Customer Reviews

From Bondage: Volume III of Mercy of a Rude Stream

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I have closely read all four of the MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM VOLUMES, and I feel that this third volume may be the most powerful and affecting. For many readers who are expecting the MERCY series to be just as transcendent as Roth's masterpiece CALL IT SLEEP, they are often disappointed when they start with Volume I of MERCY OF A RUDE STREAM. That volume (called "A Star Shines Over Mt. Morris Park") is a prelude, something of an overture, and it lacks the sheer intensity of feelings produced by CALL IT SLEEP. I would encourage readers instead to begin with FROM BONDAGE (Vol.III) or A DIVING ROCK ON THE HUDSON (VOL. II). If you like what you have read in Volume III, you will be caught up in the drama of the Stigman Family, and you will be able to read Volume I with far greater appreciation. Almost every reader whom I have spoken with is in awe of Roth's genius after having read FROM BONDAGE (and REQUIEM FOR HARLEM, the fourth and final volume, is a real page turner, too).

Imagine James Joyce growing up as a poor Jewish immigrant in Harlem in the 1920's. All of Henry Roth's books are outstanding, but this one may well be the best. His work, like Joyce's, is gritty, chaoctic, and tragic at one moment, light and whimsical at the next. Ira Stigman, his hero, is another Stephen Dedalus, adventurous, flawed, and often unmistakably autobiographical. If you are a reader of Joyce, discover the writing of Henry Roth.