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Hope: A Tragedy

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 2,004 ratings · 510 reviews

A New York Times Notable Book 2012

The rural town of Stockton, New York, is famous for nothing: no one was born there, no one died there, nothing of any historical import at all has ever happened there, which is why Solomon Kugel, like other urbanites fleeing their pasts and histories, decided to move his wife and young son there.

To begin again. To start anew. But it isn’t...more

Hardcover, 292 pages

Published January 12th 2012 by Riverhead Books

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Mar 01, 2012 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: misery-loves-company

The title of Hope: A Tragedy alludes to the philosophy of a radically cynical character in the novel named Professor Jove. In lieu of malice and misfortune, Jove blames human misery simply on hope: despite continual evidence to the contrary, humans still foolishly hope for the best and believe a good, reasonably happy life is somehow attainable. In this theory of hope, Hitler becomes an optimist. Although his methods strike us as cruel and—yes—certainly draconian, he believed a better life was i...more The title of Hope: A Tragedy alludes to the philosophy of a radically cynical character in the novel named Professor Jove. In lieu of malice and misfortune, Jove blames human misery simply on hope: despite continual evidence to the contrary, humans still foolishly hope for the best and believe a good, reasonably happy life is somehow attainable. In this theory of hope, Hitler becomes an optimist. Although his methods strike us as cruel and—yes—certainly draconian, he believed a better life was in fact possible (i.e., by the elimination of the Jews and other undesirables and a subordination of inferior cultures to the German way). Hope begets disappointment; recurring disappointment begets misery. Had Hitler survived, we wouldn't expect him to be happy. At least, not without meds.

The inside jacket plot description of Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy is somewhat misleading. It seems to suggest that the main thread of the novel is about a maniacal arsonist who terrorizes the town of Stockton, New York, and its environs by setting farmhouses ablaze. But no. The central plot is about Solomon Kugel, an exurban who moves his family to this bucolic setting only to discover that the aged, decrepit, cantankerous Anne Frank is living in the attic of his new home—defecating in his forced air registers and writing a smutty novel. (This is not a spoiler. The revelation occurs on page 25.)

In other words, the novel is a tragical farce. Now, some people aren't able to deal with farce—and I understand that—in so far as it traffics in the most implausible and outlandish plot points imaginable. (Anne Frank in the attic is really only the tip of the iceberg.) Many contemporary readers are willing to suspend disbelief, but only to a point. Once that line is crossed, they shut down and begin an adversarial relationship with the book. If this is you, avoid this book. Please. I don't want to read your whiny, idiotic review about how completely unrealistic this book is. It's a farce! Farce is not Stephen Crane.

Shalom Auslander is obviously a funny, highly irreverent (read: wonderfully offensive), and witty writer, but it's not all just for laughs. There are some hard truths about life, death, and the burden of history here. The second chapter, for example, is a profound monument, scaffolded in humor, to the death neurosis. Maybe part of my appreciation of the novel is my strong identification with its fixations:

Should I be worried? Kugel asked.

You should only worry, said Sergeant Frankel, about the things you can control.

If I could control them, said Kugel, they wouldn't worry me.

Exactly, said Sergeant Frankel.

Exactly, said I. People who don't worry about death disturb me. There's something defective about them. There. I've said it. I've judged. There is something wrong with those who cling to its inevitability as a reason not to worry about it. No, that's precisely the reason to worry about it, idiots! Anyway, Kugel is an extreme exaggeration of many of my thoughts and feelings. Distorted though they may be, I recognize them easily here. And yes, I laugh at them. What else can you do? (I mean, when you're not hyperventilating into a paper bag.)
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Jan 26, 2012 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, riverhead

Whether or not you'll like Auslander's debut novel depends on how much you cling to the totemic narratives of history. If you're not afraid to wrestle down those figures and interrogate the validity of their martyr status, then you'll relish this supremely dark and twisty comedy of faith and modern life. If you bristle at reconsidering why you worship the surviving narratives of history's darkest time, then you won't like it at all. Ultimately it's a novel that will speak to the most revisionist...more

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Jun 24, 2012 Mircalla64 (free Liu Xiaobo) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

quando il postmodernismo impatta con l'umorismo ebraico...

