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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Despite the other reviews,, February 15, 2006
this is actually a rather decent first novel for Aaron Hamburger. Although the figure of the ill father isn't developed as fully as I would have liked to see and there were some odd devices thrown in (such as the father/husband appearing as a ghost when he isn't dead, etc). This was a pretty clever book in that we get to look at several different people's search for meaning and transcendence from typically boring and superficial lives. Faith for Beginners isn't meant to be wholesome or completely satisfying, it's meant to highlight the bitter and confusing struggle of people finding their places (or inability to find a place) in the modern world. Oh, and the sex scenes that previous reviewers have complained about really aren't particularly graphic. However, I wouldn't recommend reading this for a church or otherwise religious discussion group
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Good First Novel, October 23, 2005
Aaron Hamburger, the author of a collection of short stories, THE VIEW FROM STALIN'S HEAD, has written a first novel practically as good as his first book. In the year 2000 the Michaelson family from Michigan makes their first visit to Jerusalem. And what a family they are. Helen is a fifty-eight woman intent on "straightening out" her twenty-two year old son Jeremy, (one of two gay children) who has spiked hair with green highlights, a ring in his nose that resembles a safety pin, is a part-time vegetarian who has forgotten his Hebrew-- oh, the family is Jewish-- and the father/husband who used to call himself "Doctor" before he was diagnosed with cancer but is now just "Mr. Michaelson."
Mr. Hamburger has written both an extremely funny at times as well as an erotic novel-- both Jeremy and his mother fall off the abstinence wagon while in Jerusalem-- that asks serious questions about religion, politics, family relationships, gay relationships, the Arab-Israeli conflict, etc.. In fact the author asks a lot more questions than get resolved; but perhaps that is what he intended, given the complexity of the issues he discusses.
What Mr. Hamburger has done is to create a half dozen or more characters here who come alive on the page. We know a myriad of details about each of them. We can catch their body odor, sweat with them in the awful summer heat and-- pardon me, President Clinton (who gets mentioned by an Arab boy accosting Helen-- feel their pain. There are so many wonderful passages that draw the reader in. Example 1: When the Michaelsons visit the Wailing Wall, Helen "impatient to feel inspired. . . kissed the Wall, caressed the coarse stone blocks. She felt no God there, but then she'd never felt Him anywhere else, either, not even in her heart. Did He exist, then? Of course He did. it didn't matter that you couldn't pick Him out of a lineup." Another example: When Robert, Helen's oldest gay son wants to adopt a child with his male partner and chides her, one half of a mom/dad family, because she says that children need both a mother and a father, and tells her that "thanks to you, [he] hasn't felt a genuine emotion in years," she wonders what happened. "If what Robert said was true, then what had she done wrong?. . . Perhaps she's been overly cautious with Robert, since he was her first. And as for Jeremy? The only fault she could come up with was that she's been transfixed by the miniseries ROOTS while she was pregnant." That's awfully good, insightful writing.
There are also funny digs at both the Jerusalem tourist industry as well as the tourists. Ms. Michaelson boards a tour bus named "Jacob and Leah & Rachel." Two other American tourists behind her on the bus are engaging in what she calls "Jewish Geography." ("'How about Delaware? Know anybody in Delaware?' 'I met a Friedman from Delaware once. What about Philadelphia?'") Julie, the well-organized tour guide, has everything the Michiganders [the name of the tour group] need, including a plastic fan that "declared your support for the Jewish state and opened up into an umbrella."
One minor quibble: Each chapter opens with a quotation or story or proverb, some of which work better than others. These stories/information sometimes get in the way of the narrative. This novel, nonetheless, is a very entertaining but thoughtful read.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A very accomplished first novel about Michiganders passages to Isreal, March 20, 2006
Faith for Beginners involves a Michigander Jewish family (mother, father, gay son) on a package tour of Israel. The father, who had been a clinical psychologist, has terminal cancer. His wife and son have erotic/romantic adventures in Israel. Helen Michaelson's is with a very hirsute rabbi who migrated from the US and is leading the tour along with his mother.
Jeremy, a fifth-year Columbia undergrad who had recently nearly overdosed on drugs and liquor back in New York, attempts to pick up Noam, a Hassidic student, at the Wailing Wall, but gets shunted off to a strange Sabbath dinner with another group of tourists to Jerusalem, and later is picked up in Independence Park after dark by a deaf Arab who has taken the name "George."
The comedy between Anglophones abroad that was the specialty of E. M. Forster is transferred from pre-WWI Italy and India to Israel ca. 2000. About two-thirds of the way through, there seemed to be heavy influences of A Passage to India, though the Marabar Cave episode and the trial of an unjustly accused local in Hamburger's novel are split (but not entirely unrelated, not least in that Michaelsons are involved in both). I was disappointed at the lack of follow-through (Jeremy's more than Hamburger's) with the juridical proceedings against the local.
Nevertheless, the rich portrayal of characters of diverse backgrounds and the intricate plotting kept me entertained and turning the pages.
BTW, the book is NOT "pornographic," though Helen and Jeremy each has a major and a minor sex scene.
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