The Jewish Messiah: A Novel [Kindle Edition]

Arnon Grunberg (Author), Sam Garrett (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mockingly irreverent and verging on the fantastical, Grunberg's satirical comedy featuring a contemporary messiah will amuse some readers and offend others. When Swiss teenager Xavier Radek meets Awromele Michalowitz, a rabbi's son, decides it is his life's mission to comfort the Jews to atone for their suffering. Idealistic and naïve to the point of foolishness, Xavier is a contemporary version of the Jewish folkloric character Gimpel the Fool. Never mind that his grandfather was a superzealous Nazi, and his mother thinks that You-Know-Who had the right idea in exterminating the Jews. Both young men acknowledge the erotic bond between them, first evidenced when Xavier undergoes a botched circumcision. As the action moves from Basel to Amsterdam to Tel Aviv in a series of farcical adventures involving violence, brutality, lust and jealousy, the novel reveals a world made up of bigots and complacent hypocrites. Grunberg's iconoclastic novels are bestsellers in Europe, where they have won numerous literary awards. He has a fine touch for the ridiculous and the macabre, but by the time Xavier becomes the corrupt prime minister of Israel and metamorphoses into a modern Hitler, this abrasive satire becomes an open wound. (Jan.)
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Review

"Grunberg rejects self-serving existentialism, confronts real-world torture, genocide, terrorism, and personal crimes of the heart, and he infuses his visceral, wily satire with biblical fury."
-Los Angeles Times "Arnon Grunberg is known for writing incendiary novels, but...The Jewish Messiah pushes his bleak sense of humor into new realms....Much more than an impolite screed; Grunberg wants to incite dialogue, not controversy."
- Time Out New York

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 402 KB
• Print Length: 492 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1594201498
• Publisher: Penguin (February 24, 2009)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0013FDJUY
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #353,476 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful nonsense, February 9, 2008

By 

Duke Marine (Newbury Park, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jewish Messiah: A Novel (Hardcover)

I'm torn on this book. On the one hand it was one of the most beautifully written things I have ever read. Some sentences I would read over and over because they were so beautiful and unique.

However the story...the story was good enough to keep me reading for the 400+ pages of the book...but I don't think it was because it was good I think it was because I thought maybe at some point it would make sense or get to the point. It was almost like the story was just the summary on the book jacket stretched out ridiculously with insane attention to mundane detail. I'd say 75% of the book doesn't move the story along.

Also the characters...they are incredibly 1-dimensional. Which is strange because the author delves into the inner thoughts and emotions of the main character extensively. But they are merely described, not explained. All of characters face some of the most nightmarish situations ever conjured in fiction but their reactions are completely alien and inhuman. Like I found myself waiting to find out that everyone turned out to be a serial killer or psychologically disturbed in some way. But they weren't, they were all supposedly "normal."

I suppose you could read social commentary into it. However, in my opinion, it doesn't make any such commentary very clear. Any message from the book would be completely a matter of interpretation and reading whatever you want into the text.

All in all, I sort of regret spending all of the time I spent reading the book because it failed to deliver any sort of point and wasn't entertaining enough for that to be the point. However it wasn't an unenjoyable waste of time as the writing was...poetic without being flowery. The author and translator are obviously masters of language. And I suppose the best praise I can give the story was that it was crafted in such a way that I can forgive myself for expecting there to be more to it than there turned out to be.

15 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Buy it for the cover alone., January 9, 2008

By 

Dmitry Portnoy (Studio City, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Jewish Messiah: A Novel (Hardcover)

Imagine Woody Allen and the Marquis de Sade had a child, not a bastard, but one they fussed over and nurtured and sent to the best schools: he might have written this horrible, vicious, hilarious, totally true book, whose tasteless provocations upon motherhood, philosophy, art, and friendship are matched by a quixotic cruelty to cheeses. The translated prose is like the best martini: ice-cold, and crystal clear, with an instant head rush, and the subtlest whiff of foreignness in vermouth. Beware: it is a very stiff drink.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thank you for blowing my mind, Mr. Grunberg, September 22, 2010

By 

Oedipa Hex "Oedipa Hex" (New York) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Jewish Messiah: A Novel (Kindle Edition)

I've just closed the final (digital) page of The Jewish Messiah, and I am currently rapt with that pungent cross between nausea and sadness that comes only with the most guttural experiences in life. I'm so traumatized that buying the rest of Grunberg's books that have so far been translated into English seems like a necessity, but also like one of the biggest risks I could possibly take. It's like choosing to meet that illicit lover just one more time, to say goodbye, knowing the feelings he'll endow you with will never let you rest.