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The Book of Daniel (Paperback)

~ (Author) "On Memorial Day in 1967 Daniel Lewin thumbed his way from New York to Worcester, Mass., in just under five hours..." (more)
Key Phrases: Aunt Frieda, New York, United States (more...)

4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

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Paperback Available from these sellers. Published April 1, 1996	Paperback, April 1, 1996	--	$4.96	$1.60
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Mass Market Paperback Available from these sellers. Published August 31, 1983 Mass Market Paperback: A smaller paperback commonly used for bestsellers and genre fiction.	Mass Market Paperback	--	$9.99	$0.01
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Unknown Binding Available from these sellers. Published December 31, 1980	Unknown Binding	--	$0.01	$2.99

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Editorial Reviews

Review

" A ferocious feat of the imagination . . . Every scene is perfectly realized and feeds into the whole- the themes and symbols echoing and reverberating."
- Newsweek
" A nearly perfect work of art, and art on this level can only be a cause for rejoicing."
- Joyce Carol Oates
" This is an extraordinary contemporary novel, a stunning work."
- San Francisco Chronicle
" The political novel of our age . . . the best work of its kind."
- New Republic
" Remarkable . . . One of the finest works of fiction."
- Minneapolis Star Tribune
" Stirring, brilliant, very moving."
- Houston Post

"From the Hardcover edition." --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

“A ferocious feat of the imagination . . . Every scene is perfectly realized and feeds into the whole–the themes and symbols echoing and reverberating.”
–Newsweek

“A nearly perfect work of art, and art on this level can only be a cause for rejoicing.”
–Joyce Carol Oates

“This is an extraordinary contemporary novel, a stunning work.”
–San Francisco Chronicle

“The political novel of our age . . . the best work of its kind.”
–New Republic

“Remarkable . . . One of the finest works of fiction.”
–Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Stirring, brilliant, very moving.”
–Houston Post --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Plume; Reprint edition (April 1, 1996)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0452275660
ISBN-13: 978-0452275669
Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.9 inches
Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #439,361 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)
Popular in this category: (What's this?)
#21 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( D ) > Doctorow, E.L.

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
On Memorial Day in 1967 Daniel Lewin thumbed his way from New York to Worcester, Mass., in just under five hours. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Aunt Frieda, New York, United States, Robert Lewin, Selig Mindish, Memorial Day, Inertia Kid, Justice Department, Weeks Avenue, World War, Ben Cohen, Communist Party, Howard Johnson, Linda Mindish, Artie Sternlicht, Eastburn Avenue, Isaacson Radio, Lower East Side, Mark Twain, Paul Isaacson, Daniel Lewin, Soviet Russia, Tremont Avenue, White House, Beacon Street

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

Citations (learn more)

This book cites 18 books:

The State and Revolution (Classic, 20th-Century, Penguin) by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin on page 114
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Bantam Classics) by Mark Twain on page 288
Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow in Front Matter
Life on the Mississippi (Signet classics) by Mark Twain on page 287
Song of Myself (Dover Thrift Editions) by Walt Whitman in Front Matter

See all 18 books this book cites

100 books cite this book:

Understanding E.L. Doctorow (Understanding Contemporary American Literature) by Douglas Fowler on 33 pages
A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Theory, Fiction by Linda Hutcheon on 14 pages
American Dream, American Nightmare: FICTION SINCE 1960 by Kathryn Hume on 9 pages
Identity, Narrative And Politics by Maur Whitebrook on 6 pages
Narratives and Spaces by David E. Nye on 5 pages

See all 100 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

	70% buy the item featured on this page: The Book of Daniel 4.0 out of 5 stars (26)
	13% buy Homer & Langley: A Novel 3.7 out of 5 stars (68) $15.21
	7% buy Ragtime: A Novel 4.2 out of 5 stars (124) $10.20
	6% buy The March: A Novel 3.6 out of 5 stars (167) $10.17

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Customer Reviews

26 Reviews

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
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Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (26 customer reviews)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

64 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant meditation on the Rosenbergs, December 20, 2000

By	Sheldon M. Rampton (Madison, WI United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I first read this book in the early 1980s, shortly after reading Doctorow's other masterpiece, Ragtime. The Book of Daniel is a fictional meditation based on the trial and execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg during the McCarthy anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s. The Isaacsons, Doctorow's fictional couple based on the Rosenbergs, have a young son named Daniel and a daughter named Susan, and the book is told from the point of view of Daniel, now grown and attending college during the radical upheavals of the 1960s.

Doctorow displays an encyclopedic and detailed knowledge of both of those political periods, capturing the tone of the rhetoric, the pop music, the posters, the idealism, the hypocrisy, and the dilemmas confronting human beings caught up in political movements that seem more powerful than the people themselves. He is as unsparing in his treatment of sixties radicals as he is in his treatment of the cold government executioners who sent the Rosenbergs to their death.

