Customer Reviews

The Rise of David Levinsky (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics)

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I first read this book in the mid-70s when it was assigned as part of an undergrad history course. I devoured it then, rediscovered it ten years later and found I enjoyed it even more on a second reading. Subsequent readings have not diminished my admiration for the novel.

"Levinsky" is a rare example of the novel that works both as history and as literature. Cahan's firsthand observations of late 19th century industrial America and of the immigrants' struggles to adapt to life in a new land are compelling in their own right. But this is no mere slice of life realism. Cahan created complex characters who face conflicts beyond the struggle to survive.

Cahan's main character, Levinsky, spends the first part of the book struggling to master the Talmud in his village in Russia. Here Cahan introduces us to Levinsky's incisive mind, one that will serve him well when he goes to America and begins to serve a new master: business. In the opening section, Cahan also develops one of several beautifully drawn supporting characters: Levinsky's mother.

By novel's end, we realize the irony of the novel's title. On one level, Levinsky's story is a classic tale of rags-to-riches, American-style success. On the other, his story is one of failure to achieve the rich, personal, intellectually stimulating connection with others that he has craved since childhood.

This great novel deserves to be on the short list of indispensable American fiction. One seeking to understand the roots of our country would be hard pressed to do better than to read it.

I was prompted to buy and read this book by a bookclub-type event, and I am very glad to recommend this novel. Written in 1917 about an era even earlier than that, it is a classic tale of the immigrant experience, the American experience, and the Jewish experience, in the USA. The various pulls of culture, assimilation, poverty, wealth, sex, solitude, religion, secularism, education, and commerce are each subtly examined, so subtly that one doesn't realize until afterwards how much has been packed into a relatively simple story.
This Penguin version is the one to buy, it is compact, in readable type, and with a useful preface. Amazon is selling another version in an oversized paperback format--skip that one, it is awkward in size, and with many typos in the text. I actually disposed of that one and repurchased it in the Penguin paperback version.

The realism in this novel is astounding. In a true-to-life rags-to-riches story, young David Levinsky grows up poor, yet motivated, in the heart of a small Russian town. A Hasidic Jew with visions beyond the Torah, Talmud, and a studious life, he takes a ship to America to seek his fortune. His rise in corporate America has the power to inspire, to invoke fear, reminiscence, tears. Do not be surprised to find yourself looking within after a particularly well-written, astute paragraph by Cahan, and feeling as if he has written about your own emotions or state of mind -- decades before you were even born! Some of his metaphors, I have found, even describe the way I have thought about the world, and the feeling that you could be there alongside David in his search for wealth, power, women, and ultimately himself (Who am I?) add to the fantasitic realism with which Cahan weaves his story. It is a masterpiece, a novel that deserves to be read worldwide. I am twenty years old, but read the novel when I was 16. I have not read it since, yet recall vivid details and even entire paragraphs which struck me then even as they do now; reconciling parts of the novel to my life comes easily as I experience new things and understand and appreciate even better what the fictional David Levinsky went through. It is classic, a novel for all time. I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, to read it, love it, and enjoy it. I did... and I am a science person.

I read this novel the first time in college and am re-reading it now. The social realism dazzled me then, but it's the incisive characterization that strikes me more now. You get a sense of objective social conditions, but a deeper and deeper sense of the main characters' souls as you read further along. Some of the sketches of human emotion sound familiar as something that happened to me yesterday.

I believe this helps Cahan make his point, of Levinsky's material accomplishment and spiritual impoverishment. He gradually becomes emptied out, so to speak. He has lost his traditional religion and rejected the socialist substitute for religion. At the beginning, he has little but knows who he is - at the end, he has much but seems a stranger to himself.

This is a highly recommended book for anyone who is interested in the history of the Jewish Lower East Side in the late 19th century and early 20th century. It is written by an author with intimate knowledge of the time and place. Written in 1917, it is a very captivating and compelling story of an Eastern European Jewish immigrant's plight on The Lower East Side. I highly recommend it.

This book gives a solid sense of what it must have felt like to be a Jewish immigrant to New York around the turn of the century. I enjoyed the fact that the book was not only a very interesting adventure, but also a fascinating account of changing class consciousness and socialization to a new society. Kahan's account of what is gained and what is given up in this process allowed me to understand my own ancestors at a deeper level. He writes well in a journalistic style and is constantly providing details about his present that help me to understand the meaning of what was going on.

There is an irony in the title. Cahan has a hero rise in wealth and position in the society only to be empty inside. There is a price to his Americanization in the loss in some deep sense of his past source of meaning in life.
This is a pioneering tale of American- Jewish Literature. It gives a picture of a world no longer with us.
It is clearly and well - written, and if it is not in the category of great Literature, still it is a valuable social document. It is well worth reading especially for those interested in ' immigrant literature'.

This is a review meant solely for the audio version of the book. the book itself is very good and i was looking forward to hearing a reading of it as i am a big fan of audio books. i was disappointed to hear that it was just a simple text to speech made by a computer. this was not worth the money and i feel as though i have been taken advantage of. it sounds like a robot reading it and for the price if someone was going to be lazy and use a program they could have spent what i paid for one copy and gotten a realistic sounding program. WARNING LOW QUALITY READING

I know this is something of a "classic," but readers should be forwarned that in this book, the hero frequents prostitutes and seduces a married woman (actually he tries to seduce three of them). The affair takes up about 50-100 pages with references to it later in the book as well.

There are good parts to this book. The very beginning is interesting, and one can find interesting material throughout the book. But at a certain point, the main character starts visiting women of ill repute and starts seducing married women. It was at this point that I started wondering, "What kind of person was Abe Cahan if he could write about such matters in such detail? And what kind of morals did Cahan have if he makes this affair seem somewhat wonderful, rather than dastardly?"

Be forewarned!

That basically summarizes this book. Success, in the eyes of the world, can result in personal tragedy.

The author, Ab. Cahan, was a fervent socialist and ardent trade-unionist. He wrote this novel in English for a major American magazine, McClure's. At the same time he was the editor of the world's largest Yiddish newspaper, The Jewish Daily Forward. The collected stories were published in book form in 1917.

David Levinsky, who is orphaned when his mother is killed by anti-Semitic peasants in his hometown in Russia, makes his way to America. This book is his story, the tale of a man who by hook and crook, makes his way in the world, alone.

He learns English, he becomes an American and he also becomes a very wealthy businessman, a factory-owner and big shot. However, he cannot shake his loneliness and desire for a wife and family.

Actually, what he really needed was a good psychotherapist but, unfortunately, he was at least thirty years too early for that.

I found the book fascinating with its vivid descriptions of life among the Eastern European Jewish New York immigrant population. It reminded me of the work of Horatio Alger, the great American juvenile author who described the trip from rags to riches.

Unlike Alger's heroes, however, David Levinsky is hopelessly neurotic.

He finds the opportunity for misery in the most fruitful situations. This is a man who, while being a talented businessman, really screws up interpersonal relationships, especially with women to whom he is attracted.

If you read the book, which I do recommend, get the Penguin paperback edition as another reviewer suggests. You will be glad that you did. I got mine used since it doesn't seem to be offered new at this time.

Enjoy.