Book Description
The classic novel of Jewish immigrants in new trade paperback format and design, with sixteen period photographs.
This masterwork of American immigrant literature is set in the 1920s on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and tells the story of Sara Smolinsky, the youngest daughter of an Orthodox rabbi, who rebels against her father's rigid conception of Jewish womanhood. Sarah's struggle towards independence and self-fulfillment resonates with a passion all can share. Beautifully redesigned page for page with the previous editions, Bread Givers is an essential historical work with enduring relevance. 16 b/w photographs.
Customer Reviews:
Not bad for the dreaded "required reading"!.......2006-11-10
This book was required reading for my history class, but it turned out to be a pretty fast and fun read. Though branded as a novel, this book reads very much like a turn-of-the-century (20th) biography of a young immigrant woman.
An Outstanding Book with Several Flaws.......2006-08-10
This book vividly portrays the culture clashes that arise when a parent remains devoted to Old World traditions and beliefs and a rebellious daughter sets out to find her own way in America. Reb Smolinsky, the family patriarch, is chronically unemployed and content to be supported by his wife and children while he spends his time in meditation and study of his beloved Torah. Sara's three older sisters find romance, but each in turn finds her chances at marriage and happiness sabotaged by their dictatorial father. Reb Smolinsky, insisting he knows best for his daughters, pairs them up instead with men they can't possibly love or be happy with. Sara decides to rebel before history repeats itself in her life, and in the face of horrendous condemnation and taunting by her father, leaves home to support herself and pursue a dream of becoming a teacher.
This is a fine story, which should have been written in third person narrative, considering the private conversations that occur in the early part of the book. Reb Smolinsky seems a bit exaggerated, and his oft-repeated citings of the Torah that say a woman without a man is less than nothing are not substantiated with book, chapter, and verse. One has to wonder, does the Torah really say such things? I tried to find proof of this, but could not find any. Also, some loose ends are left unresolved at the story's end, particularly the plot complication that ensues when Reb Smolinsky buys a grocery store in Elizabeth, New Jersey, only to find himself the victim of a clever swindle. Anyone who is only somewhat familiar with the history of the Lower East Side and the lives of early twentieth century immigrants will be left wondering if life was really this fraught with conflict, despair, and misery for daughters of Jewish rabbis unable to leave their Old World ways behind. How plausible is this story? What can we really learn from it? It is a book worth reading, nevertheless, although further reading and study will probably be needed to avoid being confused by the situations Ms. Yezierska has presented.
Awesome book.......2006-07-21
I read this book for a college English class many years ago. I just finished reading it again for about the 10th time. This book is just truely mesmorizing and captivating. You don't have to Jewish or an immigrant or a female struggling - this book is for anyone that is willing to let their mind enter a time where we have no idea what it was like first hand and to go off on a jouney. Matter of fact, all her books are wonderful as I've read them all, but Bread Givers is still my favorite. Sorry I'm not offering a critique of the book, I just simply love it and want to share it with everyone.
"All pioneers have to get hard to survive.".......2006-03-16
Anzia Yezierska's "Bread Givers" is, in a sense, two overlapping stories. The first half of the book is the melodramatic tale of an impoverished Jewish immigrant family living in the New York ghetto, a family suffering under the tyrannical and hypocritical piousness of the father. At times the foolishness and ineptitude of the father is almost comic, but the suffering inflicted on his family is harrowingly poignant. The second half is a psychologically and sociologically astute feminist coming-of-age tale, as the youngest daughter breaks from her family to re-define herself as an "Americanerin," leaving for college and eventually becoming a teacher in her old neighborhood. The broader strokes of the novel's opening give way to provocative considerations of the difficulties inherent in the narrator's at times ambivalent desires for assimilation within an alien culture and for a self-respecting independence from her own patriarchal family.
I wanted to shake some sense into Sara's father.......2005-11-05
for being such a tyrant, for spoiling his daughters' wedding plans, and for RUINING their lives -- and believe me-- that kind of stuff REALLY went on in those days! And I wanted to shake some sense into her mother for PUTTING UP WITH THIS!!!
Sara Smolinsky's life most probably parallels Anzia's real life. And if that is true, then I have the UTMOST respect for Sara/Anzia who against all odds, and especially as a woman back in the 1920's, found a place for herself and worked VERY hard to get that education and respect and "the good life" that all the middle-class American kids took for granted.
