Status Updates From Great Tales of Jewish Fanta...

The least realistic thing in this whole novel is that there's a Jewish mother who doesn't want her son to become a doctor.

People Love Dead Jews.

If the mirror is what heals her, what was the point of the second and third kings? He could have come back and saved her after the first one! Then gone out and searched for the other two, if he wants to be a mensch.

(Okay, yeah, the baby wouldn't have lived that long. But Bovve didn't know that.)

"and silently and with a fieldlike voice, dull and as though unaccustomed to speaking, he began to tell his story, and this is what he told."

Putting aside the repetition and the issue of what the hell is a "fieldlike voice"...how is he using that voice SILENTLY?

"...and the green grass was greening on it, and the sunbeams coming from the sun played and flashed upon the green."

This book has fallen from three stars to two.

Fucking fuck, who wrote this story, Christopher fucking Paolini? GET TO THE POINT!

This isn't a bad story, but the pretentious, drawn-out way that it's written is making it intolerable.

I wonder if C.S. Lewis ever read this story.

"I as fully aware of this." Should be "was."

So it's not EVERY critic that's "reincarnated from a dog," just ones who criticize the secular Jews. A group which the author happens to be a part of.

I get the feeling that whatever he wrote before this story wasn't received very well.

"Critics don't do anything but attack people for no reason!" says the story that's criticizing everyone and everything.

Typo: in the third paragraph, Simkhe is called "Simke."

Typo: the sixth paragraph begins with "Simkhe," but from context, it's clearly supposed to be Leah.

"...staring gravely with a grave smile on her lips."

I feel like that could have been translated better.

Typo: missing quotation mark.

"Levi looked around, greatly upset, not knowing what was happening."

Me neither, Levi, and I have the advantage of the omniscient narrator.

I think they just...forgot to put one of the story descriptions in.

Yeah, I really didn't like that story. There's a seed of a good idea there, atoning himself by killing someone as wicked as he used to be, but it really comes off like he just never accepted that he wasn't allowed to murder people—he's just willing to take a bad punishment to avoid a worse one.

You kinda have to admire these priests for sticking to their convictions, at least.

If they're from the Lost Tribes, how would they know about Lag B'Omer?

(Also, why is Solomon's descendant there, but we'll just assume a Judean prince was hanging out in Samaria when Sennacherib came around.)

"...there is a country known as Wonderland, where the red-haired Jews dwell, the descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes."

The Queen of Hearts treats them surprisingly well, compared to most European monarchs.

Eh. Not my favorite version of "Bisclavret." What was even the wife's reason for getting rid of her husband? The ring gave them infinite wealth, no matter how much he gave to charity. Also, unlike in the Christian versions of this story, the rabbi could just divorce his wife if he knows that she's a sneaky bitch.

"The Rabbi Who Was Turned into a Werewolf"

This is relevant to my interests.