Auslander è ormai un personaggio con caratteristiche precise, il suo io narrante è un ebreo nevrotico, che si odia un po' e un altro po' si compatisce, ha molta paura, vive di sensi di colpa e sotto sotto teme tutto quel che lo circonda e teme anche che il suo Dio sia davvero la persona vendicativa e irosa del Vecchio Testamento
per cui prima di fare qualsiasi cosa deve pensarci bene, ponderare le possibili conseguenze e evitare ogni forma...more

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Mar 18, 2012 marg rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5, at times.
Despite your personal feelings toward Auslander's outrageousness, I don't think anyone can deny that he has talent. And while this talent shines through in his first novel, it also wears thin, because there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Auslander writes this book as a cross between Philip Roth and Dave Barry, by which I mean you have a dead on, clearly 'been there done that' and resented it depiction of whiny wanna be Holocaust people - ie, ones who capitalize...more 3.5, at times.
Despite your personal feelings toward Auslander's outrageousness, I don't think anyone can deny that he has talent. And while this talent shines through in his first novel, it also wears thin, because there really is such a thing as too much of a good thing.
Auslander writes this book as a cross between Philip Roth and Dave Barry, by which I mean you have a dead on, clearly 'been there done that' and resented it depiction of whiny wanna be Holocaust people - ie, ones who capitalize on it and turn it into its own religion and, all the more fittingly, don't even actually have any association with the war - done in a satirical, holds no punches witty style. This is a big pet peeve of mine so while genuine survivors and feelers might find this book offensive, I really enjoyed that, especially because Auslander did, I feel, take pains to keep it restricted to people who weren't even there.
Anyway, the book centers around Kugel, a neurotic figure much like the guy in one of the John Irving books, the one where the dad is terrified that something will happen to his kids and so of course something horrible does, and his recent purchase of a farm house appealing because it's in a nondescript town that feels like a relief after the city.
Well, non descript except that one day he discovers Anne Frank, very much alive, in his attic, working on her second book. This creates tension in an already tense home because Kugel has allowed his ailing (though not quickly enough) Holocaust wanna be mother live with them, and an indignant tenant whose rent they need and would like to have another were it not for the fact that the mother (and Anne) are there, and then their little son Jonah, and Kugel's angry wife Bree.
From a 'good read' perspective, this is a smart and funny book, and a pleasant outpouring of witty observations of the crazies around us. From a craft perspective, this book left a lot to be desired - it often 'outfunnied' itself by which I mean Auslander got a little carried away - it got ridiculous and absurd, and the writing often suffered for his unchecked whimsy. It also wore thin given that there wasn't much here but an attempt to spin the paranoia of post Holocaust in a funny way, which it did, but one does not need a novel for that.
Auslander is a talented guy and this book did not disappoint, per se, but that is also because I wasn't expecting anything great, which it is not.(less)

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Jan 20, 2012 Stuart rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: overhyped-by-literary-mafia

Winter 2012 is a big season for fans of Jewish fiction by young authors. Nathan Englander has a new book of stories and Ben Marcus has a new novel. Both authors know how to write well and carefully. Perhaps they are this generation's Malamud and Bellow. But who is this generation's Roth, acerbic and antagonistic to society, especially to Jewish society? It isn't Auslander. To put it plainly, Shalom Auslander is an essayist, not a novelist. To be more kind, perhaps Auslander will develop the abil...more Winter 2012 is a big season for fans of Jewish fiction by young authors. Nathan Englander has a new book of stories and Ben Marcus has a new novel. Both authors know how to write well and carefully. Perhaps they are this generation's Malamud and Bellow. But who is this generation's Roth, acerbic and antagonistic to society, especially to Jewish society? It isn't Auslander. To put it plainly, Shalom Auslander is an essayist, not a novelist. To be more kind, perhaps Auslander will develop the ability to write a good novel one day, but Hope: A Tragedy doesn't cross over the bar.

The writing style here is something more akin to Dick and Jane books than anything literary. The sentences are short and the language is simple. I know that this barebones approach is intentional, but it gets tedious in a hurry. Often the exposition reads like a stand up comedy act where the narrator tries too hard to be funny. Sentiments are forced. Subtlety is absent. Through 300 pages, the novel plods along describing the life of a sad sack, forty-year old Jewish father in New York. In some ways, the approach here is similar to that of Jewish jokes about shlemiels, but in this novel there is rarely a punchline. Maybe that's the point. Maybe this is intentional anti-comedy. I kept waiting to laugh at something, anything. Mostly I just grew bored.

