Word: readers
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Budnitz employs four women as narrators, all from different generations of the same family, who together grapple with the inconclusive questions of human existence. Ilana's narration greets, and scares, the reader first. Ilana is a woman of the old country, probably Russia, who somehow falls in love with a stranger and finds herself in an unnamed American city. Her journey comprises stories of rape and incest, murder and solicitation, placed in a mythical context of forests and magic. A "man in the forest laughing with little pointed teeth" violates her, yet gives her a Faberge egg. This egg becomes...
...bother Ari "rip the sheep from piece, till it was nothing but bloody meat," then describes him "trying to put the animal back together, licking his fingers and crooning, cramming the limbs back into their sockets." This display of the grotesque is one of many that causes the reader to wince and writhe; while indicative of her poetic prowess, Budnitz's portrayal of old country rituals offers little to Ilana's narrative and destroys the integrity of her tale...
...youngest narrator and the compendium of three generations of tenement dysfunction. While mysteriously drawn to her great-grandmother and the mystery of the egg, Naomi firmly inhabits the modern world. Her thoughts are descriptive rather than analytical, and this, combined with her youthful naivete, fail to give the reader any reason to feel an emotional stake in her future...
...Once the reader resigns himself to Kugel's rather perfunctory treatment of literary topics, he can then begin to enjoy Kugel's luxurious strolls through the Biblical forest. As the author points out a flower here, a bird there, all the while quoting liberally from diverse sections of Scripture, the fascinating nuances of Biblical thought are enlivened and made relevant to the modern reader. Sometimes Kugel dips into our own popular culture to clarify an idea, such as his citation of The Wizard of Oz as an example of theological disillusionment for which there is no Hebraic equivalent. At other...
...Flipping back to the front, Schor points out the warning label on the cover. Outlined in fluorescent yellow, it reads: "Due to mature content, parental consent suggested for readers under 18." The warning reflects the suggestiveness of the half-clothed models, and perhaps refers in large part to one photo of a topless girl. Above the label on the cover, an Abercrombie-outfitted, buff young man stares through thick black-rimmed glasses, looking decidedly misunderstood sipping from a mug advertising a budget travel agency. The reader is left to his or her own devices to assume that, after spending hundreds...