Someone reading this book today -- who has not read any books on the Immigrant experience or who has not become aquainted with Immigrant life in America in the early 20th Century -- wouldn't have a CLUE as to what it was really like back then, and to them this book would perhaps only serve to confuse or bore (!) them. Hopefully this book will not only shake readers out of their complacency, but it will encourage them to read other books about the Immigrant experience, such as "call it Sleep" by Roth.
The Bread-Givers is a great book.
Book Description
Ã, Ã, Ã, Born in Transylvania at the turn of the century, Bella Cohen Spewack arrived on the streets of New York's Lower East Side when she was three. At 22, while working as a reporter with her husband in Europe, she wrote this memoir of her early years, which she never chose to publish. The publication of
Streets more than 70 years later recovers a remarkable voice and revivifies a lost world.
Ã, Ã, Ã, With a sense of the telling anecdote, the young Bella describes the sights and sounds of her neighborhood, and introduces a wide array of people as her family moves annually to save rent or find a still cheaper apartment. Her mother works as a live-in domestic, then takes on sewing and eventually boarders, as well as a new and unfriendly husband. Bella's world also includes two younger brothers, one of whom needs constant nursing.
Ã, Ã, Ã, Streets includes the story of Bella's high school years-her mother was determined to make "a lady" of her daughter and would not allow her to work in a factory-and ends before she meets and marries Sam Spewack. At once street-smart and unsentimental Bella is a sturdy American hero who overcomes life's obstacles in a world that will later welcome her as a celebrated author.
Customer Reviews:
I love that book!.......2001-07-22
this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it.
i'm going to describe it as a story of a girl growing into a women on the streets of the lower east side of manhattan. she tells of different jobs and the boarders that her and her mother board to help pay the rent. its very hard for me to describe becuase of 2 reasons 1) you can't describe it you have to read it 2)i read it a year ago.
i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. i also loved the stories she has of her childhood. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.
it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you enjoy.
thats my review! i hope i helped!
I love that book!.......2001-07-22
this is my favorite book. if anyone has similar taste to me then i highly recommend them to read it. i was getting so into reading it that i never wanted it to end. to last forever. so i tried to do so by reading a limit of pages each day. i live in NYC and by reading the book i had grown a stronger love for the city and thats another reason i loved the book. the down fall of the book? well, it was and made me sad. it was kinda a depressing book. you now. like a heart-acher.
it was indeed a pleasure to read and in the future, if you do read it, i hope you injoy.
thats my review! i hope i helped!
Recommended to students of Jewish history & women's studies........2000-04-04
Streets: Memoir Of The Lower East Side was written in 1922 and published for the first time in 1955. This remarkable memoir of a young Jewish girl's coming of age in the tenement slums of New York's Lower East Side is gritty, candid, vivid, engaging, sensitive, and streetsmart. Bella Spewack overcame obstacles of gender, background, and religious discriminations to succeed as a celebrated journalist, playwright, and screenwriter. Streets is highly recommended, articulate reading and will prove of special interest to students of American Jewish history, Women's Studies, and biographies reflecting the triumph of the human spirit over social and cultural barriers.
The early life of an unusual woman, with comedy and sadness.......1999-09-09
This is a coming of age story depicting the harrowing early life of an extraordinary talent. Told with an amazing eye for detail and a highly developed sense of humor, this is one of the most moving autobiographies I have read. Bella Spewack writes of her thirst for knowledge and determination. In later life Bella invented the Girl Scout cookie, became a noted journalist and wrote successful plays and movies. Streets tells of the difficult circumstances of her childhood.
Fascinating, historical review.......1999-08-06
This book was written by a very eloquent author in 1922. At 23years of age, she carefully details her struggles of growing up inpoverty on the lower east side of Manhattan. This is one of a few books that deals with the difficulties faced by immigrants of to New York around the turn of the century. Her battles are those of a poor, Jewish girl growing up without a father in tenement housing. I thouroughly recommend this book to Jews, feminists and historians.
Book Description
Life on the Lower East Side, the first monograph of Lepkoff’s works, highlights the lost neighborhood between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges from the Bowery to the East River. With over 170 beautifully reproduced duotone photographs and essays by Peter Dans and Suzanne Wasserman, the book reveals the dynamic community of Italians, Irish, Jews, Greeks, Spaniards, Chinese, Puerto Ricans, and African-Americans. Lepkoff’s images uncover a forgotten time and place and reveal how the Lower East Side has both stayed the same and changed forever.
An exhibition of the photographs presented in this book will be held at the Museum of the City of New York from October 2006.