The intellectual level of this book is pathetic and crude. No, Hitler was not an "optimist". He was not trying "to make the world a better place". He was aiming for world dominance at the expense of mankind. No, Steven Pinker would not say that the Shoah was no big deal because we as a society are becoming less violent. Shalom Auslander has the intellectual sophistication of a bad boy high school junior on dope. No, Anne Frank, had she lived, would not have become a foul mouthed, embittered writer desperate for her next bestseller. Maybe you'd have to know many Shoah survivors - and their amazing resilience and power to move on - to know just how off target this novel is. I do: my parents and their friends. If your parents lived through the Shoah, it's likely that you won't be able to decide whether this book is just plain boring or both boring and contemptible.

There is no love of language in this book. The characters are flat. Their predicaments are uninteresting. Maybe Mr. Auslander has a better novel in him than this one. If not, he can always return to writing essays about his life, something that he can do quite well. Hope: A Tragedy comes off as a dull workmanlike thing, the product of someone motivated by anger and resentment, trying to prove they can write a novel without possessing the talent to make words live. On the plus side, the book is a quick read.

If you're a tortured soul, are unconcerned about felicity with language in novels, like depressing tales, and think a bitter (still living) Anne Frank saying "blow me" is hilarious, you might like this book. Others would be best to skip it.

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Jan 23, 2012 Avi rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the most brutal depiction I have ever read of a martyr complex. If you are interested in that and how guilt is used and abused, you should *definitely* read this book.

One of the other reviewers compared this to a cross of Kafka and Woody Allen. I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. This "novel" reads more like an extended fable to me.

Disclaimer: I was tempted to give this only four stars for not being funny to me, but, I think it's only fair to judge a book by what it is, rather...more

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Feb 22, 2012 Allan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: early, reviewer, book

Darkly comic and wallowing in pessimism, Hope: A Tragedy, a first novel from Shalom Auslander, is heavy with guilt and light as air. It’s a brilliant read.[return][return]Solomon Kugel has brought his wife and young son to Stockton, a small uninspired town in upstate New York, to begin life afresh, make a new start and shake off whatever bad breaks dumped them here. Unfortunately he must bring along his old dying mother, a non-holocaust survivor who nevertheless has taken on all the guilt and an...more

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May 26, 2013 Gary rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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May 17, 2013 Catherine Woodman rated it 4 of 5 stars

There really is neither hope nor tragedy contained within the pages of this book, but what is there is unusual. It seems like the kind of story that you would love or hate, but in fact I found myself puzzled and not exactly sure how I felt about it.

The story is this--a couple, Solomon and Bree, stretch their resources to buy a house they really cannot afford with the intention of renting out two of the rooms in order to make the mortgage. That seems like an inherently bad idea to me--they have a...more There really is neither hope nor tragedy contained within the pages of this book, but what is there is unusual. It seems like the kind of story that you would love or hate, but in fact I found myself puzzled and not exactly sure how I felt about it.

The story is this--a couple, Solomon and Bree, stretch their resources to buy a house they really cannot afford with the intention of renting out two of the rooms in order to make the mortgage. That seems like an inherently bad idea to me--they have a young child, and I know from experience that having people in the house complicates even the best of situations. Then they add on the complication that Solomon's mother is supposedly dying of dementia comes to live with them for her 'final days'. Firstly, predicting death is a notoriously poor science, and dementia is not one of those illnesses which is a swift killer, so the doctor who sends her to live with them under the pretense that her days are numbered should be taken to task. The mother has a Holocaust obsession that is unwarranted, in that neither she nor her close family were in Europe during WWII, and is very annoying (for those who live with her). Then add the element of the unbelievable. Anne Frank is not dead, but is rather living in their attic. She came with the house.

It is hard for me to decide if this is black humor or magical realism. I can't decide if the comedy is off putting or allows for difficult choices to be presented in humorous ways. I can't even decide what I think about the book beyond saying that I have not read much that gives me as much trouble with decision making as this book. What I do know is that the part I liked best is when Solomon starts to contemplate two things--could he survive living in someone's attic, and if he could, who does he know that would risk hiding he and his family in their attic should that become necessary in the future. When he asks friends and neighbors about it they treat him as if he needs medication, but it is the sort of idea that is hard to figure out. Who are the righteous amongst us? Very thought provoking, fairly humorous, and the sort of book that you will be thinking about long after you finish it.(less)

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Apr 12, 2013 Newtonlibrary Iowa added it

