Customer Reviews

Lovingkindness

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book shines. It is a book about the love between a mother and daughter, about the obstacles on the path to perfect understanding between them, about the ways in which children disappoint and delight their parents. Both the mother and the daughter are completely believable. It is impossible to predict what will happen to them after the book's end.

The writing is wonderful, almost lyric. The characters are fully drawn. The plot is entirely organic, with no disruptive elements. The story is firmly rooted in the second half of the 20th century, in the evolution of American Jewry and the haredi response to it. The booked moved me deeply. There is nothing to disappoint in this book, except that it ends.

Both a heartwarming and heart-wrenching novel of a mother-daughter relationship in turmoil. Sometimes Annie's '60's feminism is exasperating in light of the difficult teen years her daughter experienced. Then again, one can sympathize with a mother who only wants what is best for her only child. This novel is a beautifully written and tender exploration in the relationship of these two. It also incorporates so much of the Jewish American agenda of the past thirty years. An excellent read!

I began this book with a great sense of anticipation, but ultimately found myself let down.

The novel traces the relationship between a liberal feminist mother, Annie, and her daughter Andrea. Like many mother/daughter narratives, the early part of the novel traces the failures of both--Annie's attempts to impress her own beliefs upon her daughter, and her daughter's rebellion from them.

Andrea's character makes a 180-degree turn in the middle of the novel, just as the reader gets used to her being a hostile, ungrateful, screw-up. Why does she become an ultra-Orthodox Jew? It's a fascinating question, but the book didn't ultimately pay off for me.

For me, the book's major downfall is the initial set-up of the characters. Andrea was, as noted above, too unlikeable to grab my sympathy or my interest to find out exactly what has become of her.

I note that my feelings are decidedly in the minority--most reviewers have liked this book much better than I did. For my opinion, though, there are much better narratives about Jewish mother/daughter relationships and modern Jewish literature in general.

When Annie Johnson, a feminist single mother learns that her twentysomething daughter Andrea has joined a Yeshiva in Israel, she is stunned. After all, this is the same daughter who partied, got piercings and tattoos, and experimented with drugs. The same daughter whose
self-destructive behavior and rebellious attitude have kept her on tenterhooks for the past several years.

Not sure what to make of it, Annie researches all that is available to know about this Yeshiva - and learns that they are a traditional Jewish group that focuses on teaching the Talmud, how to keep kosher, and, startlingly, they arrange marriages between the men and women.

This is such an antithesis of everything she has taught her daughter, so Annie reels from the information. At first, she tells herself that Andrea will tire of the group, as she has of everything else in her young life. Her attention span is short, etc. Then she receives a letter - Andrea informs her that she is now "Sarai", her new name and that she is becoming a new person.

Over the next several months, they communicate, and with each epistle, Annie's heart sinks - she falls into reminiscences of the times when Andrea, as a young girl, was loving, affectionate, and didn't rebel. She is also tortured by dreams of an ancient Rabbi, who comes to her with messages - metamorphic messages that seem to be premonitions of sorts.

Finally Annie receives a communication from the Rose family, whose son has been chosen to marry Andrea/Sarai. They, too, are disturbed by the turn of events. They commiserate and ultimately, plan to go to Israel to investigate.

In Israel, events become unpredictable as the story winds down to its unexpected conclusion.

What does Annie learn at the Yeshiva? What do the Roses do to turn things around? And what, ultimately, will be the final resolution of this most unusual mother/daughter conflict?

Lovingkindness is a unique exploration of the fragile mother/daughter bond and the events that shape it.

Roiphe is indeed a gifted writer and she crafts an engaging, interesting story, and the dynamic between the narrator and her daughter is powerful. The major downside of this book is that it is severely unrealistic and stereotyped in its portrayal of Ultra-Orthodox Judaism...her descriptions of their way of life is ridiculously ficticious, depicting these characters as trivial, one-sided, shallow, blinded and outright stupid in their faith, cult followers, and cruel (just one example among many-- when a woman's children are taken away from her and the Rabbi's refusal to let the narrator see her own daughter-- where does the author derive this from??)True, the narrator is a fictious character, but after awhile, it becomes difficult for the reader to adapt a viewpoint other than the one that is blatantly biased and stereotyped...I couldn't help but wonder if the author's intent was to in fact stress her own personal opinions, to convince the reader that her outlandish descriptions of Orthodox Judaism were indeed true. I am not an Orthodox Jew, but by the end, I was very offended-- too bad that whatever truly meaningful content lay within and the great descriptive writing was overshadowed by the author's contemptive views.

Not a masterpiece, but I was able to keep reading it without feeling totally bored to death.

I thought the depiction of Orthodoxy was somewhat one-sided but not completely negative; I know a few baal teshuvot (though admittedly no one from the kind of environment described in the book) and I can't imagine anyone refusing to be called by their English name or similar foolishness. (But then again, Andrea and her fiance were so messed up before they became Orthodox that they might be atypical). But the "us against the secular world" attitude that Andrea expresses does ring true to some extent.

The book also struck me as part of a common trend of our time- the failure of ultraliberalism seems to have bred a resurgent ultraconservatism, whether in religion or politics.

I read this book, wanting to stop reading it constantly, but hoping that something redeeming would occur that would justify my spending my time with it. The constant dreams (without interpretation)about the Rabbi which went on and on; the hateful letters between mother and daughter, the hideous way in which both the feminist and the Lubivitch beliefs were presented, neither of which reflect anything that I have ever known or ever hope to know. This was NOT a loving mother, nor a loving daughter. These were not Jews I have ever known (and I know the Chabad Jews), who would go to such lengths to separate a mother and daughter; these are not parents I would want to know, detesting their own children's beliefs without even bothering to see if there is any validity to the life style they have chosen. I could not find a moment's redemption in this book. I give it two stars instead of one because there were a few passages of nice writing that I appreciated. However, there was WAY TOO MUCH LECTURING for a novel. Roiphe goes off on a tangent every time she wants to make a point, instead of showing the reader, through her characters and storyline, what she wants to convey. It gets very boring. I did not want to read a treatise on feminism, or on the evils of religion. I had hoped for a story that showed a relationship, albeit flawed, between a mother and daughter, that had become polarized. At any rate, I ended up just hating this book and being sorely disappointed that I spent the time I had reading it. It just annoyed me.

A mother is afraid of losing her daughter to what she perceives as religious fanaticism. She runs to Israel to try to deprogram her...only to learn that maybe her assumptions about her daughter's new path are inaccurate. What's particularly nice about this book is that the mother doesn't have to buy into her daughter's religious identity to learn how to deal with it. This book is wonderful for any Jewish reader whose family needs to learn to bridge the religious spectrum...in either direction.

Ann Roiphe has a take on REAL life that gives her the opportunity to write compellingly on issues which are addressed by many of us. This dilemma is handled carefully, and sensitively. For me, it made non stop reading.

This book is beautifully written.
The author captures the essence of the mother-daughter relationship.
I would recommend this book to all mothers with daughters.