Customer Reviews:
Life on the Lower East Side:Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950.......2007-01-11
This book is perfect for history/nostalgia/photography buffs.
The photographs are wonderful and sensitive of places, people and things in a neighborhood that is swiftly changing.
Life on the Lower East Side: Photographs by Rebecca Lepkoff, 1937-1950.......2007-01-10
This is a book of photographs one feels truthfully captures the atmosphere, the way of life, experienced by the people living on the Lower East Side during this period of time. The text is a bit difficult to read as it is not a very dark print but all in all the book is worthwhile for just the photographs alone.
The Lower East Side Lives.......2006-12-14
This is a beautiful book. The photographs are honest and compelling, and the writing is wonderful. My 13-year-old daughter and I especially loved reading about Peter Dans' childhood in a cold-water flat. I grew up loving the "All-of-a-Kind" books by Sydney Taylor, and in some ways, this reminded me of those beloved stories. Peter Dans is a sensitive writer who, like Sydney Taylor, is able to make you feel as if you're there, and care about the people -- in this case, himself as a young boy and his remarkable family, particularly his grandmother. I feel the loss of this neighborhood even though I've never been there. In these pages, with both authors' wonderful writing and the rich photography, the Lower East Side lives again, in all its vitality. The only thing I would change is to make the text type darker, so it would be easier on the eyes.
great photographs-disappointed in organization.......2006-10-26
The publishing of Lepkoff's beautiful photgraphs was long overdue and Peter Dans' parallel touching story gave them added life and unique history. As a student of Lower East Side History and as someone who grew up in Knickerbocker Village, I would have loved to find out their exact location, in the manner of Abbott's great work. The photos are only identified by grouping them in broad areas at the beginning of loosely organized chapters. I can take educated guesses on several of them, but that's all. Perhaps Lepkoff's notes were missing? I'm sure a gathering of some old-timers could have pin-pointed them. Nevertheless, I'm contacting my childhood friends to make sure they get a copy.
Book Description
By Jerome Rothenberg. Contributions by Steven Clay, Rodney Phillips.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent overview.......2000-04-03
A Secret Location on the Lower East side is an excellent overview of independent publishing from 1960 - 1980. It focuses primarily on the mimeograph revolution and is particularly inspiring for those who wish to become independent publishers. However, this book should also be of interest to readers who are interested in the Beat Generation and the poets and writers who were inspired by the Beats.
The book contains an introduction by Jerome Rothenberg, and the majority of the book consists of burbs describing the individual small presses. As a result, the book combines the best aspects of a coffee table book (accessibilty and short pieces) and solid journalism.
Though the price may be a little high, it is a worthwhile investment for writers, publishers, and anyone interested in the literary movements the second half of the 20th century.
Average customer rating:
- Whoa!
- RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AN ONSLAUGHT OF GUTTURAL VISCERAL WRITING!"
- awesome, just awesome!!!
- Charlie Huston Rocks
- Not for the faint of heart
|
Caught Stealing
Charlie Huston
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
 Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Suspense
| Thrillers
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Mystery & Thrillers
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
-
Six Bad Things: A Novel
-
A Dangerous Man: A Novel
-
Already Dead: A Novel
-
No Dominion: A Novel
-
Rain Dogs
ASIN: 034546477X
Release Date: 2004-04-27 |
Book Description
It’s three thousand miles from the green fields of glory, where Henry “call me Hank” Thompson once played California baseball, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the tenements are old, the rents are high, and the drunks are dirty. But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.
It begins when Hank’s neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn’t until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn’t know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn’t have it.
Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy’s head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.
All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.
Download Description
It's three thousand miles from the green fields of glory, where Henry "call me Hank" Thompson once played California baseball, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the tenements are old, the rents are high, and the drunks are dirty. But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.
It begins when Hank's neighbor, Russ, has to leave town in a rush and hands over Bud in a carrier. But it isn't until two Russians in tracksuits drag Hank over the bar at the joint where he works and beat him to a pulp that he starts to get the idea: Someone wants something from him. He just doesn't know what it is, where it is, or how to make them understand he doesn't have it.
Within twenty-four hours Hank is running over rooftops, swinging his old aluminum bat for the sweet spot of a guy's head, playing hide and seek with the NYPD, riding the subway with a dead man at his side, and counting a whole lot of cash on a concrete floor.
