Customer Reviews

Captives

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Halfway through this book I was debating: four or five stars. When I finished it, it was between two and three. That's not good. It was an ambitious project but falls short ... all the way to disappointing and shallow. I think Hasak-Lowy wrote it to soon, meaning--before he knew what he was speaking of. Maybe when he's fifty or sixty years old, he'll have a better idea. Good writing is not something, I think, that can be taught in school. The author is a professor of literature which seems to be very much in vogue--the teaching of creating writing and subsequently, the teacher then must publish a novel(s). They tend to get cute with style, and Hasak-Lowy does that. [eg. He takes seventy-one (71) words to say:"Each ... moment ... feels like a month."] But, that was bearable, as were the dropped dialogue tags. It was the disintegration of promising scenes and story that was so disappointing. There is so much potential here--the current state of affairs in the world--the intersection of writing with the "here now" real world. I'd like to tell the author to go back to school, but formal education is not what he lacks--what he lacks is insight and introspection. That said, there are some good descriptive scenes and SOME good dialogue.

It is fitting that this book should come out in the season of Sukkot,

when Jews have finished baring our souls during the High Holy Days and

then repair to our flimsy booths in the fields, celebrating the harvest

while acknowledging our ultimate vulnerability when faced with the

Eternal. Daniel Bloom, a screenwriter whose obsession with storytelling

threatens his marriage and family, lives in the anomic LA of Didion,

trying to find some "meaning in his life," one of the euphemisms for

coming face-to-face with his fear and pain. His journey is aided by the

similarly wounded Rabbi Ethan Brenner, whose candor doesn't fly in

La-La-land, and gets him fired from his Reform Temple. Hasak-Lowy's long, loping paragraphs describe Bloom's

frustration with the state of the world, as well as with his personal

life, following him through an abbreviated tour of Tel Aviv with one of

Rabbi Ethan's friends as his guide. Even during a memorial service,

Bloom can only use the terms of film to think about his outward

deportment: "...disturbed by the thought, What's my motivation here?

Obviously it isn't about him [the deceased]," until he finally is able

to touch his own anguish and shame. The metaphor of a dying dog is a bit

overdone at the book's conclusion, as is the final treatment of Bloom's

work, but the book overall sings the plaintive song of imperfect humans

trying to fix an imperfect world while also trying to fix the

disrepair of their own lives, while wondering if some aspect of the

Infinite could be watching.

It is fitting that this book should come out in the season of Sukkot,

when Jews have finished baring our souls during the High Holy Days and

then repair to our flimsy booths in the fields, celebrating the harvest

while acknowledging our ultimate vulnerability when faced with the

Eternal. Daniel Bloom, a screenwriter whose obsession with storytelling

threatens his marriage and family, lives in the anomic LA of Didion,

trying to find some "meaning in his life," one of the euphemisms for

coming face-to-face with his fear and pain. His journey is aided by the

similarly wounded Rabbi Ethan Brenner, whose candor doesn't fly in

La-La-land, and gets him fired from his Reform Temple. Hasak-Lowy's long, loping paragraphs describe Bloom's

frustration with the state of the world, as well as with his personal

life, following him through an abbreviated tour of Tel Aviv with one of

Rabbi Ethan's friends as his guide. Even during a memorial service,

Bloom can only use the terms of film to think about his outward

deportment: "...disturbed by the thought, What's my motivation here?

Obviously it isn't about him [the deceased]," until he finally is able

to touch his own anguish and shame. The metaphor of a dying dog is a bit

overdone at the book's conclusion, as is the final treatment of Bloom's

work, but the book overall sings the plaintive song of imperfect humans

trying to fix an imperfect world while also trying to fix the

disrepair of their own lives, while wondering if some aspect of the

Infinite could be watching.

I read a lot. Mostly non-fiction, but I do delve into mystery and other types of fiction. It is important that the author knows about what he puts down on paper. In the instance of this book some errors are so glaring I am not sure I can get past them. I'll give you two examples. On page 43 the author has his character firing a 22 cal handgun. The description of the character's reaction reference pain...violent recoil...etc. Anyone who has actually fired a 22 cal handgun knows there is virtually no recoil...and certainly no "aches or pain" involved. Later, I read about the ship Titanic...with comments about the ships bow in the air and people falling off(page 56). Actually, as we know, it was not the bow but the stern of the ship supposedly suspended in the air. Little details like this indicate the writer is not familiar with what he puts on paper and it certainly reflects on the editing skills of those publishing the book. I enjoy reading, but I do have certain requirements and simply don't enjoy it when authors ramble off into areas that they obviously know nothing about.

A very unfortunate purchase. The author's style is pretty unreadable. Just look at the first full paragraph on pg 4. The first sentence is 116 words long. The paragraph is longer than a full page. The author appears to be in love with the number of phrases he can concatenate together in a single sentence without a thought as to readability.