferred Englander's short stories to his novels. This is the first novel of his I've read, but I agree with the idea. For whatever reason, the sort of plot-based parables that Englander can seemingly concoct out of thin air work in short form.
I found the time jump surprising, and while the resultant book has a lot to offer, I feel like I wouldn't be able to understand our main character without those twenty or so years, elided with a page break.
Don't want to divulge too much of my opinion, but one of my graduate student instructors in college told me she preferred Englander's short stories to his novels. This is the first novel of his I've read, but I agree with the idea. For whatever reason, the sort of plot-based parables that Englander can seemingly concoct out of thin air work in short form.
I found the time jump surprising, and while the resultant book has a lot to offer, I feel like I wouldn't be able to understand our main character without those twenty or so years, elided with a page break.
August 1, 2020
Englander racconta la storia di Larry che, cresciuto in una famiglia ebrea ortodossa, ha chiuso da un pezzo con la religione e conduce una vita da sgallettato irresponsabile, detta anche “da gentile”. Quando il padre, a cui era molto legato, muore, la sorella prende Larry per le orecchie e coadiuvata da una serie di figure rispettabili, rabbini e non, cerca di cavargli di bocca la promessa che si impegnerà a recitare il Kaddish, come vuole la tradizione. Il Kaddish è una preghiera funebre, anche se ne esistono diverse varianti, che va recitata tre volte al giorno per undici mesi per dare all’anima del defunto il boost necessario per approdare nella terra promessa. Un impegno non da poco: tre volte al giorno per undici mesi in compagnia di un drappello di altri uomini, detto minian, perché da soli non vale!
Nonostante il legame speciale che aveva con il padre, Larry non se la sente di accollarsi ‘sta pratica e tra un sito porno e le ricerche sui pesci che abitano l’acquario illuminato che lo tiene sveglio, trova la soluzione a tutti i suoi problemi… kaddish.com, un sito che offre dei pacchetti super convenienti perché qualcun altro reciti il Kaddish al posto tuo: una delega per la preghiera, ammessa e riconosciuta dalla stessa Torah, anche se poco sponsorizzata per ovvie ragioni, come conferma il rabbino che spalleggia la sorella. Che idea brillante, ironica, paradossale… pensavo prima di scoprire che il sito esiste davvero e conviene pure! Tre kaddish al giorno per undici mesi a soli 175 dollari… accattatavill’! C’è solo un piccolo inconveniente, che io visualizzo con le fattezze di Padre Maronno… e se poi te ne penti?
Come volevasi dimostrare, ci imbattiamo poi in un ex Larry che ormai si fa chiamare Shuli, insegna in una yeshivah e potrebbe essere un ebreo modello, se non fosse per il peso di quell'errore cui ha intenzione di porre rimedio. Comincia così la rocambolesca avventura di un uomo pentito, che sente di aver voltato le spalle a suo padre e di averlo condannato a un’eternità tutt’altro che idilliaca.
È stato il mio primo incontro con Englander e tutto sommato il giudizio è positivo, anche se avrei preferito un maggiore approfondimento del perché Larry abbia cambiato vita e sia tornato all’ovile. Il Larry iniziale e lo Shuli successivo sembrano non avere alcun legame l’uno con l’altro: me li immagino affiancati come nelle pubblicità “prima e dopo” dei programmi dimagranti in cui non si vede il processo, più o meno faticoso e/o miracoloso, che ha portato la persona nella foto a sinistra a trasformarsi in quella nella foto a destra.
Englander riflette sui diversi modi di essere ebreo al giorno d'oggi, sull'importanza della preghiera, del perdono e dell'indulgenza, ma anche dell'azione, del coraggio e dello spirito di iniziativa.
Le scene grottesche che popolano i sogni del tormentato Shuli sono una vera e propria chicca, una sorta di tortura kafkiana autoinflitta, anche se apparentemente inconsapevole. In più, questa storia ha il merito di avermi fatto scoprire i vicoli a dir poco pittoreschi e labirintici del quartiere di Nachlaot a Gerusalemme.
