The Instructions

Feb 21, 2012 karen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: littry-fiction

fortunately, all the literary lynch mobs are occupied settling that mark twain business, so i can slip in here and give this book four stars instead of five with minimal outcry. this book is excellent. at times, it is perfect. this is the highest four a four can be before becoming a five - put down that torch, straggler!

and after finishing it, i feel somewhat stunned, drained, like wandering blinkingly outside after a movie marathon. i need a moment. but what i can say now, with certainty, is th...more fortunately, all the literary lynch mobs are occupied settling that mark twain business, so i can slip in here and give this book four stars instead of five with minimal outcry. this book is excellent. at times, it is perfect. this is the highest four a four can be before becoming a five - put down that torch, straggler!

and after finishing it, i feel somewhat stunned, drained, like wandering blinkingly outside after a movie marathon. i need a moment. but what i can say now, with certainty, is that it is a remarkable book, and a pleasure to read, despite its daunting length. it reads much more quickly than it would seem, and i will probably read it again.

having said that, my quibbles are minor and have to do mostly with consistency and follow-through.i'm sure it is really really hard to write a book of this length, and when you have spent nine years on it, it is hard to part with any of the elements of it, even when you have someone as astute and gentle as oriana on your side to guide you.so i am totally sympathetic to and in awe of this book's existing at all.

and i know my gentile status makes me miss out on certain resonances - reverberations of religious significance that even a faux-jew like greg would feel stirrings in his soul over, because this is the jewiest of all books ever.i have picked up some stuff in my way through life, but i am no israelite; gurion would have looked right past me, leaving me to defend myself with my saxophone.

and that's all i am really willing to say. i approve of the caution most reviewers have shown regarding this book - no one wants to commit to a book of this size if they know what happens. this is why i will probably never read anna karenina, because everyone (except ariel) knows what happens there (except she knows now because i totally ruined her life), and i want everyone to read this book.

but if you must know, it is a potential-messiah story told in the first person that attempts to answer the question - gurion maccabee: ten-year-old messiah, or just an articulate thug?

and because greg shared his and mine is different:

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Aug 20, 2011 oriana rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: too-smart-for-their-own-good, read-2010, read-for-work

Nov: Karen & I went to see Adam Levin read last night and he was great, not to mention ridiculously cool & nice. He is also the second author I've met who hugged me when he found out I was his copyeditor (Deb Olin Unferth, who is also fantastic, was the first). As if I could have liked him more! Shit you guys, read this fucking book already and make the man rich & famous.

also: for anyone still on the fence about trying this -- especially those with whom I've lost reliability because...more

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Apr 07, 2013 Aubrey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ever-on, bring-it-on, checked-out, heartbreak, books-are-the-best-invention, 5-star, reviewed, megalodon

I know this much is true.

Or I think this. Suspect this. Realize this.

I know that this is the childhood of Infinite Jest before it was exposed to its titular component. I know that nothing is sacred, least of all childhood, which suffers on its sanctified pedestal. I know ideology and theology and coprology and the razors they stretch tight around the skin. I know how the blades slip into the throat in childhood, and how the ability to spit them at another screams itself out in adulthood. I know...more

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Oct 09, 2012 Christopher rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 500-pages-or-more, fiction, american, epistolary, future-classics, favorites, jewish, 1000-pages-or-more

(pictured above: Che Guevara, analogue of Gurion Maccabee, antihero of The Instructions)

Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee is an incredibly verbose and intellectually gifted ten-year old potential messiah. He aspires to write capital-S Scripture on par with the Torah he so dearly loves. This large book is his Scripture, the Book of Gurion, his Instructions.

This is a metafictional delight. In the fashion of Lolita, The Instructions begins with the disclaimer that in reading this book, the reader is taking...more

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Jan 23, 2011 Krok Zero rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: winter-10-to-11

Epigraph as authorial hand-tipping:

It is a curious enigma that so great a mind would question the most obvious realities and object even to things scientifically demonstrated... while believing absolutely in his own fantastic explanations of the same phenomena.

Were it not for this epigraph, which comes from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, the reader might, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, believe that Adam Levin tacitly approves of the violent actions of his ten-year-old sc...more Epigraph as authorial hand-tipping:

It is a curious enigma that so great a mind would question the most obvious realities and object even to things scientifically demonstrated... while believing absolutely in his own fantastic explanations of the same phenomena.