All because of two cowboys, two Russian mafia men, and some of the weirdest goons ever assembled in one place. All because of Bud. All because once, in another life, in another world, the only thing Hank wanted was to take third base—without getting caught.
"Wow! Brutal, visceral, violent, edgy, and brilliant."
HARLAN COBEN, AUTHOR OF NO SECOND CHANCE
"Caught Stealing reads like The Maltese Falcon on crack. Tarantino meets Hitchcock meets Westlake meets Bukowski in a wild, relentlessly entertaining ride filled with vivid and colorful—but always believable—characters."
WALLACE STROBY, AUTHOR OF
THE BARBED-WIRE KISS
"It's hard enough for a writer to hit his mark, but Charlie Huston shreds his target with his first bullet fired. A frighteningly assured debut novel."
JOHN RIDLEY, AUTHOR OF STRAY DOGS AND THE DRIFT
Customer Reviews:
Whoa!.......2007-10-09
I had an hour to kill the other day waiting for some friends to come over. I didn't want to get into anything heavy and I had this book on the shelf so I thought I'd read a few pulpy pages. I bailed out on my friends and read the entire book in one sitting. Don't start it if you don't have a few hours, there's no place to get off of the roller coaster.
RICK "SHAQ" GOLDSTEIN SAYS: "AN ONSLAUGHT OF GUTTURAL VISCERAL WRITING!".......2007-10-01
There are two main areas I want to cover in this review: The first is the author's writing style, and the second is a review of the story.
Charlie Huston writes like an army machine gunner on speed, using words instead of bullets, and his gun is locked on automatic! His non-stop flurry of words, become sentences, become paragraphs, become pages, without you even realizing that time has passed and many pages have been turned. The excitement and impact of his "street-fighter's" jargon cuts to the bone in burgeoning streams of of unrelenting consciousness. WOW!!! I recommend getting your blood pressure checked after reading one of his books!
Now as far as the story goes, the main character is Henry "call me Hank" Thompson. Before Hank's life became ensconced in the bowels of New York in a deadly "cat" and mouse game of intrigue, he grew up in Northern California, and was a Little League and high school baseball player of great renown, with each of his games being watched by Major League scouts. The scuttlebutt was that Hank would skip college and go right to the pro's. But then in a regional championship game while attempting to steal third base, he had a messy collision with the third baseman, that resulted in a bone in Hank's leg sticking straight out from his calf. The pins they stuck in his fibula restricted growth in the bone, and no one even pretended he would ever play again.
From there his life took him to New York, where he wound up being a bartender with a drinking problem (That's the worst kind of bartender to be!) and things went downhill from there. Hank accepted that station in life, and felt things couldn't get any worse, until one day a neighbor was going out of town and asked him to watch his cat. That simple act of human kindness, led to the following: Hank getting beat to an inch of his life by two Russian-like musclemen, having a kidney removed, having two black cowboys kidnap him and threaten to kill him, have a red-headed Asian torture him, have crooked cops try to kill him, and much, much, more... all at a "warp-speed" machine gun like pace, that doesn't stop! I don't want to give anything else away, so if your Doctor says your blood pressure can take it... Buy the book!
awesome, just awesome!!!.......2007-09-20
I loved this book and I just finished the whole trilogy. I read them in 2 weeks. I couldn't get enough of Henry Thompson. You can't help but to love the character and feel sorry for him at the same time. Oh yeah, and there's a cat. I saw this book at the library and was instantly hooked. No, this book is not for everyone. From dirty cops to black cowboys and russians in jumpsuits. I will be buying the trilogy so I can read them as much as I want.
Charlie Huston Rocks.......2007-08-20
This was the first book I read by Charlie Huston and after I read it, I was hooked. Fantastic writing style...he writes the way I talk, so the story flows in such a way that I almost don't feel like I'm reading but that I'm actually watching the story unfold.
Not for the faint of heart.......2007-07-23
This is not the kind of book I normally read, but I picked it up based on a recommendation by Stephen King posted in the NYTimes this spring. I read it in one night. It is violent, very violent, but the evolution of Hank Thompson's character and the unexpected turns of the plot makes this book impossible to put down. And then there's the cat who clearly has more than nine lives.... In the middle of the all the mayhem and mystery I found myself wondering how is Buddy holding out -- which it turns out is one of Hank Thompson's concerns too.
Book Description
Taylor Field tells the story of his journey coming to terms with the message of Christ in the turbulent and chaotic circumstances of the inner city environment on New York City's lower east side.