Sol Kugel fears dying. Not death, but the limitless number of ways to die, the idea that one can die without delivering the perfect last words, and the realization that death can and does appear without warning. In Shalom Auslander's irreverent yet endlessly humorous tale, Hope: a Tragedy, Sol has just moved his family to a town known for absolutely nothing in the hope of removing risk from their precarious lives. Unfortunately, their move coincides with a string of arson-related fires targeting...more

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Mar 02, 2013 Richard Block rated it 4 of 5 stars

Hello Stranger

The pseudonym is as telling as the tale. Poor Sol Kugel finds a dying Anne Frank in the attic of his new home in the sticks and is forced to confront his identity. Can a Jew toss the symbol of Jewish persecution out of his home, I mean, toss aside Jewish post Holocaust identity away? Hello Stranger, indeed!

But this is not a one joke, Woody Allen type story - this is, rather, an insane meditation on hope. For Auslander's character has been told by Professor Jove (God, the names!) th...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Edmole rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A magnificent, vicious comic novel about how we appropriate and luxuriate in guilt, in other people's tragedies, in holocausts not our own. A man buys a flat and hears noise from upstairs. It starts to drive him nuts. It turns out it's Anne Frank, doing what she does - surviving. The man spends the rest of the book trying to keep everyone happy, no one is, and trying to do right while everybody has a different idea of what right is.

This book reminded me of many people I have met who want to dra...more

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Jul 16, 2012 Alyce Rocco rated it 4 of 5 stars

A quote from Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander:

What is that? he wondered.
A scratching?
A rapping?
A tap-tap-tapping.

There is an absence of quotation marks in this book. Interesting and no way detracts from the story. Even though I am not finished with the novel, it is so delightful, I am considering 5 Stars ~ a book that I will definitely want to read again.

Auslander's words cause me to laugh out loud, or at least chuckle. Back cover book blurb said "It will make very many people very angry." I...more

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Jun 18, 2012 Judith rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this book outrageously funny, but I am sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. The premise struck me as so ridiculous when I read about it that I still can't figure out why I decided to read it, but I am glad I did because it was laugh-out-loud funny despite the absurdity. Here it is: present day, a rural community in New York state where Solomon Kugel buys a beautiful old house in the country and moves in his family including his lovely wife, 3 year old son and cranky old mother. He discov...more I found this book outrageously funny, but I am sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. The premise struck me as so ridiculous when I read about it that I still can't figure out why I decided to read it, but I am glad I did because it was laugh-out-loud funny despite the absurdity. Here it is: present day, a rural community in New York state where Solomon Kugel buys a beautiful old house in the country and moves in his family including his lovely wife, 3 year old son and cranky old mother. He discovers to his horror that Anne Frank is living in his attic. She is ancient and mean and smells horrid, but she is, after all, THE Anne Frank, so what can he do but devote his life to granting her every wish.

Clearly Anne Frank symbolizes the burden of guilt of the Holocaust, and you may well wonder what can be humorous about this. The author is so clever that I kept thinking he was meeting a challenge: after all, it's not every author who can skillfully inject levity into this gloomy subject. In the story, Sol thinks back on his childhood, being raised by his mother in a single-parent household with the ever present theme of her suffering through the Holocaust. She raised him from an early age to believe that all of his forefathers had perished in WWII, and that she had narrowly escaped with her life. When he was in the sixth grade his teacher took his class to a Holocaust museum and he burst into tears when he saw a life-size poster of a woman he thought was his mother as a girl. His classmates were sympathetic when he explained the cause of his outburst until his teacher said, ". . .That's not your mother. . .Your mother's my age, Solomon, . . .she wasn't even born when that photo was taken. And she was born in Brooklyn. . . .We went to Camp Sackamanoff together. Up in the Catskills. The food was awful, young man, but it was a far cry from Auschwitz."