Nonostante il legame speciale che aveva con il padre, Larry non se la sente di accollarsi ‘sta pratica e tra un sito porno e le ricerche sui pesci che abitano l’acquario illuminato che lo tiene sveglio, trova la soluzione a tutti i suoi problemi… kaddish.com, un sito che offre dei pacchetti super convenienti perché qualcun altro reciti il Kaddish al posto tuo: una delega per la preghiera, ammessa e riconosciuta dalla stessa Torah, anche se poco sponsorizzata per ovvie ragioni, come conferma il rabbino che spalleggia la sorella. Che idea brillante, ironica, paradossale… pensavo prima di scoprire che il sito esiste davvero e conviene pure! Tre kaddish al giorno per undici mesi a soli 175 dollari… accattatavill’! C’è solo un piccolo inconveniente, che io visualizzo con le fattezze di Padre Maronno… e se poi te ne penti?
Come volevasi dimostrare, ci imbattiamo poi in un ex Larry che ormai si fa chiamare Shuli, insegna in una yeshivah e potrebbe essere un ebreo modello, se non fosse per il peso di quell'errore cui ha intenzione di porre rimedio. Comincia così la rocambolesca avventura di un uomo pentito, che sente di aver voltato le spalle a suo padre e di averlo condannato a un’eternità tutt’altro che idilliaca.
È stato il mio primo incontro con Englander e tutto sommato il giudizio è positivo, anche se avrei preferito un maggiore approfondimento del perché Larry abbia cambiato vita e sia tornato all’ovile. Il Larry iniziale e lo Shuli successivo sembrano non avere alcun legame l’uno con l’altro: me li immagino affiancati come nelle pubblicità “prima e dopo” dei programmi dimagranti in cui non si vede il processo, più o meno faticoso e/o miracoloso, che ha portato la persona nella foto a sinistra a trasformarsi in quella nella foto a destra.
Englander riflette sui diversi modi di essere ebreo al giorno d'oggi, sull'importanza della preghiera, del perdono e dell'indulgenza, ma anche dell'azione, del coraggio e dello spirito di iniziativa.
Le scene grottesche che popolano i sogni del tormentato Shuli sono una vera e propria chicca, una sorta di tortura kafkiana autoinflitta, anche se apparentemente inconsapevole. In più, questa storia ha il merito di avermi fatto scoprire i vicoli a dir poco pittoreschi e labirintici del quartiere di Nachlaot a Gerusalemme.
July 15, 2020
Fantastic
I had not heard of Nathan Englander until an online book club decided to read a book of his short stories in one of our future reads. I decided I’d see what sort of writer he was and randomly chose kaddish.com, and what a joy it was to read.
In this book, Larry, a Jewish man by birth but certainly not in actual practice, is tasked, as the only son, to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish for his recently deceased father; a task, or mitzvah (commandment) that very observant Jews do every day for the eleven months after a parent’s death. His very observant sister demands that he do this for the sake of his father’s soul, and after much resistance, he finally agrees to do so, if only for keeping the peace with his sister and mother.
But Larry is clever. He doesn’t want to do this and he scours the internet until he finds a site called kaddish.com, where, for a fee, one can have the Kaddish said by proxy, by a student in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. He’s happy, and that’s that.
Well, not exactly. Fast forward about 25 or 39 years, and Larry has returned to the fold, is now extremely observant. Known as Reb Schuli, he teaches at a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and is married with two children. Wracked with guilt that he didn’t live up to his filial obligation, he tries, without luck, to find the student who had allegedly recited the Kaddish all those years ago. With the help and strange insight of one of his students, he hunts down the physical location of kaddish.com, discovering a yeshivah that welcomes him to study, and devotes his non-studying hours to finding the whereabouts of the elusive website and the mysterious student that he’d paid to say kaddish all those years ago.
There is much more to this remarkable tale that I won’t reveal due to spoilers. Englander is a wonderful writer, combining this world with excursions into other worlds seamlessly. His characters leap off the page with life. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future. Highly recommended.
I had not heard of Nathan Englander until an online book club decided to read a book of his short stories in one of our future reads. I decided I’d see what sort of writer he was and randomly chose kaddish.com, and what a joy it was to read.