Were it not for this epigraph, which comes from Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, the reader might, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, believe that Adam Levin tacitly approves of the violent actions of his ten-year-old scholar/terrorist/possible-messiah Gurion. It's not a spoiler to say that there are violent actions or that he is a terrorist, because this information is pretty much revealed before the book even starts, in a message from the "publisher" as part of the book's framing device. We read the first 800+ pages knowing that some shit is gonna go down, we read the last 200 pages of nonstop shit-going-down, and then the book is over, and we are left to ponder the moral implications on our own, because Levin and Gurion have cut and run, so to speak; instead of allowing the reader to continue living in this world after the shit has gone down, to observe the shit's effects on the book's many characters and to carry their moral questioning to the point it has seemingly been building toward, Levin and Gurion porkypig the reader: That's all, folks.

You can't read a book this long without the book becoming part of you. It's doubtful I will ever think of the word "damage" or "arrangement" the same way again. Despite the exaggerated reality of a world in which a ten-year-old can write a thousand-page scripture and lead actual armies in violent revolt, the characters are pretty vivid and knowable (with at least one problematic exception) and it's not hard to form attachments. So the attachment I formed to Levin's world partly accounts for my disappointment with the ending. I really hate to sound like one of those rubes who complained about The Sopranos ending being too ambiguous, or one of those dim fanboys who couldn't handle the ending of Lost failing to answer all their burning questions. I can handle ambiguity, really I can. But when Levin ends it where he does, he effectively cuts the book off from its themes, so that the book just isn't enough about what it's supposed to be about. Or at least, that is my near-immediate reaction upon finishing; I reserve the right to decide that I'm wrong.

From where I sit, the book is principally about two things: (1) the rabbit-hole of (over)analytical thinking about both oneself and the world in terms of morality, faith, and practicality -- what Douglas Wolk's Bookforum review describes as being "talmudically obsessed with worrying out every possible interpretation of everything" -- and (2) violence, violence, violence -- the mechanics, the ethics, the causes, the justifications, the consequences, and so on. For whatever reason (mainly an aesthetic one, I suspect), Levin avoids the word violence like the plague and replaces it with the word damage. Damage takes many forms, and nearly every scene in the book is somehow related to some form of damage. (One of my favorite digressions in the book is a brilliant monologue by one of the school security guards that's basically a long, impassioned moral defense of bullying and bullies.) When the book ends where it does, Levin forces us to reconsider these themes in light of the shit that has gone down, without actually further developing them himself. What does Gurion, with all his endless analytical hand-wringing over fucking everything, have to say about the events that came to define his life? We don't know, except in little hints. Maybe this is totally fine and I'm having a naive, unsophisticated reaction. Maybe I'm just pissed at the disappearance of Bam Slokum from the narrative, a fascinating character who was built up as the villain of the piece and given a handful of stunning monologues before Levin discarded him and left his purpose in the novel unresolved. The book is over a thousand pages long, but it seems unfinished.

I had other problems, too. The aforementioned obsession with interpretive analysis is a pleasure to read for a while, but after several hundred pages it becomes extremely tiresome. The love interest, June, is a vaguely defined character, and I never found her relationship with Gurion convincing. I've mentioned before that I have trouble following action sequences in prose fiction, and this book's big violent set piece just made my eyes glaze over -- though that's maybe more my fault than Levin's. (Also, from the department of petty, meaningless complaints: some of the Chicago geography is questionable, even though Levin lives here.)

But this review has been mostly griping, and you can see I've given it four stars, so...yeah, The Instructions is not optional. It's as ambitious as it is huge, written in as inventive and precisely calibrated a first-person voice as I've ever read, often very funny, full of individual scenes of holyshit perfection, weighty without getting weighed down, and almost maddeningly thought-provoking. My disappointments with it are purely a result of its successes, if that makes sense. I look forward to seeing what Levin can do on a less massive scale, and I seriously regret missing his appearance at my local library (also Joel's local library) back in October. Still, I know where he teaches, so I suppose I could always go downtown and stalk him. I just hope he doesn't try to damage me.(less)

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Nov 05, 2010 Greg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Greg by: oriana

Shelves: fiction, big-cut-jewish-books, mcsweeneys

Updated 11/5. I still have no review. But Adam Levin signed my copy last night and I love what he wrote, so I'm sharing.