Even after he confronts his mother with these inconsistencies, she lives out the myth and eventually he decides to go along with it. I know it seems too silly for belief and that is why I couldn't give it 5 stars, but any book that is this outrageously irreverent and humorous deserves a read. More to the point, with all the serious and dramatic books we read, we deserve the belly-laughs this book provides. (less)

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Jun 16, 2012 Frieda Vizel rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is an original, well written work that had me laughing out loud many times. I give Auslander 4 stars for creativity and witticism, but I give 2 for plot and other elements. After about 1/3 of the book the funny bits get recycled and the plot becomes very thin. A lot of his jokes turn up six times in the same book! Lines like: 'Live each day as something, go enjoy the whatever, stop to smell the what-have-you' that mock cliches are funny at first but after a few times feel very old and...more This book is an original, well written work that had me laughing out loud many times. I give Auslander 4 stars for creativity and witticism, but I give 2 for plot and other elements. After about 1/3 of the book the funny bits get recycled and the plot becomes very thin. A lot of his jokes turn up six times in the same book! Lines like: 'Live each day as something, go enjoy the whatever, stop to smell the what-have-you' that mock cliches are funny at first but after a few times feel very old and forced. The story is very over the top and hard to believe. For example, Kugel, the tragic main character, seems to struggle with problems that are easily avoidable, and because it is hard to understand why Kugel doesn't simply solve his problems, it is impossible to sympathize with him. As the book keeps going and Kugel single handedly ruins his life for inexplicable reasons, the story losses steam. It is hard to watch the self destruction when it seems as absurd and unlikely. Kugel buys a mattress for his unwelcome attic guest (a living Anne Frank) despite his desperate financial situation, prompting his wife to leave him. It is hard to understand why he does it when neither Anne Frank wanted it nor he could afford it. The "Jewish holocaust guilt" motive is so stretched at this point, it's impossible to buy.

You cannot read this work without admiring Auslander's perceptiveness and intelligence. It is clear that he has an original, often dark, but always fascinated view on mankind and Jewish culture. Unfortunately, I think he took it all too far in his book. If he had given Kugel a better motive or altered the plot to make the story more believable, everything would have come together much better.

I know from reading Auslander's other works that he has some strong opinions about post-holocaust Jewish culture. According to his experience, Jews in America often imparted to their children such severe ideas of guilt as if to make up for their lack of suffering by punishing themselves and their family. That whole aspect of his writing is really interesting and new to me.

In the book there are way too many references to bodily functions for my liking. I suppose some find toilet humor funny, I found it a distraction.

An interesting thing about the book: dialog is not in quotations. Talk about taking creative licenses! I liked it!(less)

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Jun 13, 2012 Ryan rated it 5 of 5 stars

A recent Facebook post of mine had read "I can't wait until they release a 3D IMAX version of 'Schindler's List'". Someone with whom I have a tenuous Facebook relationship declared that I "was in poor taste." I can't help but think how he would have felt about Auslander's novel.

Personally, I found this novel saturated with biting sarcasm, scathing bitterness, and caustic cynicism...and I loved every word. There is no question that Auslander can write. He's quick and vivid, but that's not why th...more

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Jun 02, 2012 Hannah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, jewish

Shalom Auslander's first full-length novel takes a slight detour from his usual angst about Orthodoxy (see Foreskin's Lament and Beware of God: Stories) to poke fun at gluten intolerance, muse about epitaphs and take Anne Frank off her historical pedestal by finding her alive and well (and old and curmudgeonly) in the attic of a bucolic farmhouse recently bought by a neurotic Jewish guy. What's not to like?

After a day of reflection, though, I think what's holding me back from a higher review is...more

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May 28, 2012 Karen rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most darkly hilarious books I've read this year. What's a paranoid Jewish father to do when he discovers Anne Frank alive and well (and frankly disturbingly old and disturbingly disgusting) hiding out in the attic of his farmhouse in the States? He can't be the Jew who threw out Anne Frank! Yes, that's truly the premise of this laugh-out-loud (but only if you've got a properly twisted sense of humor--and I do) novel. The plot is awesome, as are the characters. Hands down, the best cha...more

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May 22, 2012 Jeffreyh.hammond added it · review of another edition