In this book, Larry, a Jewish man by birth but certainly not in actual practice, is tasked, as the only son, to recite the Mourner’s Kaddish for his recently deceased father; a task, or mitzvah (commandment) that very observant Jews do every day for the eleven months after a parent’s death. His very observant sister demands that he do this for the sake of his father’s soul, and after much resistance, he finally agrees to do so, if only for keeping the peace with his sister and mother.
But Larry is clever. He doesn’t want to do this and he scours the internet until he finds a site called kaddish.com, where, for a fee, one can have the Kaddish said by proxy, by a student in a yeshiva in Jerusalem. He’s happy, and that’s that.
Well, not exactly. Fast forward about 25 or 39 years, and Larry has returned to the fold, is now extremely observant. Known as Reb Schuli, he teaches at a yeshiva in Brooklyn, and is married with two children. Wracked with guilt that he didn’t live up to his filial obligation, he tries, without luck, to find the student who had allegedly recited the Kaddish all those years ago. With the help and strange insight of one of his students, he hunts down the physical location of kaddish.com, discovering a yeshivah that welcomes him to study, and devotes his non-studying hours to finding the whereabouts of the elusive website and the mysterious student that he’d paid to say kaddish all those years ago.
There is much more to this remarkable tale that I won’t reveal due to spoilers. Englander is a wonderful writer, combining this world with excursions into other worlds seamlessly. His characters leap off the page with life. I look forward to reading more of his work in the future. Highly recommended.
April 30, 2020
This book was claustrophobic for me, but still I couldn't stop reading it because in every chapter something new was going to happen and, even if it wasn't, I couldn't stop, because I was fearing the worst. So I read it in one setting and was not disappointed because I liked it a lot, not his best novel, but still....
Questo libro é stato claustrofobico per me, dall'inizio alla fine e infatti l'ho letto in un'unica sessione, perché ogni capitolo prometteva nuovi sviluppi da temere e non riuscivo a trovare il momento giusto per fare una pausa. Mi é piaciuto molto anche se non lo ritengo il migliore tra i suoi
THANKS EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!
Questo libro é stato claustrofobico per me, dall'inizio alla fine e infatti l'ho letto in un'unica sessione, perché ogni capitolo prometteva nuovi sviluppi da temere e non riuscivo a trovare il momento giusto per fare una pausa. Mi é piaciuto molto anche se non lo ritengo il migliore tra i suoi
THANKS EDELWEISS FOR THE PREVIEW!
April 14, 2019
It started out engaging and interesting and well written and the characters were compelling. It ended stupidly. The flap says "irreverent," but don't believe it. In the end it's the opposite, and nothing is illuminated.
November 27, 2021
Nathan Englander is an exceptional writer, and I have read and loved his short story collections. This is my first crack at a novel, and in future I think I will stick the the stories.
Kaddish.com starts out great. Our "hero" whom we first meet as "Larry" is a lapsed ultraorthodox Jew. By the measure of those in the fundamentalist sect that makes him an infidel. The book begins at shiva for Larry's beloved father. The shiva, in his sister's home, is torture for Larry who has become a branding consultant with a Clinton Hill co-op and a notable weed and internet porn habit. (I ask this as a nice Jewish girl, what is it with Jewish male writers and graphic and seriously disturbing masturbation scenes? Englander often gets compared to Philip Roth, and I believe it is because readers get exactly the same wildly uncomfortable feeling reading their respective creepy self-gratification scenes. Until very recently I thought Jonathan Franzen was Jewish, something I assumed largely because of the obligatory off-putting wank scenes in all of his books.) The shiva portion of the book reads like a perfect short story. It is really very good. And then suddenly it is several years later and Larry has returned to his Jewish name, Shuli, and is working in a Yeshiva.