I recommend reading this book. I haven't had an almost* back to back awesomeness reading experience like JR and this since 1999 when I read Gravity's Rainbow and Infinite Jest in the same month.

*I'm saying almost because I'm aware that I read four books, and nine days passed between finishing JR and starting this book.

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Jan 18, 2013 Paul marked it as i-bet-i-never-finish-these

Abandoned for now and maybe forever because of sentences like this :

EXAMPLE THE FIRST

Context - our 10 year old hero is engaged in stealing a Coke from the Coke machine in the teachers' common room in school in order to impress a girl called June. He has already tried and failed to smash the clock in the gym hall as a tribute to his new love :

It occurred to me that maybe the Coke I was getting for June, if a strong poem were taped to it, would come closer to approximating a smash-faced gym-clock...more

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Feb 16, 2011 Jimmy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: male, novel, year-2010s

I’m a little overwhelmed. After finishing this, I just can’t see it as clearly as while I was in the middle of reading it. Because after finishing it, all I can focus on is the ending, but the book is so much more than that. Yes it is a unified work and it is saying big things, but I love the small things he does as much as the big things. The book is as much about these small things = slapslap, chinning, Harpo Progression, hyperscoot, I’m-Ticking, ‘Tch’ = there is an obsession with, or an under...more I’m a little overwhelmed. After finishing this, I just can’t see it as clearly as while I was in the middle of reading it. Because after finishing it, all I can focus on is the ending, but the book is so much more than that. Yes it is a unified work and it is saying big things, but I love the small things he does as much as the big things. The book is as much about these small things = slapslap, chinning, Harpo Progression, hyperscoot, I’m-Ticking, ‘Tch’ = there is an obsession with, or an understanding of, gestural communication but also signficance of gestural motions outside of the goal of communication alone. There’s also a particular vocabulary = trickle, snat, emotionalize, Slokum Dies Friday, darkers, the robots, Desormiate, chomsky, pennygun, Arrangement, damage, Ulpan = a grandiose kind of language-making in which everything is internalized, nicknamed, externalized, passed-on, becomes myth-like. People’s names too = Main Man, Janitor, Asparagus, Brooklyn, Call-Me-Sandy. The book creates an internal logic, an environment where everything in it makes its own particular sense, and is driven by a most unique voice, a voice that gets in your head and even made me dream things in that same voice, a voice of one who is constantly thinking and re-thinking, obsessed with logic in the big things (including scriptural and moral ideas, example = lying to God, and how God is complicit in your lying, etc.) as well as the smallest of small, seemingly irrelevant things (= why simple slapslap was inferior to normal slapslap... ) logic which becomes illogical because it has so much faith in its own logic, that logic is possible, that the world can be logic-ed out. Those are the little things. And I loved those little things, the particular world of the book that was so real (Levin GETS it = this is just like childhood, in a certain way) and often funny, alive, entertaining, engaging, and intellectual. The humor is very odd, sometimes I don’t even know why it is funny as in this passage that totally cracked me up:

Maybe take away the Shovers’ semi-private-club status? But then they’d meet at recess, wholly private, with impunity. Ban scarves in the classroom? What about cold kids? - p241

The book is as much about these little things as the big themes that will get over-focused on. The character’s, too, were so real, though they all spoke Gurion-speak: even the ones not like him at all have a particular him-ness (maybe because he’s narrating). At the same time, the characters are easily distinguishable, and have very strong distinct personalities of their own. Interesting paradox.