Taylor moved his family to New York, but he could not have known what would await them there. A colorful cast of characters enter their lives—lives that will never be the same again. All have their stories to tell, but as Taylor and the church become a part of the New York landscape, Taylor finds their stories becoming intertwined with his to form a tapestry of God's unrelenting grace and mercy.
Customer Reviews:
Wow! This story will grab your attention and your heart........2001-10-22
Whether you are spiritual or religious (they are NOT the same thing) this book will speak to you. In times where many don't know their neighbor or where many humans view others who are different with suspicion --this book reminds us of what is important.
This autobiographical account is engaging and hard to put down. The stories and struggles of the growth of a ministry/church called "Graffiti" is set in a Lower East Side neighborhood in New York. It is poignant and speaks about the joys, heartaches, and relationships in day-to-day life.
Given the 9/11/01 events this book is well timed to remind us to get back to basics.....love, trust, kindness and honesty cross all barriers. We just need to remember...........
Buy it and share it.
...
Grafitti is Beautiful!.......2001-09-21
An amazing book of love and grace. Taylor Field and his family are shining examples of servant evangelism. They moved out of their comfort zone to love the unloved in the harsh streets of NYC. There are not too many of those people who call themselves ministers who would do such a thing. If you read the Bible (and I mean really read it) you'll find that Jesus didn't stand in a pulpit, wearing a designer suit, shouting at the world to "get saved or suffer the fires of hell." No, he walked among us, loved us, touched us, helped us, and eventually, died for us. Field has taken the challenges Jesus set before us to heart and this book tells his (unfinished) story. I myself have ministered on the streets of NY. It's tough. (I was only there 2 weeks) Field lives there. He walks among them, loves them, touches them and helps them. Something tells me he would die for them. For inspiration and a look at the Great Commission at work, read this book.
Book Description
In February 1991, the artist David Wojnarowicz (1954-1992) and the philosopher Sylvère Lotringer met in a borrowed East Village apartment to conduct a long-awaited dialogue on Wojnarowicz's work. Wojnarowicz was then at the peak of his notoriety as the fiercest antagonist of morals crusader Senator Jesse Helms--a notoriety that Wojnarowicz alternately embraced and rejected. Already suffering the last stages of AIDS, David saw his dialogue with Lotringer as a chance to set the record straight on his aspirations, his personal history, and his political views. The two arranged to have this three-hour dialogue video-recorded by a mutual friend, the artist Marion Scemama.
Lotringer held on to the tape for a long time. After Wojnarowicz's death the following year, he found the transcript enormously moving, yet somehow incomplete. David was trying, often with heartbreaking eloquence, to define not just his career but its position in time. The subject was huge, and transcended the actual dialogue. Lotringer then spent the next several years gathering additional commentary on Wojnarowicz's life and work from those who knew him best--the friends with whom he collaborated.
Lotringer solicited personal testimony from Wojnarowicz's friends and other artists, including Mike Bildo, Steve Brown, Julia Scher, Richard Kern, Carlo McCormick, Ben Neill, Kiki Smith, Nan Goldin, Marguerite van Cook, and others. What emerges from these masterfully-conducted interviews is a surprising insight into something art history knows, but systematically hides: the collaborative nature of the work of any "great artist." All these respondents had, at one time, made performances, movies, sculptures, photographs, and other collaborative works with Wojnarowicz. In this sense, Wojnarowicz appears not only as a great originator, but as a great synthesizer.
Book Description
A lively, extensively illustrated history of the widespread influence of Jews on American popular culture through the twentieth century.
The contribution by Jews to American popular culture is widely acknowledged yet scarcely documented. This is the first comprehensive investigation of the formative Jewish influence upon the rise and development of American popular culture, drawing upon extensive oral histories with several generations of Jewish artists, little-utilized Yiddish scholarship, and the author's own connections with today's comic-strip artists. Buhle shows how the rich legacy of Yiddish prepared would-be artists to absorb the cultures of their surrounding environments, seeing the world through the eyes of others, and producing the talent required for theater, films, television, popular music and comics.