One of most remarkable things about this book is the character of Daniel himself: sharply intelligent yet confused and conflicted, someone who sees all the angles yet cannot bring himself to act -- a modern-day Hamlet. The title's allusion to the biblical Daniel is reflected throughout the text in a number of clever ways as the narrative leaps between historical reflections, allegories, and vivid evocations of moments and events in the life of Daniel, his sister, and their families. It poignantly evokes the relationship between the two children and the various guardians who are assigned to care for them after society has arrested and executed their parents.

The other remarkable thing about this book is its use of language. Doctorow is a great prose stylist. To get an idea of how great he is, you should read both this book and Ragtime, which is a very different work. Ragtime is written in a style reminiscent of an old children's primer--simple, quaint sentences, gentle imagery. The Book of Daniel, by contrast, is full of incendiary language and is a very complex narrative full of jarring transitions -- language ideal, in other words, to capturing the feel of the political periods and events that are the subject of the book.

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18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pathos and Politics, April 24, 2001

By	Ethan Cooper (Big Apple) - See all my reviews

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I have read most of E.L. Doctorow's novels and take great pleasure in the smoothness of their narratives, the sense that Doctorow has not misplaced or misused a single word. This same master's quality is evident in "The Book of Daniel", where it brings great imaginative precision to the lives of the Paul and Rachel Isaacson, a couple who are executed as spies and who are modeled on the Rosenbergs. To me, the book's most moving writing has the narrator, the Isaacson's son Daniel, remembering his parents as people with friends and commonplace lives, not as the couple who became powerful political symbols. In the book's end, Doctorow puts Dr. Mindish, the government's chief witness against the Isaacsons, in Disney Land 15 years after the trial, spinning pathetically on a ride, lacking identity in a gaudy and forgetful America.

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29 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bugs Bunny, totalitarian, July 30, 1999

By A Customer

This is the first book I've read from E.L. Doctorow. His style is initially disconcerting because it isn't tethered to a linear structure. Time can't progress without folding in on itself. Even sentences are often interrupted and excised of all punctuation. Perspectives shift between first and third person -- which a previous reviewer noted can be confusing. Yet the book is so saturated in details, the characters display so many nuanced shades of anger and pride and cruelty and love, that it brings the book to a level that everyone can understand. The people in this book are such smart asses, all of them! Daniel's grandmother, the black man in his basement, the pathetic palsied Mindish who we're never quite permitted to hate. In that sense "Daniel" is a politically sophisticated work in that it acknowledges politics and government as flawed and limited structures created by flawed and limited people (like sentences). Daniel observes that his sister died by a lack of analysis. It's evident that an abundance of such is how he hopes to keep living. I left the book feeling like I was cheating myself by not having a mind as active and relentless as Daniel's. I'm grateful for this book. And I'm sort of glad it isn't very popular. Seems to confirm its authenticity.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars Still heartbreaking
It is easier, perhaps, to view Doctorow as a folksy craftsman, the creator of "intricate historical brocades". Read more

Published 2 months ago by Tony Forster

4.0 out of 5 stars On The Memory Of The Rosenbergs
Book/ DVD Review

This review is being used for both book and DVD versions of Doctorow's work as the central points to be made in regard to both works are similar. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Alfred Johnson

5.0 out of 5 stars Novel Loosely Based on the Rosenberg Trials
It was great to re-read this book. I loved it the first time I read it and it was just as good the second time around. Read more

Published 5 months ago by Bonnie Brody

3.0 out of 5 stars Lavish exhibit of American freedom in describing one's quest for voice of undeniable importance
Narrator implies that the US government may not hear the voice of God but certain talented immigrants who have been snubbed by the American society will see to it that they have a... Read more

Published 16 months ago by Sam

2.0 out of 5 stars Pure Propaganda.......
.....though I concede the author's skill. With some twisting of relationships, and with changing of the names, this is a romanticized, fictionalized, retelling of the Rosenberg... Read more

Published on August 26, 2007 by Robert C. Hufford

4.0 out of 5 stars Timely after all these years
In typical Doctorow fashion, this book is extremely well researched. Much like "Ragtime", Doctorow places his finger on the pulse of an era to reproduce it beautifully. Read more

Published on April 21, 2006 by Mike

2.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant but too disturbing
I wanted to love this book, just as I loved Ragtime. Doctorow shows his brilliance in his use of words, his character development, and his knowledge of history, but even though he... Read more

Published on January 27, 2006 by Marron

4.0 out of 5 stars memories past and present
Doctorow's compelling novel of revolutionary reminiscence is rendered through the loosely chained memories of its narrator, Daniel Issacson. Read more

Published on April 25, 2004 by Nicholas Cannariato

5.0 out of 5 stars A great story, deep and complex
Doctorow imagines fictional lives for children of a couple very like the Rosenbergs and so weaves a complex and engrossing tale, rich with character and ideas, leaving one... Read more

Published on May 16, 2003 by Mark A. Fearnow

2.0 out of 5 stars Novel or Thesis?
This book reads much like a rough draft of a grad thesis, which is part of the premise as Doctorow's protragonist Daniel (aka Rosenbergs' son) works on a research paper, trying to... Read more

Published on March 14, 2003 by Yan Timanovsky

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Rosenbergs were "True Believers"	0	May 2007

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