I liked eggs soft-boiled, but in the morning couldn’t prep them, not if I wanted to put them in my stomach. Those insect-like screams emitted by the shell when you pried its fragments from that film they clung to--the mastication of wet chicken sounded musical by comparison. p.773

What of the big things? What is the book saying? I have no idea. Something about terrorism? Something about God/belief? Was it about verbosity/iniquity? About verbose boys who are too smart for their own good? About the institutional aspect of education? Modern technology? The modern world’s tolerance for divergent thought, or true uniqueness? I don’t know but I know by the end I knew it was about something but maybe also about multiple things or maybe about something in a way that it wasn’t totally about it, otherwise it would be a shallow one-dimensional work anyway. By the end, I wasn’t even sure what was happening sometimes. The last hundred pages totally devastated me, and I shall put a SPOILER warning here (though if you pay attention to the very beginning, none of this will really be a surprise, but who will remember the beginning after 1000+ pages? The shocking-ness of the ending is that everything was built up so carefully and logically that it doesn’t seem like violence (though talked about and even performed in small doses, but TRUE violence, TRUE irrevocable violence of the death-sort seemed beyond the scope of possible outcomes, however much foreshadowed, until it comes) seemed unimaginable at least to me, as I was able to imagine the rest of the story so fully: not unimaginable as in unbelievable, but believable, totally believable, yet completely shocking and really really fucken sad. The Gurionic War passage, the 100+ pages or so of it near the end anyway, was such a dizzying array of action, and of action that made me want to turn away from it, because I had so invested in these characters and I could see now the inevitable damage and I did not want to see it happen I did not want to know that it was going to happen even though I knew and I knew that I knew. What use was it?

Then, also, the book is so detail oriented that I feel like I can dissect every bit of it for meaning, almost, yes, like scripture. What is the meaning of Gurion’s own words never having “quote” marks around it... except near the end when he speaks to the soldiers = “There is damage,” I said to the thousand soldiers. What does that mean, or was that just a slip up where he forgot to not quote? I refuse to believe that this would escape him. What does it mean that the whole book is written by future-Gurion, who remembers these events... So the book leaves you hanging at the end, not knowing what version of Gurion comes out of this experience, we only know past-Gurion and past-Gurion as described (or mis-represented?) in the head of future-Gurion, but we know also (or more accurately, we can imply also) that future-Gurion is relatively unchanged, still belief-heavy in that he finished this huge book, in that he believed in it that much and did not allow the tragedy of the events to cause in him doubt, depression, etc. (like it would have if I were Gurion but then again I would not be Gurion nor would I ever want to be), or if he did allow that (he did mention something about suicide in the very ambiguous Coda), that he was somehow able to overcome it. But how was he able to overcome it, what were his thoughts on all these events? What was the meaning of the miracle? Does it vindicate anything? What about in “Commentary on Commentaries” chapter where he hints at things about Main Man being somehow more involved than he ended up being at the end:

So even though, on reflection, Main Man’s weird utterances seem to have been obliquely prophetic--and maybe they were--there was no good reason to believe they were prophetic at the time.

And what to say now? How to end this review? It would be unfair to not mention the book’s flaws. The ‘damage’ at the end, though obligatory, became dull to read after a while. I can only take so much straight action and so much of this book was an alternation between action and thought whereas the last 200 pages or so were almost entirely action in a way that seemed... a bit meaningless. What does it matter what happened, as much as it matters that it happened and that we know something happened, and are able to reflect on the end result of what happened. The specifics seem superfluous = who was standing where, doing what to whom etc. This is a gripe on my part, even though I know it is probably necessary to have that action described in detail, to keep consistency with the character of Gurion feeling overly important about these events. Also, little things with characters, like how Eliyahu seemed to suddenly change personalities, becoming more susceptible to violence, even inviting it, perhaps I missed what brought this on. Also, the ending which affected me deeply, but I’m not sure what to think about it at all, and feel a vague sense of disappointment at the same time. Also, the voice which is captivating in its endless logical digressions became slightly tiresome at around page 635. There are probably more, but really it does not matter. The book has flaws but the book is a triumph also. It is a dizzying experience and I don’t know what to think about it, and that makes me want to think about it all the more.
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Feb 21, 2013 Rob rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: modern-lit, favorites, unreliable-narrators-yesss

I've been wanting to review this for a while, but I feel like anything I would write would just be the verbal equivalent of those five stars up there, plus a exhortation to keep reading even if the narrator's voice and the pimply middle school stuff put you off.

I've realized, though, that what I really want to do is write a retrospective analysis of the book. This will require spoilers. I know that there's this notion out there that if a book is sufficiently good or literary or whatever, spoiler...more I've been wanting to review this for a while, but I feel like anything I would write would just be the verbal equivalent of those five stars up there, plus a exhortation to keep reading even if the narrator's voice and the pimply middle school stuff put you off.