Buhle suggests that "premodern" and "postmodern" are arbitrary designations here, because the self-reflective content has always radiated an inner Jewishness. From Sholem Aleichem (who died in the Bronx) to Gertrude Berg, Woody Allen and Tony Kushner, from John Garfield to Roseanne Barr and Rube Goldberg to Cyndi Lauper, the cutting edge is never too far from home and humane antidotes to the pains of a troubled world. Contradictions between Jewish avant-garde and kitsch, mogul and artist, orthodoxy and heresy are given new sense here in the scope of cultural output adopted by ordinary Americans as their own. Illustrated with the work of Harvey Pekar and R. Crumb, Art Spiegelman, Ben Katchor, Trina Robbins and others, From the Lower East Side to Hollywood is full of humor and insight into the power of popular art to spark insight and encourage the endless quest for freedom. 25 b/w illustrations.
Customer Reviews:
A welcome contribution to Judaic Studies.......2004-10-12
From The Lower East Side To Hollywood: Jews In American Popular Culture is a fascinating examination and documentation of the contribution Jews have made to American popular culture. Scrutinizing the ripples of effect from prominent individuals such as Gertrude Berg, Woody Allen, Roseanne Barr, Cyndi Lauper, and many more, From The Lower East Side To Hollywood deftly combines scholarship, philosophy, and sociology into a most remarkable study of the complex fabric of modern American values and entertainment. A very highly recommended and exceptionally welcome contribution to Judaic Studies and American Culture Studies academic reference shelves and supplemental reading lists, From The Lower East Side To Hollywood will also hold immense appeal for the non-specialist general reader as well.
Paul Buhle's "From the Lower East Side"-- highly recommended.......2004-08-06
I'm 24 years old, and I thought Paul Buhle's "From the
Lower Eastside to Hollywood" was an absolute joy to
read. It not only provided a sweeping, exciting
history of the contributions of Jews and Jewishness to
the shaping of popular culture, but motivated me to
find out more about this history-- which takes on an
added fascination through Buhle's narrative.
The book dances along, weaving back and forth between
the stories of particular characters and convergences,
and the moral impulse-- egalitarian, rebellious,
transcendental-- at the core of Jewish popular
culture. I learned many new things, and new
connections and emphases were made that had a big
impact on me.
One of the most exciting parts of the
book was Buhle's description of the Lower East Side at
the turn of the century, a thriving nest of Jewish
immigrant life to where much of the roots of modern
popular culture can be traced (and where "[r]ebellion
was in the life's blood of creative purpose"). (On a
personal level, my great-grandparents lived on the
Lower East Side close to the time Buhle describes,
providing an added interest for me).
Buhle emphasizes the centrality of the Yiddish language--
and Yiddishkayt (roughly meaning "Yiddish-ness")-- in
Jewish culture and the extent to which it trickled
into and shaped broader popular culture, as well as
the egalitarian and ethical impulses which have
permeated the Jewish contribution to popular culture.
In addition to all this, Buhle explores the
(unfortunately) neglected lineage of comics-- from the
earliest Jewish satirists to MAD magazine and Harvey
Pekar-- as a particularly Jewish art form. As an added
bonus-- and a fitting one, for an author so
passionately invested in his subject-- Buhle's story
is sprinkled with touching personal anecdotes of his
own that color in the narrative with an added human
touch.
And there's much, much more. The history of Broadway
and Hollywood, for instance, are fascinatingly
re-discovered through the lens that Buhle uses to put
that history together, both inseparable from their
Jewish origins and ethos.
Buhle views popular culture, and the inescapable,
omnipresent Jewish contribution to it, as expressive
of the latent yearnings of a people for something that
transcends the doldrums of alienation and atomization.
This impulse-- of mass culture "as portending
self-healing and total democratization rather than
exhaustion of resources and an endless individual
isolation"-- runs like a thread throughout the entire
book and gives it an urgency one would not expect. I
highly recommend it.
Incoherent, intellectually lazy, self-serving drivel.......2004-07-08
This book would be a strong contender for the worst study of American Jewish culture ever written--if one could call it a study. There is no central argument, but a great deal of name-dropping; the author is not shy about telling readers of his personal associations with avant-garde cartoonists like Art Spiegelman, Ben Katchor, and Harvey Pekar. In the process, he does a great disservice to their work, which is a great shame, since such artists deserve a more insightful study that would place them more effectively in their social and cultural context.
Though it is difficult to discern any central focus here, it doesn't take long to see Buhle's maddening tendency to make facile connections between speaking Yiddish and being funny, creative, and/or left-wing. Here is one egregious example: "Whenever [Yiddish] has seemed to vanish, personal traces can be discovered, as in the life of magnum [?!?!] television producer Larry Gelbart, creator of the most popular (and antiwar) sitcom of all time, M*A*S*H, who reveals that until four, he spoke only Yiddish. Not likely a coincidence, at least not entirely." Professor Buhle, could you please fill in the blanks for us? Insinuation is no substitute for scholarship.
