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46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Classic American Literature, December 9, 1999
I first read this book in the mid-70s when it was assigned as part of an undergrad history course. I devoured it then, rediscovered it ten years later and found I enjoyed it even more on a second reading. Subsequent readings have not diminished my admiration for the novel. "Levinsky" is a rare example of the novel that works both as history and as literature. Cahan's firsthand observations of late 19th century industrial America and of the immigrants' struggles to adapt to life in a new land are compelling in their own right. But this is no mere slice of life realism. Cahan created complex characters who face conflicts beyond the struggle to survive. Cahan's main character, Levinsky, spends the first part of the book struggling to master the Talmud in his village in Russia. Here Cahan introduces us to Levinsky's incisive mind, one that will serve him well when he goes to America and begins to serve a new master: business. In the opening section, Cahan also develops one of several beautifully drawn supporting characters: Levinsky's mother. By novel's end, we realize the irony of the novel's title. On one level, Levinsky's story is a classic tale of rags-to-riches, American-style success. On the other, his story is one of failure to achieve the rich, personal, intellectually stimulating connection with others that he has craved since childhood. This great novel deserves to be on the short list of indispensable American fiction. One seeking to understand the roots of our country would be hard pressed to do better than to read it.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic that should be better-known, October 16, 2006
I was prompted to buy and read this book by a bookclub-type event, and I am very glad to recommend this novel. Written in 1917 about an era even earlier than that, it is a classic tale of the immigrant experience, the American experience, and the Jewish experience, in the USA. The various pulls of culture, assimilation, poverty, wealth, sex, solitude, religion, secularism, education, and commerce are each subtly examined, so subtly that one doesn't realize until afterwards how much has been packed into a relatively simple story.
This Penguin version is the one to buy, it is compact, in readable type, and with a useful preface. Amazon is selling another version in an oversized paperback format--skip that one, it is awkward in size, and with many typos in the text. I actually disposed of that one and repurchased it in the Penguin paperback version.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Realism at its finest, November 4, 1998
By A Customer
The realism in this novel is astounding. In a true-to-life rags-to-riches story, young David Levinsky grows up poor, yet motivated, in the heart of a small Russian town. A Hasidic Jew with visions beyond the Torah, Talmud, and a studious life, he takes a ship to America to seek his fortune. His rise in corporate America has the power to inspire, to invoke fear, reminiscence, tears. Do not be surprised to find yourself looking within after a particularly well-written, astute paragraph by Cahan, and feeling as if he has written about your own emotions or state of mind -- decades before you were even born! Some of his metaphors, I have found, even describe the way I have thought about the world, and the feeling that you could be there alongside David in his search for wealth, power, women, and ultimately himself (Who am I?) add to the fantasitic realism with which Cahan weaves his story. It is a masterpiece, a novel that deserves to be read worldwide. I am twenty years old, but read the novel when I was 16. I have not read it since, yet recall vivid details and even entire paragraphs which struck me then even as they do now; reconciling parts of the novel to my life comes easily as I experience new things and understand and appreciate even better what the fictional David Levinsky went through. It is classic, a novel for all time. I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, to read it, love it, and enjoy it. I did... and I am a science person.
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