I've realized, though, that what I really want to do is write a retrospective analysis of the book. This will require spoilers. I know that there's this notion out there that if a book is sufficiently good or literary or whatever, spoilers don't matter, but that's BS. A good author will arrange every aspect of the reader's experience with care, and that includes the way in which plot details come to light. So, here's a warning: the spoiler cut below is for real -- if you haven't read the book and plan to, don't click it.

(view spoiler)(less)

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Mar 02, 2012 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is an extremely impressive achievement and should be on anyone's must read list. Levin packs in layer upon layer of metafiction, wonderful characters, amazing lines, vivid description, and an urgent storyline- among other things. It's readability belies its complexity. I turn it over in my hands over and over again and it just keeps going down, yet it reads as easily as some of the simplest written novels I've seen. That alone is impressive. I mean, if the weight of the book in my hand...more

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Sep 28, 2012 Chris Blocker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Chris by: Joseph Michael

Over the years I've learned that I have a great fondness for postmodernist leanings in literature. I've also learned that this fondness only goes so far. Stories which implement postmodernist techniques favor strongly with me; however, experiments of wordplay where the story, if there ever was one, gets lost grate on my nerves. Before I even opened the book I was expecting such a grating reaction with The Instructions. And when I started that first chapter, I knew this novel was going to be a hu...more Over the years I've learned that I have a great fondness for postmodernist leanings in literature. I've also learned that this fondness only goes so far. Stories which implement postmodernist techniques favor strongly with me; however, experiments of wordplay where the story, if there ever was one, gets lost grate on my nerves. Before I even opened the book I was expecting such a grating reaction with The Instructions. And when I started that first chapter, I knew this novel was going to be a huge test of my patience. One thousand and thirty pages of wordplay and witticisms. But, I'll admit, from the beginning it was more tolerable than your average Postmodernist novel. I didn't love it, but I knew I'd be able to make it through. But I really liked the story. And it only got better. And before long I came to appreciate these implausible ten-year old kids and their ridiculous speech. The story was far-fetched, but in an intriguing and fun way. Then, in those final three hundred pages, I didn't want to put it down.

I don't believe that The Instructions is for everyone. I know people who would hate it and why waste my time trying to convince them? But I also know there are people like myself who probably wouldn't give it a try if it weren't for those insisting they read it (people like Joseph Michael Owens). Had it not been for such insistence, I doubt I ever would've really given this tome more than a passing glance. But for all the heavy-laden postmodern books I've read, this has got to be my favorite. And what's interesting is that while it feels long, it doesn't feel that long. In fact, compared to a book such as The Crying of Lot 49, a novel 1/5 the size, The Instructions felt short.

So that's what I think of the book, but aside from my personal feelings I have to say this is quite an impressive work. Developing such an extensive novel while maintaining such a myriad of characters, layers, and richness of words is a feat to be marveled. It is the kind of work that I myself as a writer cannot understand how it was put together by another human. Adam Levin must either be a highly-functioning man with ADHD, a massive coffee and/or other stimulant user, or a robot gone haywire. Damn, some days I wish I was a robot.(less)

