Baby Got Books

So now that I spend 2 1/2 hours a day on the train to and from the Big Apple - I have been doing a lot of reading. The problem is getting the time to post. So rather than stressing about blogging the wittiest and most insightful book reviews - I am just going to give a brief synopsis and my thoughts on my three most recent books.

Night by Elie Wiesel

This is Oprah’s most recent selection after her debacle of Million Little Pieces and it is a reprint of Wiesel’s most famous book with a new translation by his wife. This book recalls Wiesel’s childhood during the Holocaust. It begins towards the beginning of the war when Wiesel’s family (like so many others) were in denial that anything could happen to them and quickly progresses through their internment in the ghetto and then their deportation to Auschwitz and Birkenau. It is an extremely powerful book and has been haunting me ever since I read it. The book is not only a historical account of what happened to Wiesel in the concentration camps but he also shares his struggle to understand how the god that he devoted his life to could let this horror happen. It is hard to believe that anyone survived the atrocities that are described in this book. Some of the most disturbing scenes in the book are when Wiesel is dealing with his ever weakening father and is torn between filial duty and love and self-preservation. This book should be required reading for every high school and/or college student in America. It is a reminder of the evil that man is capable of and future generations should never forget the genocide that took place. Alrigh - sorry to get heavy but it’s unavoidable with this book.

Continuing on with my Jewish theme, I also recently finished A Plot Against America by Phillip Roth.

I think (?) this has been reviewed before but as a quick recap - this book recreates history by envisioning that Charles Lindbergh wins the U.S. presidential election in 1940 and brings his anti-semitic and isolationist views to the forefront of American politics. Roth tells the story from the point of view of an adolescent Jewish boy living in New Jersey. The book’s redeeming quality was that it was told from a young boy’s, Philip Roth, perspective. What I enjoyed about the book was all the angst Philip went through trying to maintain familial relationships with his mother, father, brother and “war-hero” cousin. One review that I read said that Roth should have kept the book as an adolescent Jewish coming of age story and I agree. The lengthy discourse on the Lindbergh politics and all the players involved in this fictional history really didn’t interest me because I know that it was completely made-up and therefore hard for me to envision. I think though that the struggles that Philip had in determining what his beliefs were and how this affected his relationships were and still are relevant without the made up history part. Overall - a decent read and I definitely predict - future movie….a la Human Stain. [Since you asked, there have been two previous posts on the book (here and here) and another on the subject matter (here), ed.]

Last but definitely not least was a fantastic short story collection, The Stories of John Cheever, by John Cheever.

This is a compilation of about 60 of Cheever’s short stories most of which appeared in the New Yorker in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I had never read Cheever before and this was my book club selection last month. The woman who selected this book said “imagine cocktails, summer homes and WASP Long Island” so when I began reading these stories I thought they would be light tales of suburban life. Au contraire - I found these stories to be unbelievably dark, empty and depressing. Cheever so accurately captured what I envision post WWII suburban life to be - on the surface everyone is living these very proper lives with the perfect family and the perfect job and the perfect neighbor but underneath the veneer is adultery, alcoholism, death and depression. One of my favorite stories in the collection “The Enormous Radio” tells the tale of a couple who acquires a large radio whose frequency some how picks up all the conversations of their neighbors in the apartment building. The wife begins to eavesdrop on her neighbor’s conversation and becomes overwhelmed with how dysfunctional and depressing their lives are that it results in the demise of her life and marriage.

Many of the stories have the Long Island commuter train as a backdrop to the seemingly meaningless routine of living in suburbia (something that I can relate to). Another very popular theme for Cheever is the dullness of marriage which leads to adultery or at least the longing for one’s neighbor, kids babysitter or even one’s secretary. Cheever’s stories were definitely dated but I loved his writing style. I am so glad that I read this book and it gave me a better appreciation for the short story genre which is normally not a favorite of mine.