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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Kraven Images not as clear as The Prince's,
By A Customer
This review is from: Kraven Images: A Novel (Hardcover)
Alan Isler's first novel, Prince of West End Avenue, was a phenomenal work of fiction that had the reader laughing and crying at the same time. The "Prince" was masterful in its attention to literary allusion, symbolic inuendo and a unique sense of where simple story telling ends and great literature begins. But Isler seems to have abandoned the beautifully woven Prufrock and Hamletian character of Otto Korner, for Kraven, the slime ball professor of Kraven Images. Though humorous and witty at times, I had little sympathy or patience for Kraven and his "problems." He gets deeper and deeper into a web of frenzied plot entanglements that eventually come crashing down on him all at once. In the end, I tired of the "miraculous" coincidences that tied some of the sub-plots together until the novel became predictable and ponderous. I loved Prince of West End Avenue so much that Kraven Images didn't seem to be authored by the same genius who caused me to read his first novel four times in one month. I hope "Prince" is the REAL Alan Isler and that Kraven was the image of what Isler does NOT want a novelist to become
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Compared to Isler's earlier work as well as other satirists.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Kraven Images (Mass Market Paperback)
Alan Isler's latest book, Kraven Images, is a farcical recounting of the life experiences of Professor Kraven. It appears that the Professor's name suits him well. As the story unfolds we find that Kraven's life has been a sham, a distortion, and an outright disgrace. There is some pathos in the description, which threads through the entire work, of the destruction of his Jewish family's life by the horrors of the holocaust which explains his constant searching for answers which he never finds. The character starts out as a Woody Allen type self-absorbed intellectual professor at Moshulu College on Long Island. His frequent sexual exploits are reminiscent of Allen's early writings, especially the short story The Kugelmass Episode (in the book Side Effects). However the book does not have the subtleties of Allen's short story and as it approaches the ending, appears to escalate beyond any belief, or any interest for the reader. This is unfortunate, because Isler's earlier writing, The Bacon Fancier, was outstanding in literary skill and depiction of Jewish life across a span of four centuries. This reader found the book derivative of Nabakov's Pale Fire, a richer and fuller character study of an intellectual who did not see himself as he was seen by others. In spite of my disappointment with this particular work, I recommend the book to those interested in following the career of this writer as he continues to explore and expand his talents as an artist.
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