In the second part of the book Larry/Shuli has acquired a wife and children and has renounced internet access. (Sadly for the reader he still thinks a lot about the porn he did watch.) In this life, where he appears content, he has a crisis brought on by guilt for something he did in his Larry days, and hijinks ensue as he tries to put things right. With some modification this second part of the book, particularly the part about Shuli's relationship to a Yeshiva boy who is a bit of a renegade, might also work as a short story. As it stands, it is like there are two largely unrelated stories and we are supposed to see it as a novel. We have no idea how Larry becomes Shuli (and given the conversion and reversion it would help to understand how Shuli became Larry in the first place), why he has chosen to return to this life, how he acquired this ever patient wife (the reader can decide if she is a saint or an enabler), why he suddenly feels the need to repent. It is a bizarre time warp and it does not work at all. Englander is asking some pretty profound questions in this comic novel but it all gets lost under the weight of the "why is this happening and why should I care" questions, and the many references to glass dildoes. So much potential and such a mess.
One more issue -- this is replete with AP level Jewish stuff, and Englander provides no context or explanations. I am a Reform Jew and a lot of what goes on here is not anything I learned coming up. Luckily, I have a fascination with fundamentalist cults in general, and an extra bit of interest in those that spring from my own faith, so I know this stuff, but I suspect there is a lot here that would be foreign most Jews and even more baffling so to non-Jews. I can imagine a lot of people stumbling over the tefillin and tzitzits and phylacteries and Kiddush cups, but more important over the central theme -- why is Kaddish such a big deal? This is always a question -- should writers provide information about the lives and practices of their characters so the reader can understand the story, or is it up the reader to do the work? For me, I think a little information is a great thing, enough that the reader has a basic grasp of what is happening and enough that she knows where to start to do her own research to learn more if she so chooses.
This was a 2.5 for me and I am rounding up because I like Englander's other work so much. Really it is eminently skippable.
Kaddish.com starts out great. Our "hero" whom we first meet as "Larry" is a lapsed ultraorthodox Jew. By the measure of those in the fundamentalist sect that makes him an infidel. The book begins at shiva for Larry's beloved father. The shiva, in his sister's home, is torture for Larry who has become a branding consultant with a Clinton Hill co-op and a notable weed and internet porn habit. (I ask this as a nice Jewish girl, what is it with Jewish male writers and graphic and seriously disturbing masturbation scenes? Englander often gets compared to Philip Roth, and I believe it is because readers get exactly the same wildly uncomfortable feeling reading their respective creepy self-gratification scenes. Until very recently I thought Jonathan Franzen was Jewish, something I assumed largely because of the obligatory off-putting wank scenes in all of his books.) The shiva portion of the book reads like a perfect short story. It is really very good. And then suddenly it is several years later and Larry has returned to his Jewish name, Shuli, and is working in a Yeshiva.
In the second part of the book Larry/Shuli has acquired a wife and children and has renounced internet access. (Sadly for the reader he still thinks a lot about the porn he did watch.) In this life, where he appears content, he has a crisis brought on by guilt for something he did in his Larry days, and hijinks ensue as he tries to put things right. With some modification this second part of the book, particularly the part about Shuli's relationship to a Yeshiva boy who is a bit of a renegade, might also work as a short story. As it stands, it is like there are two largely unrelated stories and we are supposed to see it as a novel. We have no idea how Larry becomes Shuli (and given the conversion and reversion it would help to understand how Shuli became Larry in the first place), why he has chosen to return to this life, how he acquired this ever patient wife (the reader can decide if she is a saint or an enabler), why he suddenly feels the need to repent. It is a bizarre time warp and it does not work at all. Englander is asking some pretty profound questions in this comic novel but it all gets lost under the weight of the "why is this happening and why should I care" questions, and the many references to glass dildoes. So much potential and such a mess.
One more issue -- this is replete with AP level Jewish stuff, and Englander provides no context or explanations. I am a Reform Jew and a lot of what goes on here is not anything I learned coming up. Luckily, I have a fascination with fundamentalist cults in general, and an extra bit of interest in those that spring from my own faith, so I know this stuff, but I suspect there is a lot here that would be foreign most Jews and even more baffling so to non-Jews. I can imagine a lot of people stumbling over the tefillin and tzitzits and phylacteries and Kiddush cups, but more important over the central theme -- why is Kaddish such a big deal? This is always a question -- should writers provide information about the lives and practices of their characters so the reader can understand the story, or is it up the reader to do the work? For me, I think a little information is a great thing, enough that the reader has a basic grasp of what is happening and enough that she knows where to start to do her own research to learn more if she so chooses.