sebbene la lettura sia piacevole, il libro mi lascia abbastanza perplesso. se da un lato è chiaro il danno che può generarsi, non dal ricordare la storia, ma dal ricordare male, dall'altro ci sono dei punti (come il discorso finale di Eve ai nuovi acquirenti della casa vittoriana) dei quali è difficile cogliere una interpretazione. sempre che ce ne sia una.
la vicenda ruota intorno alla scoperta che nella soffitta di Kugel c'è una persona importante. nientemeno che Anne Frank, scampata ai campi d...more sebbene la lettura sia piacevole, il libro mi lascia abbastanza perplesso. se da un lato è chiaro il danno che può generarsi, non dal ricordare la storia, ma dal ricordare male, dall'altro ci sono dei punti (come il discorso finale di Eve ai nuovi acquirenti della casa vittoriana) dei quali è difficile cogliere una interpretazione. sempre che ce ne sia una.
la vicenda ruota intorno alla scoperta che nella soffitta di Kugel c'è una persona importante. nientemeno che Anne Frank, scampata ai campi di sterminio, nonostante la storia abbia decretato il contrario. come si comporta una persona di origini ebraiche in tale situazione? allontana l'inopportuno ospite, ignorando il peso che l'Olocausto gli pone di fronte (ma non l'opinione pubblica, per cui la donna sarebbe solo una pazza), oppure rispetta il dolore che quella martire si è accollata per una intera comunità. sua madre non ha dubbi. sua madre che si getta addosso un velo di disgrazia per sentirsi compresa e accettata, vantando sofferenze della seconda guerra mondiale, che non ha sofferto nè per coincidenza temporale, nè per coincidenza geografica. la grottesca situazione, e il tentativo di trovare un modo per risolverla, allontana pian piano Kugel da ogni suo punto fermo terreno: il lavoro, la moglie e il figlio. sarà l'inizio di un declino inarrestabile, figlio dell'incapacità di far valere le proprie ragioni davanti ad un fatto storico che lo interessa solo per appartenenza di religione. nel libro si discute spesso anche di altri genocidi, e ognuno porta ragioni e importanza in direzione di quello che gli interessa di più, cercando di misurare e bilanciare gravità e conseguenze e ignorando bellamente che forse un morto è comunque un insuccesso, di qualunque colore sia la sua pelle, qualunque religione professi o qualunque sia l'ideologia che sta a monte di questa perdita. leggendo anche Il lamento del prepuzio e A dio spiacendo, risulta chiaro che ad Auslander, l'eredità lasciata dall'Olocausto pesa, e il continuo piangersi addosso degli ebraici (tranquillo Shalom, i "nostri" non sono così differenti...)risulta inaccettabile per la sua mente più proiettata al futuro che al passato. (less)

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Apr 22, 2012 Jamie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: adult, satire, jewish

I certainly had no idea what to expect with the combination of largely vitriol with praise from one from our book group. So I've got to start with all that by saying I liked this quite a bit more than I thought I would. Here's why:

1. I like books with a strong life philosophy, and that is certainly this one.

2. I also LOVE smart people, foolish choices, and that is REALLY this one.

3. There is some great writing, Especially in the epilogue "Fiction will return, I promise you, especially when the...more

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Apr 17, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one

This book annoyed me to death. I hated the characters. I gave the book one star, and the reason I did so was that I don’t have a lot of patience for characters like Kugel and his mother. He was too Woody Allen-like for me. I hate Woody Allen movies for the same reason: stop being so introspective and neurotic and start acting like a grownup. That’s what I want to scream at the characters.

Also, the entire premise that he couldn’t kick Anne Frank out because it would look bad on him was ridiculou...more

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Apr 16, 2012 Alex Templeton rated it 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars. This is one of the most thought-provoking novels I’ve read in awhile. In it, Solomon Kugel has just moved his wife and sickly young son out from the city into a rural community. He is unfortunately joined by his mother, who pretends that she was a Holocaust victim even though she grew up far and away from the Europe of the 1940’s. There is also a local arsonist who is burning down farm houses just like Kugel’s. When Kugel discovers that Anne Frank has survived and is living, old and g...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Ciara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

what would you do if you bought a house & discovered a week later that anne frank was alive & living in your attic, endeavoring to write a sequel to her diary? that is the premise of this novel. say it with me now, kids: wow, i have never heard of a more gimmicky plotline. complicating matters is the fact that our hapless protagonist is a jewish man raised by a mother who had fed him lie after lie after lie about all the relatives they had that perished in the holocaust. he knows that hi...more what would you do if you bought a house & discovered a week later that anne frank was alive & living in your attic, endeavoring to write a sequel to her diary? that is the premise of this novel. say it with me now, kids: wow, i have never heard of a more gimmicky plotline. complicating matters is the fact that our hapless protagonist is a jewish man raised by a mother who had fed him lie after lie after lie about all the relatives they had that perished in the holocaust. he knows that his grandfather wasn't turned into a lampshade (a recurring concept in the book--his mom actually had a lamp that she brings out & introduces as grandpa), but the stories still imbued him with all this intense survivor's guilt. he doesn't want to be the jewish guy who turns anne frank out on to the street.

