Zublinka Among Women [Paperback]

Robert Wexelblatt (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 18, 2008

"Loaded with wit, bristling irony, draped in erudition and studded with metaphysics": so wrote The New York Times Book Review about Robert Wexelblatt's work. Now comes a novel of equal intelligence. Zublinka is a beloved friend, author, and philosopher who, at the age of seventy, lives a rich and varied life of the mind and spirit. Actually, he lives several lives, writing poems and stories under pseudonyms, two of them female. He is also engaged by the lives of others. His dear friend Julia is having some marital difficulties that distress him. Julia's daughter, whom he calls George, adores him, and he writes stories for her, one under the pseudonym, Don Corleone, about "Finbad the Failer." A feminst philosopher condemns and flirts with him. But the story that begins to emerge from the ordinary chronicle of Zublinka's life and mind is far different from that of an academic. Once as a teacher in a country behind the Iron Curtain, Zublinka claimed responsibility for a subversive pamphlet he did not write-and it led to his fleeing to the West. This past continues to weigh on Zublinka, who not only left behind the life he knew but two women he loved-and still loves. He returns to that country after the fall of communist rule and discovers the shocking truth behind his memories. This warm and witty novel of ideas shows that goodness is possible-and in Zublinka palpable-but that goodness is seldom unalloyed. As Zublinka and we learn in the course of this richly rewarding story, the discovery of truth and one's self is the work of a lifetime. Wisdom is possible and hard won. Robert Wexelblatt is Professor of Humanities at Boston University's College of General Studies. He is the author of two story collections, Life in the Temperate Zone and The Decline of Our Neighborhood, and contributor to dozens of literary journals.

Product Details

• Paperback: 340 pages
• Publisher: KenArnoldBooks (February 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0979963427
• ISBN-13: 978-0979963421
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,357,150 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent read, February 10, 2009

By 

Susan Wilcox (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zublinka Among Women (Paperback)

"Zublinka Among Women" is a masterpiece! I love it. It was a tremendous read--I didn't want to put it down, but then I wanted to savor it, discuss it, and make it last as long as possible! Needless to say, I was so sorry when I read the last page. It's the
best book I've read in a long, long time. I know I'll be re-reading it in the future.

Congratulations to Robert Wexelblatt on such a great accomplishment.

Be sure to read this book and recommend it to all of your friends and colleagues.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great and memorable read!, December 17, 2008

By 

John D. Levy - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Zublinka Among Women (Paperback)

Zublinka Among Women is a delightful novel that is witty, fun, thought-provoking, moving, compelling and insightful. Wexelblatt writes with a light touch, remarkable intelligence and feeling, and an exciting freshness of language and imagery.

The novel is about Zublinka, a 70-year-old European professor who moved to America for reasons that are slowly, intriguingly revealed. He is an internationally famous philosopher who was a popular professor in Europe and then in America and is recently retired. His area of specialty is logic, but his life is not at all dry and routine. With a great capacity for, and sensitivity to, love and friendship, and with an inspiring imagination and a down-to-earth sense of himself and others, Zublinka is a memorably vivid and touching character. One of the great traits Zublinka has is that he is so entirely alive; he deeply cares about people, places, ideas -- he is an original.

As well as being famous for his own articles on logic, Zublinka has published poems and short stories under a couple of female pen names. His creativity shows up in his writings and in his friendships and romances. This splendid novel is, as its title suggests, focused on Zublinka's relationships (both platonic and sexual) with the women in his life. Zublinka is compassionate and wonderfully perceptive, though his misperceptions are one of the themes of the novel too. Bright and well-read, but not pretentious, Zublinka has an excellent sense of humor and is more likely to laugh at himself than at others.

The suspenseful pacing of the novel is one of the factors that makes the novel such entertaining reading. Another factor is that the unpredictability of events is convincingly life-like and fascinating. The quality of Wexelblatt's writing, which is consistently superb, makes reading this novel a joy.

This is a novel I have bought to give to friends. And I am not the only one to think it is fantastic. It won the First Place Grand Winner in Fiction, 2008 Next Generation Indie Book Award.