This was a 2.5 for me and I am rounding up because I like Englander's other work so much. Really it is eminently skippable.
November 29, 2021
Once again – der Klappentext hat mich im Stich gelassen! Ich hab etwas ganz anderes erwartet, war am Ende aber nicht enttäuscht.
Nachdem Schuli (vormals der Larry aus dem Klappentext) zurück zur Religion gefunden hat macht es ihn ganz wahnsinnig, dass er seine Sohnespflicht, das Kaddisch für seinen toten Vater zu sprechen, an eine Internetseite abgetreten hat und versucht ganz verzweifelt sie zurückzubekommen. Allerdings ist das schwieriger als zuerst vermutet und er macht sich letztlich sogar auf nach Jerusalem…
Ich kenne ein paar der Basics was das Judentum angeht, bin aber bei weitem nicht so bewandert, wie das Buch es voraussetzt. Was ist ein Kaddisch? Keine Idee. Im Buch gibt es zwar ein Glossar, aber das hat mich auch nur unzureichend informiert. Wer sich also für das Buch interessiert, sollte im besten Fall kein Judentum-Noob sein, oder sich wenigstens darauf vorbereiten, den ein oder anderen Begriff nachzuschlagen.
ich hab bis jetzt ein paar Romane gelesen, die einen jüdischen Twist hatten und ich hab sie alle gerne gelesen. „kaddish.com“ war jetzt allerdings die erste Geschichte zum jüdischen Glauben hin und das fand ich spannend. Am Anfang des Buches haben wir Larry, der sich vom Glauben losgesagt hat und am Ende haben wir Schuli, der so fest an etwas glauben kann, dass er diesem Glauben alles andere unterordnet. Wenngleich ich so einen tiefen Glauben nur bedingt nachvollziehen kann und ich es zweitweise schon ein bisschen gruselig fand wie weit Schuli für diesen Glauben zu gehen bereit war und wie gefangen er in seiner selbst auferlegten Aufgabe war, war es auf der anderen Seite sehr anschaulich und nachvollziehbar von Nathan Englander geschrieben.
Ich mochte den Jist der Geschichte – es ist in Ordnung sich selbst zu vergeben, der Glaube sollte nicht dazu da sein dich einzuengen und ein paar Glasdildos hier und da können auch der ernstesten Geschichte nicht schaden.
ich hab ein bisschen was anderes erwartet und ich gebe hier dem Klappentext die Schuld, aber es war ein gutes Buch, das ich gerne gelesen habe 🙂
Nachdem Schuli (vormals der Larry aus dem Klappentext) zurück zur Religion gefunden hat macht es ihn ganz wahnsinnig, dass er seine Sohnespflicht, das Kaddisch für seinen toten Vater zu sprechen, an eine Internetseite abgetreten hat und versucht ganz verzweifelt sie zurückzubekommen. Allerdings ist das schwieriger als zuerst vermutet und er macht sich letztlich sogar auf nach Jerusalem…
Ich kenne ein paar der Basics was das Judentum angeht, bin aber bei weitem nicht so bewandert, wie das Buch es voraussetzt. Was ist ein Kaddisch? Keine Idee. Im Buch gibt es zwar ein Glossar, aber das hat mich auch nur unzureichend informiert. Wer sich also für das Buch interessiert, sollte im besten Fall kein Judentum-Noob sein, oder sich wenigstens darauf vorbereiten, den ein oder anderen Begriff nachzuschlagen.
ich hab bis jetzt ein paar Romane gelesen, die einen jüdischen Twist hatten und ich hab sie alle gerne gelesen. „kaddish.com“ war jetzt allerdings die erste Geschichte zum jüdischen Glauben hin und das fand ich spannend. Am Anfang des Buches haben wir Larry, der sich vom Glauben losgesagt hat und am Ende haben wir Schuli, der so fest an etwas glauben kann, dass er diesem Glauben alles andere unterordnet. Wenngleich ich so einen tiefen Glauben nur bedingt nachvollziehen kann und ich es zweitweise schon ein bisschen gruselig fand wie weit Schuli für diesen Glauben zu gehen bereit war und wie gefangen er in seiner selbst auferlegten Aufgabe war, war es auf der anderen Seite sehr anschaulich und nachvollziehbar von Nathan Englander geschrieben.
