| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not Malamud's greatest, but visionary and ambitious,
By
This review is from: God's Grace (Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
Bernard Malamud had a varied and interesting writing career. From Yakov Bok in the award winning "The Fixer" to the struggling artist Fidelman in "Pictures of Fidelman", to baseballer Roy Hobbs in "The Natural", he has painted portraits of a wide range of fascinating people, mostly Jewish men in middle age, faced with moral or ethical crises. Probably my favorite is Henry Lesser from "The Tenants", but Calvin Cohn in this novel comes in close. He is a pretty complex guy, in fact the last man left on earth after a thermonuclear holocaust wipes out the rest of civilization. Luckily for Cohn, he missed out on being killed by virtue of his being at the bottom of the ocean floor in scientific pursuits.He befriends a highly intelligent chimp, whom he names Buz, who for a time is his sole companion in this "new world", and they make for themselves something idyllic on a deserted island, living off the land and some remaining supplies from the ship that Cohn had sailed out on (all of whose inhabitants have perished, along with the eccentric, Christian German scientist who raised the chimp). Buz becomes gifted with speech, the ability to learn and debate, mostly on religious topics; this makes for some fantastical and interesting exchanges on Jewish and Christian themes. Once the reader gets past the implausibility of verbal communication and debates between humans and primates and sees the story as metaphorical, this makes for a fascinating novel. It is short and highly readable, carrying themes that get to the root of what life is, who God is or isn't, and what belief and power can do, for good and evil. Malamud throws in some typical self deprecating Jewish wit, with guilt about God competing with man's attempts at intimacy with the Almighty. Some of the developments are certainly uncomfortable (if you bristle at the thought of inter-species mating, as I and I am sure most of us do, you might have to suppress your imagination in parts). But the developments are necessary to the concepts that Malamud is putting forth. This was a rewarding story on many levels. Recommended to anyone who wants to be challenged to think about the meaning of life beyond mere convention.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The consequences of free will,
By
This review is from: God's Grace (Twentieth Century Classics) (Paperback)
In a thermonuclear war, the "Djanks" and "Druzhkies" destroy themselves, and all other inhabitants of the earth. Calvin Cohn, a paleologist who is in a diving bell off a research vessel at the time of the disaster, miraculously survives.He finds that another being is aboard the research ship-a chimpanzee whom he calls "Buz." The two of them end up on a tropical island, where Cohn finds that Buz has a couple of electric wires protruding from his throat-and when Cohn connects them, the chimp is able to speak. Cohn and Buz have a father-son sort of relationship, which gets complicated when they eventually find that a few other apes have also survived. Amazingly, the other chimpanzees on the island also acquire the power of speech, and Cohn becomes their teacher. They also receive periodic and enigmatic visits form "George," a gorilla, who is drawn to the sound of Cohn's father's cantorial recordings, which Cohn saved from the ship, along with a wind-up record player. The chimps are afraid of and dislike George, but Cohn sees something in him that keeps him trying to communicate with the ape, despite his lack of verbal skills. Cohn tries to get the chimps to learn from the mistakes of mankind, to see themselves as capable of repopulating the earth with a race that does not make the same mistakes as Man. However, despite their relative sophistication, the chimps exhibit many of the same unpleasant characteristics found in humans. One of the chimpanzees is a female, Mary Madelyn, and she, of all the chimps, is the one who seems most capable of moral evolution. However, her insistence on being treated as a being with rights, who makes her own sexual choices, creates a crisis within the community. This book has some very funny moments and is written in a wry, deadpan style. However, it is ultimately a tragedy with a message. When, with our free will, we choose to destroy God's gifts, we can't expect God to bail us out.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Human nature on trial,
This review is from: God's Grace (Paperback)
Calvin Cohn, a Jewish paleontologist, son of a rabbi, is the only human survivor of a thermonuclear disaster. He has to content himself with the company of a few chimps and baboons. God is responsible for this second flood and He blames humans for destroying nature; Cohn has survived due to an error and he is let to live and make the best he can. In this scenario of desolation, Cohn becomes a god-like creature, he believes he can recreate the world, impose a new social order based on high moral and spiritual values, hard working, order, aiming to turn his fellow chimps into a better lot than humans. Amongst the chimps there is "Buz", a Christian who has been taught how to speak, sweet "Mary Madelyn" the only reproductive female of the group, "Esau" the nonconformist, a mysterious albino ape, and the cast-out gorilla "George" who is enchanted by the cantor's singing... This a novel heavy in meanings, in the use of parables, fables and allegories. Following Malamud's pessimistic outlook on human nature, Cohn is just one more of his characters standing in a long line of losers, an individual who fears his fate and becomes the object of ridicule and pity. In his disguised reincarnation of Adam, Moses, and finally Christ, Cohn symbolizes the necessity of gaining moral wisdom through suffering. In a metaphorical language and fantastic-like "Chagall" prose, Malamud creates a thought-disturbing novel, an account of human nature fragile standing, and a celebration to its strenghts as well as a lament to its weaknesses.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
|
|
See all 7 books this book cites
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product).
|
|
|
