Word: goodmans
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...Allegra Goodman...
...concept of bashert, Jewish destiny, lies at the crux of the action of Paradise Park, the new novel by Allegra Goodman '89. And as Sharon Spiegelman, the novel's narrator, declares, "Bashert was here to stay." The novel tracks Sharon from the 1970s to the present, as she fleetingly adopts different lifestyles. Sharon tries to find her niche in almost every spiritual institution imaginable, from the Greater Love Salvation Church to a marijuana farm in Hawaii, from the Consciousness Meditation Center to the Torah-Or Institute in Jerusalem. The object of Sharon's quest throughout all of her divergent spiritual...
...given her estranged relationship with her alcoholic mother and rigid father, Sharon's story is a typical one psychologically as well. What distinguishes Paradise Park from many of the other novels that explore spiritual questions is the fact that Sharon eventually gets her answer--she finds her bashert. Goodman's novel is an affirmation of spirituality and an exploration of the way in which a person's religious status affects her personal happiness. Along the way, Paradise Park raises such ambitious questions as the relationship between belief, religious authority and individual expression...
...finding a comfortable religious niche, but the novel is so devoted to exploring the personal development of Sharon Spiegelman that it leaves us without insights that extend beyond her character. Paradise Park presents Sharon's flaky affairs and her thoughts about God and love in an enjoyable style, but Goodman does not provide any voice of her own behind the character. We are presented with such high-reaching concepts as religion, destiny and true love, but Sharon treats these concepts with limited depth, and therefore, so does the novel as a whole.Goodman demonstrates that the real tension in Sharon...
...Mikhael, a man who is also seeking to find his Jewish roots in a Hasidic community, Sharon's personal growth is evident. She has finally forged her own identity so that she is ready to have a relationship of equals with Mikhael. Sharon is a musical perfomer, and Goodman uses music to trace Sharon's development throughout the novel. With her previous boyfriends, Sharon wrestled for the spotlight. When she forms a band with Mikhael, we realize that she has finally learned to "sing" with someone else. And unlike her spiritual journey, Sharon's route to love with Mikhael...