Ich mochte den Jist der Geschichte – es ist in Ordnung sich selbst zu vergeben, der Glaube sollte nicht dazu da sein dich einzuengen und ein paar Glasdildos hier und da können auch der ernstesten Geschichte nicht schaden.
ich hab ein bisschen was anderes erwartet und ich gebe hier dem Klappentext die Schuld, aber es war ein gutes Buch, das ich gerne gelesen habe 🙂
April 3, 2019
Larry, a 30-year-old lapsed Orthodox Jew, is in his sister's home in Memphis, Tennessee, sitting shiva for his father. When shiva ends, it will be his responsibility to say the Mourner's Kaddish for his father several times a day for eleven months, a responsibility he doesn't want to take on. But a service, Kaddish.com, will, for a sum, provide an Orthodox talmudic student to say that prayer in accordance with the rules. And Larry signs up. When we next meet Larry, twenty years have passed, he has returned to Orthodox Judaism, is married, with two children, and is Reb Shuli, teaching in a Brooklyn Yeshiva. When he befriends a 12 year-old-student who has recently lost his own father, Shuli needs to atone for his long ago shirking of his own responsibility to his father, and that means going to Jerusalem, to find Kaddish.com, to receive back his birthright from Chemi, the student hired long ago to repeat the prayer. Despite the humor here, this is a book that takes seriously the rites and rituals, the beliefs in the soul and afterlife, of Orthodox Jews, very seriously, and is, at times, a little preachy trying to teach its spiritual lessons. The first part was my favorite, where Englander's talent, as seen in his short stories, is really vibrant. A slim novel and a quick read, but it lacked the superb writing I expected.
October 20, 2020
I wanted to like this. I really liked the first part. Then it took a hard frum turn, which was okay for a while, but it was just too absurd to really enjoy. Also, sorry, but I'm not here for making the drash where Heaven and Hell are the same place, and you're sitting at a big table with a huge feast but you can't use your elbows and your arms are forks, so in Heaven you feed your neighbors and in Hell you starve, and replacing the forks with dildos! I'm all for making Judaism relevant and meaningful for everyone, but this ain't it???
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 29, 2024
Some delightful bits and the plot moves along nicely, except for getting bogged down with a few long dream sequences. The characters did not feel fully drawn and the author flashes forward in time past a transformation that we are expected to trust has taken place but is not very convincing. Well, the character is *more* convincing as his latter self which makes you question the veracity of the portrayal of his former self. If you know what I mean. The book took me into a new, unfamiliar world which is always engaging, and I definitely wanted to turn the pages to see how it would all turn out. Overall I’m glad I read it.
July 19, 2019
3.5
The cynical part of me suspected the twist of the plot. I can't say following Shuli on his redemption arc was all that gratifying and the life changing decisions made spur of the moment seemed to smack of religious idealism 'let go and let God.....'.
The show-casing of Orthodox Jewish religion, customs and beliefs was beautifully done. The deep search for meaning in faith swirls in the characters.
Kaddish.com does have a captivating quality that made me finish the book all in one go. As other readers have pointed out, it has two definite parts, following our pre- and post- religious protagonist.
The cynical part of me suspected the twist of the plot. I can't say following Shuli on his redemption arc was all that gratifying and the life changing decisions made spur of the moment seemed to smack of religious idealism 'let go and let God.....'.
The show-casing of Orthodox Jewish religion, customs and beliefs was beautifully done. The deep search for meaning in faith swirls in the characters.
Kaddish.com does have a captivating quality that made me finish the book all in one go. As other readers have pointed out, it has two definite parts, following our pre- and post- religious protagonist.
December 4, 2019
I liked this book quite a bit and yet also found it deeply problematic. You can't approach it as a realist novel; that will only frustrate you, because Englander doesn't really investigate his characters deeply and much of the plot is implausible. It works, I think, as a novel of ideas--ideas about faith, duty, responsibility, and tradition. I can't call it a satisfying read; when I finished it I felt unsettled. But I want to go back to it -- I think there's a lot to unpack in this deceptively slim little book.
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