In short, keep your distance--or at the very least, dip into this book in a bookstore before shelling out your hard-earned money. There are many other studies of American Jewish culture worth pursuing; a handful of authors to consult instead--in no particular order--are Irving Howe, Stephen Whitfield, Jenna Joselit, J. Hoberman, Michael Alexander, Neal Gabler, Lester Friedman, and Mark Slobin.
Transforming America Through Jewish Humanism.......2004-07-06
Norma Rae, in the movie that bears her name, asked the Jewish union organizer why he was a political activist. He replied, "History," as if, as a Jew, he had no choice but to work toward creating a more humane society.
In his stunning book, Paul Buhle brilliantly analyzes the enormous contributions of the uniquely Jewish characteristic of "reflexiveness" to twentieth centruy American popular culture. This concept comes close to the two core values that educators Deborah Meier and Paul Schwarz of the Central East Secondary School in New York City contended should be taught in schools: "empathy and skepticism...the ability to see a situation from the eyes of another and the tendency to wonder about the validity of what we encountered."
These two humanistic values, empathy and skepticism, emphatically are not part of the "accepted" culture that the American educational system traditionally transmits. Instead, our schools tend to stress patriotism, obedience, and the legitimacy of the existing stratified social system.
Through their substantial influence on theater, film, music, and comics, Jewish performers have provided a totally different social construction of reality, a more humane, even oppositional imprint on popular culture. Jewish artists have utilized empathy and skepticism to transform American political values in a more progressive direction.
If Jewish artists had attemted their task in a didactic, heavy-handed manner, they undoubtedly would have been unsuccessful. Instead, the key to Jewish influence on American culture has been Jewish HUMOR. From Sholem Aleichem to Lenny Bruce, to the contomporary work of Harvey Pekar, Jewish humor has resonated with mainstream America. In this process, Jewish artists have absorbed the cultures other ethnic groups--Irish, Italian, African American--and furnished comic relief to ordinary people suffering from the trials of everyday life.
Beyond his enormous contribution to the scholarship of the history and sociology of American culture, Buhle's book is eloquently written, with great charm and humor. I come away with a much deeper understanding of individual redemption and of the way in which Jewish influence of popular American culture has effectively been an alternative, sometimes avant garde, form of socialization to the American school system.
Yiddishkayt as a key to American popular culture.......2004-06-29
Although Paul Buhle enjoys a high profile as chronicler of the American left, he is also one of our foremost scholars of Jewish popular culture. There is an obvious connection here since the two worlds tend to overlap, particularly during the period when Jews were overwhelmingly proletarian, suffering discrimination and identifying with society's underdogs.
This has little to do with organized Judaism as such but more with the general zeitgeist of the Jewish people, which Buhle describes as "Yiddishkayt" or "Jewishness." Although Buhle himself is not Jewish, he learned Yiddish as part of his PhD language requirements. This language would be essential to his studies of the roots of the American left, many of whose founding fathers wrote in this highly vernacular tongue. His engagement with Jewish culture deepened in New York City during the 1960s radicalization, when some of the elder statesmen of the left who had fled persecution in Eastern Europe and Russia recounted their past to this up and coming scholar. Anybody who passed through Union Square Park on 14th Street during this period would still be able to see clusters of mostly Italian and Jewish trade unionists arguing the fine points of anarchism or socialism.
The book follows the chronological path of Jewish popular culture as it wends its way from Vaudeville to contemporary television. Much of the pleasure of taking this grand tour is discovering the "Yiddishkayt" roots of various figures who straddle both periods. One of the most striking examples is Leonard Nimoy, who played the pointy-eared and impassive Vulcan on television's "Star Trek." Nimoy began acting as an amateur in a high school production of Clifford Odets's "Awake and Sing," a classic example of Jewish radical theater. As a young professional, Nimoy started off in Los Angeles's Yiddish theater, while taking acting lessons from blacklistee and Jew Jeff Corey. Soon he began acting in avant-garde productions of plays by Genet, including "Deathwatch." In the role of a prisoner, Nimoy found "himself totally alienated from both worlds, the society outside, and the one within the prison walls," according to his 1975 memoir. It is not too much of a stretch to conceive of this as preparation for his role as the quintessential alien -- Spock. Jewishness and the avant-garde lead in unexpected directions.