but the care & feeding ends up being more than his marriage, his career, or his sanity can really sustain. complicating the issue is the fact that a local arsonist is burning down picturesque farmhouses like the one he just bought. He has no idea how he's rescue his infant son, his aging mother, & anne frank in the event of a fire.

i don't know that i necessarily "got" this book. it was a nice speedy read & it was engaging, which is why i gave it three stars. it didn't bore me. but none of the characters (anne frank included) were terrible likeable, or in any way realistic. i don't know if i've just led a charmed life (i haven't), but seriously no one in this book behaves the way actual humans would behave in real life. to get through it, you just kind of have to accept that & take it for what it is, which is another novel in the "i'm a dude with some philosophizing to do, cloaked in a veneer of a truly wacky high-concept plot" school. think the particular sadness of lemon cake when the brother starts turning into a chair, or the brief wondrous life of oscar wao without the charming characters. it's just goofy, which undercuts the attempt at a weighty thematic statement (that statement being something like "it's futile to have hope for a better tomorrow because things can always, always get worse"). (less)

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Mar 17, 2012 Rachelle Urist rated it 5 of 5 stars

Brilliant. Prophetic. Bold. Funny. Visionary. Dares to examine sacrosanct Jewish symbols in the wake of the Holocaust. Humanizes Anne Frank by imagining her alive today, stuck in an attic limbo in a world that wants her dead. Her death is what gave her book its appeal, thinks Solomon Kugel, who moves his family into a new house, far from the maddening crowd, and discovers that Anne Frank has been hiding in the attic for forty years. Before that, she hid in other people's attics. Attics are safe....more Brilliant. Prophetic. Bold. Funny. Visionary. Dares to examine sacrosanct Jewish symbols in the wake of the Holocaust. Humanizes Anne Frank by imagining her alive today, stuck in an attic limbo in a world that wants her dead. Her death is what gave her book its appeal, thinks Solomon Kugel, who moves his family into a new house, far from the maddening crowd, and discovers that Anne Frank has been hiding in the attic for forty years. Before that, she hid in other people's attics. Attics are safe. The world isn't. "Stay dead," one publisher told her, when she presents herself, quite alive, contrary to popular belief. "The world doesn't want you alive. Your diary sold 32 million copies because you're dead." (I paraphrased, but that's the gist.) Through all this, one can't help but imagine Auslander himself asking what he, a living writer, must do to capture the world's attention. Must he, too, die?

While Kugel (who's married to Bree - a Jewish noodle pudding married to French cheese - though "Bree" isn't spelled "Brie") is not a writer, the character is so clearly the writer's alter ego, that I imagined him a writer as I read. His evocation of holocaust-era American Jews (particularly mothers), whose guilt at being spared is the work of genius. This particular mother's imagination, in tandem with her guilt, leads her first to imagine herself in the camps and then to imagine herself an actual survivor. Dialogue between mother and son is excruciatingly funny. I laughed out loud much of the way.

Some of the refrains are uproarious. Kugel returns time and again to possible last words, to tombstone engravings ("here lies Kugel. He had promise" - or words to that effect). These had me chuckling long after I closed the book. Kugel's meditations on hope, his fantasies about heaven and what God might say to souls on arrival, are also winning. But if your tastes don't run to dark humor, if you didn't like FORESKIN'S LAMENT, Auslander's earlier book, you may not love this as I did.

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Feb 24, 2012 J.T. Geissinger rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is definitely not for everyone, but if you get it, you GET IT. Anyone without a Jewish relative might stare blankly at the pages not understanding any of the references or jokes. It is laugh-out-loud, fall-off-the-couch funny, with a hero that is despicably weak, neurotic and a complete train wreck (think Woody Allen times a hundred). And how I loved him for that.

So: You find yourself living with your wife and young son in a converted farmhouse in Stockton, California, a city known for abso...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Allizabeth Collins rated it 4 of 5 stars

Description:

Solomon Kugel, a death obsessed neurotic, yearns for a fresh start for his family; so he moves them from the hustle and bustle of NYC to a farmhouse in the little known, (and little known for), Stockton, NY. Unfortunately, escaping his past - and his neuroses - proves an impossibility due to continuing family drama, his mother's hoarding and dementia, an arsonist who's goal is to burn down every farmhouse in the neighborhood, and a mysterious and annoying tapping coming from the att...more Description:

Solomon Kugel, a death obsessed neurotic, yearns for a fresh start for his family; so he moves them from the hustle and bustle of NYC to a farmhouse in the little known, (and little known for), Stockton, NY. Unfortunately, escaping his past - and his neuroses - proves an impossibility due to continuing family drama, his mother's hoarding and dementia, an arsonist who's goal is to burn down every farmhouse in the neighborhood, and a mysterious and annoying tapping coming from the attic. Thinking the tapping could be some sort of rodent infestation, Solomon ascends, with a flashlight in hand, into the box-crammed attic and finds none other than Anne Frank - old, alive, crude, and cranky - who is trying to write a sequel to her original bestseller The Diary Of Anne Frank... No Spoilers!

