Customer Reviews

Great Neck

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

 

 

"Great Neck" is one of the most distinctively creative books I have read. Cantor brilliantly interweaves, and depicts a quite plausible interconnection between the impact of the civil rights movementand the Students for a Democratic Society of the late '60s/early '70s as a reaction to the search for sanctuary from anti-semetism, and the Holocaust specifically, in the affluent oasis of Great Neck, Long Island. However, in his tale the author indicates that this quest was quixiotic, that in fact the legacy of the Holocaust cannot be escaped and that their religion's heritage of ethics and responsibility eventually compells Jews to venture from what is safe to advocate for social justice. The irony of the book (in Cantor's rendering) is that as a response to persecution Jews won hard sought after success and moved to Great Neck as a sanctuary to savor their achievements, only to find peace elusive.

To those familiar with the actual Great Neck, LI, the book may come as a surprise. It in no way validates stereotypes of shallow self absorbed exceedingly affluent suburban New Yorkers. This is a complex book that attempts to depict the angst of the experience of a group of the now Jewish upper middle class in a segment of Long Island, who find their tortured heritage impossible to escape. "Great Neck" is an engrossing, substantive and thought provoking book.

Great Neck is one of those few big novels that comes along and simply sweeps the reader into a world that is radical, idealistic, naive, romantic, and scary as hell. The 60s were tranformational, and somehow Jay Cantor has managed to write with authority and eloquence in the mulitiple voices of that time. How Cantor knows so much about SDS 'kids', drugs, Black Power, and Holocaust survivors, for just a start, is remarkable. The book is not an easy read but it is written so well that you cannot put it down. For anyone who wants to go deep into the sociology of this American Generation,Great Neck is a must read.

In Great Neck, Cantor displays not only a masterful grasp of language, but also of personality, wit, and style. It is a full and beautiful novel, seeped in humanity, with all the passion, pain and pleasure therein. Encompassing much of the turbulent 60's and beyond, Great Neck is part fiction, part fact, and as gripping as it is intricate. We are treated to absorbing, layered, and nuanced glimpses into a mixed cast of intellectual revolutionaries and civil rights activists, drawn primarily from the privileged elite of Great Neck, Long Island, burdened with a sense of guilt over their wealth and opportunity, and driven to find a way to make things right in the world. Stories sometimes told in parallel, sometimes asynchronously, Cantor's prose is woven together with a masterful sense of style and timing that can only be accomplished by great authors and auteurs. Admittedly, Great Neck is neither a light read nor a whimsical journey, but give it the time and attention it deserves and you will be richly rewarded.

Five well deserved stars.

Endlessly digressive, intentionally complex and, simply put, one of the most displeasing books I've ever attempted to read. When I first read a short review of Great Neck, I'd hoped for an interesting story about Long Island teenagers and the turmoils of the 1960s. But Cantor's not interested in telling a story as much as showing off his non-linear, intentionally complicated writing style. I'm not impressed. Not one person in my book club could finish Great Neck, and we're not rubes; Middlesex by Jeffry Eugenides and The Known World by Edward P. Jones were two of our favorites. Sure to be loved by post-modernist poseurs and English professors, but probably not by many others.

I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a historical novel, but without the tinny, gimcrack writing that term usually implies. It's akin to Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow or V, both in the sprawling canvas and the amazingly realized historical detail, which I imagine must have been worked up from painstaking research by the author. Any book where you find yourself arguing (sometimes out loud) with the characters is fine by me.

To those who complained of the writing style, I would say the book rewards patience.

I had such high hopes for this book. I think I gave it a fair chance (I stopped on page 122). At 700 pages with a smallish type set, there is enough material here for a few books. Cantor's style of tangent-laden sentences, skipping through multiple time periods without much segue make for slow-going work. MANY different characters with similar sounding names and all with secondary names as well add to the confusion. Might pick this back up in the future if feeling more adventurous.

This is a beautifully written book with a number of interesting and thought provoking characters. But as the previous reviewer states, its just too dense to keep you totally engaged. As a result, I got half way through and have put it down. I would like to finish it, I really would, but I have too many other good reads sitting there.

Kudos to those who managed to get past one hundred pages or, remarkably, actually finished this book. Every paragraph is crammed with ten or twelve ideas, a few worthy, most not, each competing for coherence, none succeeding. I plowed through the first chapter in hopes that it would simmer down thereafter, but the second chapter showed that Mr. Cantor's writing is entirely out of control and that he was ill served by an indulgent editor. How many teachers of freshman writing courses have had to reign in this type of overblown, undisciplined junk? Too bad Mr. Cantor missed that class. The book is simply unreadable.

Lemme tell you, this book has everything. Shrinks who knew Freud. Holocaust survivors. Mad Bombers from the seventies. Jewish heroes who freedom march and then get buried under a few tons of soil. Harvard. A snot-nosed super cartoonist And with all that, it stinks! Mr Cantor invents situations. Then he drags them on and on until you gotta got to the bathroom so bad that-- Mr. Cantor, if he were from Keokuk, would never be published because he cant write. He is dull, dull, dull. And for this I paid 28.75, the hard copy. I want my money back!