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Mosaic Man
A novel modeled on the books of the Old Testament retells traditional Jewish narratives, such as the Golem story, with a modern spin
261 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 1999
1 person is currently reading
58 people want to read
About the author
Ronald Sukenick
32 books32 followersRonald Sukenick was an American writer and literary theorist.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
Sukenick studied at Cornell University, and wrote his doctoral thesis on Wallace Stevens, at Brandeis University.
After Roland Barthes announced the "death of the author", Sukenick carried the metaphor even further in "the death of the novel". He drew up a list of what is missing: reality doesn't exist, nor time or personality. He was widely recognized as a controversial writer who, frequently humorously, questioned and rejected the conventions of traditional fiction-writing. In novels, short stories, literary criticism and history, he often used himself, family members or friends as characters, sometimes quoting them in tape-recorded conversations. He did stints as writer in residence at Cornell University, the University of California, Irvine, and Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. But his books were never best-sellers. Sukenick once commented that he had “only forty fans, but they’re all fanatics.”
He referred to his career as a university professor as his "day job". He taught at Brandeis University, Hofstra University, City College of the City University of New York, Sarah Lawrence College, Cornell University, the State University of New York (Buffalo), and l'Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier, France. His most prolonged teaching career was at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he was professor of English from 1975-1999.
He was actively committed to publishing and promoting the writing of other unconventional writers. He was founder and publisher of American Book Review, and a founder of The Fiction Collective (now Fiction Collective Two). Sukenick was chairman of the Coordinating Council of Little magazines, and on the executive council of the Modern Language Association and the National Book Critics Circle.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 25, 2014
This entertaining novel is a mosaic of stories structured around the Old Testament and explores in a surreal and skewed manner aspects of Sukenick’s Jewish experience. The caveat on the blurb warns “you don’t have to be Jewish to enjoy Mosaic Man, you just have to like comics, movies and TV”—this is misleading despite the odd movie (one movie) reference and aspects of the narrative like sketches or dialogues (comics have no part in the novel). In fact the novel makes a stronger use of some of Sukenick’s weaker techniques like tape-recorded conversations and screwball autobiographical antics, and there’s a minimal amount of lower-case nonsense in here to keep this critic from carping. One of the most appealing sections is the account of a trip to Europe with Raymond Federman (who has right-to-reply in the novel) and untranslated novelist Serge Doubrovsky (who also replies), and comparisons between the three opposing novelists. The novel also explore darker themes like sexual abuse and, unavoidably, the Holocaust in sudden lurches of tone that are surprising and shocking. The prose is more rhythmical and pleasurable than in prior works consumed by me (98.6, Endless Short Story).
March 26, 2025
HOUSEKEEPING 2025
I tried to ignore the wall's writing. Whatever magic Ron conjured up early on was long spent by this mess. Kinda like me; I've slept 3-4 hrs a night for as many days in a row as I write this. I very literally have one eye open to see my screen.
Point? Who am I to judge? If you dig it, grab your shovel, kids.. No harm, no foul.
I tried to ignore the wall's writing. Whatever magic Ron conjured up early on was long spent by this mess. Kinda like me; I've slept 3-4 hrs a night for as many days in a row as I write this. I very literally have one eye open to see my screen.
Point? Who am I to judge? If you dig it, grab your shovel, kids.. No harm, no foul.
May 15, 2018
4.5 stars
I don't understand why in his lifetime Sukenick insisted on truth in his fiction. Sure he uses autobiographical detail, such as snippets of tape recordings of conversations with his parents and including real life author friends Raymond Federman and Serge Doubrovsky and giving them a right of reply within the novel about being included in the novel! But for all this true life, why then resort to postmodern style and structure of a novel whose very artifice undermines any notions of 'truth as truth.
He's not attempting to write a memoir or an autobiography, as witnessed by a childhood comic-book hero fantasy section with him as part of a bomber crew in WW2, with teenage romantic crush as the co-pilot and a crew member who keeps dying and yet returning for the next mission - part Catch 22 and part South Park's "You killed Kenny". Or the pun-tastic stand-up comedy routine of the penultimate section, or the Maltese Falconesque noir final section chasing a stolen antiquity, a gold statuette of the Golden Calf, that alternative idol forged by a restive Jewish population waiting in the desert for the return of Moses from Mount Sinai and doubting the Jewish god accordingly.