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Apr 02, 2011 Mark rated it 1 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. If this book is 1030 pages, which it very much is, then it should be worth the journey, but if it isn’t then it’s because the main character is wholly unlikable, but if Gurion is unlikable then his actions should make sense, but if they do make sense the novel would be worth the time, but if they don’t make sense then it isn’t. If Levin had any sense of self-editing his prose wouldn’t be ponderous for pages on end as Gurion goes down endless spirals into his own head, which are meant to be taken...more If this book is 1030 pages, which it very much is, then it should be worth the journey, but if it isn’t then it’s because the main character is wholly unlikable, but if Gurion is unlikable then his actions should make sense, but if they do make sense the novel would be worth the time, but if they don’t make sense then it isn’t. If Levin had any sense of self-editing his prose wouldn’t be ponderous for pages on end as Gurion goes down endless spirals into his own head, which are meant to be taken as scripture the likes of which were to infer will stand alongside the Torah, or not, but if it isn’t ponderous to read the thoughts of ten-year old who thinks he may or may not be the Messiah then it wouldn’t seem ponderous at all, but the book is ponderous for this very reason, and ponderous = suck. Upon seeing an equation sign mid-text seems like an interesting play on conventions. Seeing it crop up again and again may be fun, but if it seems boring and just a dumb way to break up the text then it would seem trite, but if it is neither trite nor interesting but just something to tolerate, does it then have an impact at all? A book should be fun to read shouldn’t it? If it is supposed to be fun or pleasurable or redeeming then pages on pages on end of characters speaking in circles wouldn’t be fun to read, but maybe it is fun to read if the characters say things that are of interest, but maybe it isn’t fun to read if they say things that are not interesting, and maybe if all the characters leave almost no impact then no matter what they say will seem boring, and whether or not that is case, who’s to say, but certainly the words they speak don’t seem believable given the age bracket we’re suppose to believe the kids are bracketed within, though granting a certain artistic license is allowable. Or maybe it is fun to pretend they are all hyper intelligent and feeling beings that most, those in the Cage, just happen to be misunderstood rather than unfit for society, but are still people. But if any of this is true or not, it certainly can be a test in patience to read the bulk of this book of which is maybe or maybe not done in this style.

I just stabbed myself in the thigh with a pen. There is blood starting to seep around the entry point of the pen. The pen was a fountain pen and I think the tip is broken in my leg. I’m going to pull the pen out. “Tch” = ow, that hurt more than I expected. There’s a lot of blood to account for.

Mark Walsh
Review of The Instructions by Adam Levin
04.01.2011

There are admittedly some well done portions of narrative within the main text that generally come from outside sources. These are a breath of fresh air since for the most part they very clearly and directly move the action along at a nice clip. Please understand that I do not need a book shoveled down my gullet for me to enjoy the text. The problem is after reading that first paragraph is to understand that pages upon pages are just like that. Sure, I’ll readily admit it sounds much better coming from Levin then it does from my very meager writing skills, but the general idea is the same. Levin then punctuates all that ponderous prose with violence -from Gurion’s constant attempts to break his own fingers, Benji’s self-harm, and the final 200 pages of which is a laughable riot of blood and death of which, had I known that was the collision course I was on when I picked up this book I probably never would have done so. These are declarative sentences with lots of verbs since it is that very sentence structure that makes the reader move quickly. It is a very cheap trick.

And here’s the climax to my review* I hated this book. Simply as that.

Or maybe I didn’t hate the book, or I hated the book but I still finished it because I felt obligated, or there were moments where I really enjoyed it, or no moments of enjoyment but I thought the ending was going to pay off so I kept reading. Or, hate, hate, hate, hate.

*Sadly I’m quite serious. The climax in this book isn’t hard to pick out. Any decent reader will recognize it as such. Yet still, Levin in his efforts to be post-modern (to a painful degree as this whole text attests to) literally references the climax as the climax in the narrative.(less)

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May 07, 2013 Corey rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reading-it-again

I don't really feel as if it's possible to do much justice with a review. Anything written will feel shallow, empty, worthless against the immense weight and genius of The Instructions. I read lots of books. Most of them are somewhere between ok and pretty good. Some of them are terrible. A handful are game changers, life affirmers, works of more than literary esteem. I don't know why a book falls in the latter category, but I know some of it's qualifiers. In all of its immensity (and none of th...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Jonfaith rated it 5 of 5 stars

Perhaps it is winter, but i've found myself brooding on the roulette of contemporary lit: for every Zone or Wolf Hall, well, there's Franzen's Freedom. A honest albeit flawed effort like The Imperfectionists can convey you only so far. I noted elsewhere that this is the season of Balzac for me personally. Thus qualified, I am so glad I picked up this book today at the library.

Having Finished the novel ten minutes ago. There is a hazard in any ranking system; and yet, despite some puzzling distra...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Northpapers rated it 4 of 5 stars

Adam Levin's The Instructions is a pretty book. Admittedly, I fell in love with it for surface reasons. I pulled it off the shelf upon noting its size, the simplicity of its design, the texture of its covers, the little McSweeney's chair on the spine. I ran the "opening paragraph" check next, and I read the following:

"There is damage. There was always damage and there will be more damage, but not always. Were there always to be more damage, damage would be an aspect of perfection."