Review:

Honestly, I didn't' know what to expect from Shalom Auslander's Hope: A Tragedy, especially after examining the strange cover art and reading the blurb on the back cover. I hadn't read other books by this author, but had heard mixed reviews - funny, dark, twisted, pessimistic, paradoxical, etc... Well, after reading all 292 pages, I wholeheartedly agree! It is one of the few books that I have read that left me laughing-out-loud one minute, depressed about life the next, and scratching my head in confusion and dismay a couple pages later. It's a very "far-out" and cynical read, and I am sure that this book isn't for everyone; some readers may even find it crude, over-the-top, nonsensical, unstructured, and repetitive, but that is how it is written. The format actually does a lot for the book overall - particularly when the reader considers the personalities/neuroses of the characters, Solomon especially. The characters are strangely comical, but I couldn't relate to a few of them which made a couple sections boring; those involving Professor Jove weren't my favorite. I did however enjoy Solomon's relationship with his mother and her constant reminiscing about her faux stay in a concentration camp. The plot is not evident at first, but once I got into it I found it easier to grasp. One of the main reasons I was tripped up a few times was that there were no quotation marks in the dialogue, so I had trouble following who was speaking in the conversations. Overall, I did enjoy Hope: A Tragedy and recommend it to those interested in reading something deviating from the norm that will make some laugh, some scowl, and leave others dumbfounded.

Rating: On the Run (4/5)

*** I received this book from the author (Penguin Group USA) in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.(less)

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Dec 04, 2012 Alan Draycott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Are all male Jewish Americans like George from Seinfeld (or 1972 Woody Allen)? Surely he is as much as a caricature as a Dickensian Fagin? But the lead in this book could not be more George like if he tried. Still the first half of the book was very amusing indeed as Kugel (George) mentally disintegrates in front of our eyes. Very well done. The second half of the book with its forray into the politics of the holocaust was perhaps last successful. I got rather lost when other characters started...more

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Feb 04, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, novel

Outrageously funny, so wildly original you forgive a certain amount of repetitiveness, a rude offspring of Philip Roth and Franz Kafka. The sort of book where you constantly want to put it down and call everyone you know to read them the passages you just read.

Solomon Kugel is a neurotic obsessed with death who recently moved with his family to a farmhouse in upstate New York. One night he hears noise coming from the attic, goes up to investigate, and discovers Anne Frank living up there. But no...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Sze Yen rated it 5 of 5 stars

You either like this book, or you hate it. This book delivers what the title promises - hope, how people depend on it, and how it gets us into troubles. I personally find it a very good book (not so much a good read because of the style of writing), not because it was written in an outrageously hilarious manner, but because of the veracity in his description of the people coming from a long history of torments and suffering. This book is full of symbols, metaphors, and hidden messages. Shalom Au...more

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Jun 11, 2012 Paul Lunger rated it 3 of 5 stars

If it's possible to tie together the Holocaust, last words & WWII, then perhaps Shalom Auslander has succeeded in a book that is a bit unusual in a lot of ways. In "Hope: A Tragedy", we meet Solomon Kugel a man who is obsessed with what his last words will be when he dies. He & his family move into a farmhouse in boring Stockton, NY which seems relatively safe save a smell in the attic. It's in that attic where he encounters an elderly woman claiming to be Anne Frank. If that isn't stran...more

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Quotes from Hope: A Tragedy

“He imagined the scene at the gates of heaven to be not unlike that at the finish line of a long and grueling marathon: everyone high-fiving, hugging, collapsing, elated that it’s over, yes, it’s finally over, pouring cups of water over one another’s heads and saying, Holy shit, dude, that was fucking brutal. I am never doing that again.” — 5 people liked it

“...the greatest source of misery in the world, the greatest cause of anguish and hatred and sadness and death, was neither disease nor race nor religion. It was hope.” — 5 people liked it

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