Such are the discoveries to be found in this singularly well-researched and entertaining study of an important aspect of American popular culture.
Average customer rating:
|
Alphabet City (Centennial Book)
Geoffrey Biddle
Manufacturer: University of California Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
General
| Photography
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Arts & Photography
| Subjects
| Books
General
| State & Local
| United States
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Americas
| History
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Poverty
| Current Events
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Rural
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
Urban
| Sociology
| Social Sciences
| Nonfiction
| Subjects
| Books
ASIN: 0520079493 |
Book Description
"My Moms was a good person. She cared, but she just couldn't hack us no more. She kept saying she gonna kill herself, too. The day she died, she told me that my father hit her, and I told her, That was good for you, for not cooking for him. And she left. I didn't know she took the pills, though. The next day, they told me she was dead."--Pistol
This searing portrait of inner-city life takes us inside one of America's deadly urban battlefronts--the Puerto Rican neighborhood of Alphabet City on New York's Lower East Side. With unnerving clarity, Geoffrey Biddle shows us the people who live there, summoning their spirit against the brutalizing conditions of poverty, joblessness, drugs, crime, and violence. Capturing life in this ghetto on film and in words with rawness and compassion, he shows the human toll of impoverishment and neglect.
In 1977 Geoffrey Biddle photographed the residents of Alphabet City for the first time. Ten years later, he returned to this same area and photographed many of the same people again, this time also interviewing them. Alphabet City is the result of those encounters.
While the stories are unique, they coalesce into a single tale all the more jarring for the matter-of-fact tone in which it is told. There is Ariel, whose dreams of becoming a boxer were destroyed when he contracted AIDS. And Linda, raising three sons while sleeping in the street, hungry and drug-addicted. There are also tales of human resilience like Richard's, a defiant former gang member who now attends college. These stories belong not only to one New York neighborhood, but to urban ghettos across the United States.
Framed by Miguel Algarín's compelling introduction and dramatized by the speakers' own testimony, Geoffrey Biddle's photographs are haunting portrayals of a ravaged community battling ineffectually against deprivation and betrayal. This book forces us to see faces and to hear voices that won't be easy to forget, and yet which in the end are not so different from our own.
Book Description
It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work. While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse.
Download Description
It is with a peculiar sense of duality one reads this ancient work. While your mind is absorbed in the meaning of the words you utter, the melody in which you utter them tells your heart a tale of its own. You live in two distinct worlds at once. Naphtali had little to say to other people, but he seemed to have much to say to himself. His singsongs were full of meaning, of passion, of beauty. Quite often he would sing himself hoarse.
Customer Reviews:
A classic that should be better-known.......2006-10-17
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.
A Great Business Novel.......2004-12-30
"The Rise of David Levinsky" is a great business novel. Cahan describes how Mr. L becomes a successful maker of men's coats, and how L's ex-partner's wife become a very successful real estate entrepreneur. Actual description of how business success has been achieved is rarely shown in novels: it's available here.
A major early work of American - Jewish Literature .......2004-11-07
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'.
Social realism with a soul.......2004-07-01
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.
A blend of fiction and social realism.......2003-03-20
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.
Books:
- Chief of Station, Congo: Fighting the Cold War in a Hot Zone
- China Shakes the World: A Titan's Rise and Troubled Future -- and the Challenge for America
- Diana Princess of Wales by Mario Testino at Kensington Palace: Princess of Wales
- Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss
- Epicenter: Why Current Rumblings in the Middle East Will Change Your Future
- Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil
- Facing The Lion: Memoirs of a Young Girl in Nazi Europe
- God Save the Sweet Potato Queens
- Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism
- History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)
Books Index
Books Home
Recommended Books
- Introduction to the Theory of Computation, Second Edition
- Behind the Wheel Spanish/Complete Illustrated Text/Answer Keys/8 One Hour
- The Incarnational Art Of Flannery O'connor
- The Vienna Paradox: A Memoir
- Was
- Caring for Your Baby and Young Child, Revised Edition: Birth to Age 5
- Adventures in Nature Honduras
- Appalachian Coal Mining Memories: Life in the Coal Fields of Virginia's New River Valley
- The Turbocharged Company: Igniting You Business to Soar Ahead of the Competition
- Toward Sustainable Competition in Global Telecommunications: From Principle to Practice
Coming of Age in Mississippi
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez
Call It Sleep: A Novel
Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media
Tevye the Dairyman and The Railroad Stories (Library of Yiddish Classics)