I saw that thi...more

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Apr 20, 2011 Kevin Hinman rated it 3 of 5 stars

The Instructions is an ambitious first novel that tackles a lot of serious issues like faith and conflict by narrowing the scope and then blowing that scope out of proportion. Adam Levin has been compared to DFW a lot, and while they're both maximalists, I never felt like Wallace's prose was overwritten. Not so with The Instructions. A lot of the novel is a slug to get through, which is something I rarely find myself thinking. Gurion's POV can be labored and repetitive and yes, whiny (Levin trie...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Nick rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: mmxiii-there-will-be-gass, my-book-club-is-better-than-oprahs, mega-novels, reviewed

WE DAMAGE י DAMAGE WE י SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY י WE DAMAGE WE י *EMOTIONALIZE* י GURION BEN-JUDAH LOVES ELIZA JUNE WATERMARK! י The Side of Damage! י I EXPLODE י *EMOTIONALIZE* י Maccabee’s aren’t WELCOME י WE DAMAGE WE י Big Ending י SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY י We revenge We י WELCOME to Canrovsky’s י The Side of Damage is the End of Basketball י SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY י Maccabee’s aren’t unWELCOME י WE DAMAGE WE י I am a defiance! י I EXPLODE י Death to the Arragement! י SLOKUM DIES FRIDAY י ~~*EMOTIONALIZE*~~ י...more

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Apr 14, 2012 Carolyn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Hooollllyy shiiittt.... what can I say. I am completely blown away by this. About a third of the way through I realized that, were I for some reason never able to read another word, I would still feel profoundly grateful for experiencing the work up to that point. Fortunately, I was not barred from completing this totally amazing piece of fiction, and I am so so glad I did. I am not going to try to qualify it, or describe its contents. I will just give a taste and say it had elements of the movi...more

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Jan 23, 2013 Mathew is currently reading it

I was afraid I had been hoodwinked, relieved to find out not. Yet.

The Instructions caught my eye at local bookstore not only for it's unusual heft (weighing in at 1000+ pages it bulges on the New Fiction table) but also perhaps due to it's McSweeney's imprimatur which gives it the unmistakable scent of The Literary. And by Literary I mean fiction that attempts to explore the Human Condition. By Human Condition I mean those aspects of existence which are difficult to quantify but which we all sha...more I was afraid I had been hoodwinked, relieved to find out not. Yet.

The Instructions caught my eye at local bookstore not only for it's unusual heft (weighing in at 1000+ pages it bulges on the New Fiction table) but also perhaps due to it's McSweeney's imprimatur which gives it the unmistakable scent of The Literary. And by Literary I mean fiction that attempts to explore the Human Condition. By Human Condition I mean those aspects of existence which are difficult to quantify but which we all share - joys, fears, aspirations, anxieties... etc, but not just emotions, either. Plus, I liked the cover art. And I'm easily seduced by a youthful precocious protagonist (altho the youth and precociousness of this protagonist strain at credulity). Anyway, there in the bookstore with some effort I raised it from the table and read the first chapter and... I liked it. I'd say I was hooked, or at least intrigued. It was not until later, lying in bed with my newly acquired Kindle version (I PREFER old-school analog books, I really do, but ever since I tweaked my back snowboarding I've switched from prone to supine reading and, honestly, the prospect of keeping that tome elevated was daunting, unlike my 7.5 oz Paperwhite. So...) after I had reread the excellent, tight, terse, tense first chapter I headed into the second and this is when I began to wonder. I mean, some books deserve to be long, some NEED to be long, but some are just long in an effort to be long, to present something of 'magnitude', some accomplishment on the part of the author. And I'm not saying that quantity does not have a quality all its own. Okay, maybe I am. In either case, when it comes to books, I'll steer clear of the latter category, thank you. So I started to wonder... was I in for a lot of flabby, meandering prose?

The good news is, I dont think so. Of course, I'm only about 100 pages in, or in the parlance of Kindle: 'location 2174 of 19887', but the story and writing remain pretty tight and succinct and enjoyable. Maybe even... gripping? I definitely am enjoying the cocksure, swaggering, transgressive antics of our troubled, Hebraic, hormonal (anti)hero, Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee.