'Mosaic Man' -a brilliant double-edged title, of a man built up in fragments like a mosaic, but also a man of Moses, that is a Jew. For this is Sukenick's inquiry into the nature of his Jewish identity. So we get sections set in Le Pen's France, Solidarity era Poland where the failing Communist regime resort to anti-Semitism as a rallying cry/scapegoating, even though there are virtually no Jews left in Poland; the ghosts of the original Jewish ghetto in 16th century Venice, which leads Sukenick to start seeing his own invisibility and erasure and his youthful self as a ghost - the modern day American Jew is as far removed from the European Jew as the latter is removed from the Israeli. We get a section in Jerusalem, where the people in the minibus airport with which the protagonist shared the journey from the airport, keep bumping into him in the tiny labyrinthine streets of old Jerusalem as he conducts a treasure hunt for the Golden Calf with these figures feeding him the clues.
I found it a thoroughly engrossing read about trying to place Jewish identity with all these threads throughout History. There were lots of ideas which got me thinking, though as in keeping with the different styles of each section employed by Sukenick, I enjoyed the individual sections and their ideas, without it ever coming together as a whole bringing a greater insight.
The riff nailing the psychology behind Le Pen's appeal is brilliantly nailed and explains the appeal of demagogues like Trump and Farage that we have today. They say the unsayable things many people are thinking but too scared to air themselves. Like Lenny Bruce, without the jokes. This book was Lenny Bruce, jokes included.
I don't understand why in his lifetime Sukenick insisted on truth in his fiction. Sure he uses autobiographical detail, such as snippets of tape recordings of conversations with his parents and including real life author friends Raymond Federman and Serge Doubrovsky and giving them a right of reply within the novel about being included in the novel! But for all this true life, why then resort to postmodern style and structure of a novel whose very artifice undermines any notions of 'truth as truth.
He's not attempting to write a memoir or an autobiography, as witnessed by a childhood comic-book hero fantasy section with him as part of a bomber crew in WW2, with teenage romantic crush as the co-pilot and a crew member who keeps dying and yet returning for the next mission - part Catch 22 and part South Park's "You killed Kenny". Or the pun-tastic stand-up comedy routine of the penultimate section, or the Maltese Falconesque noir final section chasing a stolen antiquity, a gold statuette of the Golden Calf, that alternative idol forged by a restive Jewish population waiting in the desert for the return of Moses from Mount Sinai and doubting the Jewish god accordingly.
'Mosaic Man' -a brilliant double-edged title, of a man built up in fragments like a mosaic, but also a man of Moses, that is a Jew. For this is Sukenick's inquiry into the nature of his Jewish identity. So we get sections set in Le Pen's France, Solidarity era Poland where the failing Communist regime resort to anti-Semitism as a rallying cry/scapegoating, even though there are virtually no Jews left in Poland; the ghosts of the original Jewish ghetto in 16th century Venice, which leads Sukenick to start seeing his own invisibility and erasure and his youthful self as a ghost - the modern day American Jew is as far removed from the European Jew as the latter is removed from the Israeli. We get a section in Jerusalem, where the people in the minibus airport with which the protagonist shared the journey from the airport, keep bumping into him in the tiny labyrinthine streets of old Jerusalem as he conducts a treasure hunt for the Golden Calf with these figures feeding him the clues.
I found it a thoroughly engrossing read about trying to place Jewish identity with all these threads throughout History. There were lots of ideas which got me thinking, though as in keeping with the different styles of each section employed by Sukenick, I enjoyed the individual sections and their ideas, without it ever coming together as a whole bringing a greater insight.
The riff nailing the psychology behind Le Pen's appeal is brilliantly nailed and explains the appeal of demagogues like Trump and Farage that we have today. They say the unsayable things many people are thinking but too scared to air themselves. Like Lenny Bruce, without the jokes. This book was Lenny Bruce, jokes included.
November 23, 2017
i suppose it just about deserves three stars as there were a few strong bits but it mostly felt pretty slapdash with lots of incessant, maddening and unfunny punning. allusions to Jewish mythology and conspiracy theories etc lacked insight or dramatic weight and sometimes seemed like Youtube comments from schizophrenics. there are a few moments of inventiveness which make me feel like his earlier work might be worth a try. one of the best sequences is where he describes his childhood imagined self as a WW2 bomber in mindbending style but some glimmers of hope do not rescue an overall mediocrity and lack of cohesion
November 17, 2009
I read this book 8 or 9 years ago, half asleep on the train to and from work. I didn't know what to make of it then, and I'm not sure what's changed, but I read it again and found it absolutely brilliant. A million different ideas somehow coalesce into a 'novel', if you can call it that. There's no real plot, just a bunch of themes that dis- and reappear. Closer to music composition than writing.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews