Customer Reviews

My Holocaust: A Novel

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

 

 

An A for effort - great writing, a sharp eye for detail, and the brazen concept. The author bravely goes to the edge - and then jumps right off. The first 3/4 of this book contain some brilliant bits of savagely funny satire - there were several times when I put the book down and just laughed for a minute or two. Loses steam and becomes tiresome in the last 100 pages.

Ultimately, I decided that this book was so brave and daring, so well-written and so constantly laugh-out-funny (no mean feat when talking about the Holocaust), that I couldn't bring myself to give it less than 5 stars. That's not to say that I wasn't tempted though. The author has a penchant for writing both sentences and paragraphs that go on and on and on, seemingly forever. When reading a book, I find that the eye and the mind tend to seek out "resting points", whether in the form of periods to end sentences, or paragraph breaks to start new paragraphs. Ms. Reich however often seemed to have an aversion to both and the result is that sentences routinely ran more than 100 words and many (if not most) paragraphs were well over a page long. I found that when one is getting to the 123rd word in a sentence which in turn is about the 60th line in a paragraph, it becomes very hard to follow along and the mind starts to wander. When will this sentence ever end? When will this paragraph ever end? I did find that from time to time, these long sentences were used to excellent effect and were just the right technique in those certain instances. For the most part however, I just found it mentally exhausting. As I say, I still give it 5 stars, but I was annoyed by that aspect of the book.

This book is a ribald satire about the establishment and leadership of the U. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. The first half of the book is both offensive and outrageously comical as the father-and-son duo of Maurice and Norman Messer shepherd potential donors on a first-class tour of Auschwitz. If that notion was not crazy enough, the personalities of all involved and the things they say will make your jaw drop at times and make you burst out in audible laughter at times. And part of what makes such a crazy story so fabulous is its verisimilitude. As ridiculous as the whole set up is, the reader can't help but wondering if things really did happen even remotely this way as the museum was being set up. This first part of the book also contains some intriguing critical commentary about the entire enterprise of Holocaust commemoration in the United States. The first half of the book deserved 4.5 stars, in my opinion.

However, I agree with so many other reviewers that book goes off the rails in the last 100 pages. Simply put, the last third of the book is not very good. There are so many intersecting plot lines that all sense of verisimilitude is lost. People's lives cross paths in ways that defy logic (and My Holocaust is not magical realism). There are new characters introduced far too late in the novel, and they simply complicate the action without contributing to it in a meaningful way. The main characters' quirks get stranger and stranger. There are numerous random digressions that go nowhere. Sometimes the prose is downright confusing because the author frequently employs interior monologue for multiple characters. It can be interesting, but it is unwieldy here. It is too bad that the book did not end after the trip to Poland or that Tova Reich did not rein in her wilder flights of fancy.

My Holocaust is a difficult book to comment upon or classify. I suppose there are two things the reader of My Holocaust should keep in mind. The dictionary definition of satire: the use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc. This helps frame the entire novel, and will prevent any damaging or false reading of this work. The second is to read ALL of Tova Reich's novels before reading this one (Mara, The Master of the Return, The Jewish War). Then the reader will see how acidic her pen can truly be; how she will not broker compromise with hypocrisy or vice in less inflammatory subjects than the Holocaust (also, many of the characters from those works appear or are mentioned in My Holocaust). That said, those other works are always counter-balanced by a well-rounded character or two, giving the novels a more warm, human feel. My Holocaust has almost none of that. Except for a few pages near the end, as an unnamed nun meditates on the catastrophe that befell European Jews during World War II, this is unbridled satire, start to finish.

...to anyone who possesses even a shred of good taste. Instead, it is for all of us who adore "non p.c" books and movies (this book makes the original Producers and Blazing Saddles look tame in comparison). Reich skewers EVERYONE, every character; no one is exempt from her savage, satiric pen.

Plus, I am finding out what happened to one of my all-time favorite characters, Mara Lieb, and her family.

Please do NOT read this book if you are easily offended. If you aren't easily offended by brilliant satire, then enjoy.

I do not object to a humorous book about the exploitation of the Holocaust. There is no doubt that the Holocaust has made too many scoundrels rich and famous. There is also no doubt that it deserves a comic treatment, at least as part of a normalization of the abnormal.

At first the novel is indeed funny, hilariously so. It is no crime on the part of the author to be unable to keep this up for the whole length of the book. The humor quickly ends and the rest of the novel is deadly dull. I am in no position to complain about this, there is considerable talent in this book. It just cannot sustain itself long enough to be taken seriously. Nice try thought.

To describe this book requires the usage of many adjectives; bold, sick, funny, maddening are four that come quickly to mind.

This is a book that many won't be able to read, especially those whose religion is the Holocaust (a common phenomena amongst many Jews). However, unfortunately, this book focuses on what the holocaust and its lessons are in danger of becoming. If none of the points Tova Reich brings out with perhaps one of the sharpest pens on record had any truth to them, this would be just a nonsensical story. But that's not the case.

As other have pointed out, this book begins to lose focus as it nears its end. There are too many characters thrown in, many seemingly without any particular purpose in moving the story along. Frankly, when I finished reading it, I'm not sure I could tell how it all ended up. But it was quite a different experience, that's for sure! This book is not for the faint hearted.

Begins well, but fizzles out later. Great premise, but not developed enough. It may be up to other writers to take the idea of commercializing the Holocaust further.

This novel makes a good point in the ridiculing of how something sacred and profound has turned into just another industry with many political manipulations as with other issues. The characters are bitingly funny and zany, but then they just get tiresome and unbelievable. After awhile, I started to think, "how valid is the point if none of it is believable?"

After all the rave reviews, I knew this would be good. But, enough already. It went on and on and on. It could have ended 100 pages earlier. So, this author should have nothing else to do? I finally gave up already. I didn't care about the characters any more. They weren't funny any more. They were not interesting. What a smuck I was for buying this book.