Thus, back to my thesis: hoodwinked I am not.

Yet.(less)

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Jul 20, 2012 Vera VB rated it 2 of 5 stars

Although this book describes only 4 days out of the life of a 10 year old boy, this book is 1226 pages.
It's about Gurion Maccabee who has been kicked out of several schools and is now in a special program called The Cage program.
He is way to smart for his ages, is an extremely good writer and he becomes the leader of all the children in the Cage. They see him as a leader and he sees himself as a messias.
There are several other lines in the book: he is in love with June and he takes that very...more

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May 01, 2012 Mkeirsbi rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: r-52-books

I managed to finally finish Adam Levin's 'The Instructions'. It took me a few weeks to get through the book. I even had to read a few books in between, just to keep my reading appetite flowing. I'm really glad I pushed through and got it over with.
Frankly, I didn't like the book. Mind you, Levin made a tremendous effort with this novel. All credit to him. It's amazing to get a monster of a novel like this to an end. So really, I'm thoroughly impressed by his efforts. But, this wasn't a book that...more I managed to finally finish Adam Levin's 'The Instructions'. It took me a few weeks to get through the book. I even had to read a few books in between, just to keep my reading appetite flowing. I'm really glad I pushed through and got it over with.
Frankly, I didn't like the book. Mind you, Levin made a tremendous effort with this novel. All credit to him. It's amazing to get a monster of a novel like this to an end. So really, I'm thoroughly impressed by his efforts. But, this wasn't a book that really spoke to me. I found that out after wrestling through 600 pages. And by then, I had invested so much time into the novel, I just wanted to finish it no matter what. Yes, I have OCD when it comes to reading.
I get what he did. The book is about a 10 year old who believes to be the new messiah. The whole novel is is written as some sort of new Jewish exegetical work. And the writing reflects the Talmudic exegetic tradition, with a lot of repetition and going back and forth about a single element. I get it. And it's nicely done. But it lets the narrative drag on and on and on and on... If it's a gimmick that's maintained for a few dozen of pages, you can get over it. But having to plow through 1200 pages of this is a tad too much.
Furthermore, it's really hard to feel any sympathy for the 10 year old. I just couldn't make it to the willing suspension of disbelief. For a 10 year old he talks like an eloquent adult. Shakespeare didn't have as rich a vocabulary as this kid. I just couldn't believe a word I was reading. And I understand that Levin did this to make this 10 year old just like an adult rabbi. And if he's really the messiah, it would make sense he's this eloquent. But in all his actions and deeds, you just don't believe this to be a 10 year old. And it's not just limited to this kid. All his friends do and speak similarly. Especially because the 10 year olds clash with older kids and people, this results in a constant friction. I could never be absorbed by the narrative, because of all these witty gimmicks. They are indeed very clever, but it puts a hand break on the narrative. Therefore, this book has been a drag for me. And I'm extremely happy it's over with.(less)

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Apr 01, 2012 Jim rated it 4 of 5 stars

This is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age 10: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Gurion has been expelled from 3 Jewish schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies. He ends up in a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases at Aptakisic Junior High. But in just 4 days Gurion's search for righteousness sparks a violent, unstoppable rebellion. Driven equally by moral fervour and teenage exuberance, The Instructions is hilarious, troubling, empathetic...more This is the story of Gurion Maccabee, age 10: a lover, a fighter, a scholar, and a truly spectacular talker. Gurion has been expelled from 3 Jewish schools for acts of violence and messianic tendencies. He ends up in a special lockdown program for the most hopeless cases at Aptakisic Junior High. But in just 4 days Gurion's search for righteousness sparks a violent, unstoppable rebellion. Driven equally by moral fervour and teenage exuberance, The Instructions is hilarious, troubling, empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic and unforgettable.

Reviews on sites like Amazon and Goodreads are across the board but there are more favourable reviews than negative; I won’t get into a debate about how there are too many 5-star ratings out there in general. The papers have also been mixed, although I think ME Collins’ comment in the Chicago Sun-Times saying that, “Levin has formed a world motivated equally by moral fervour that gropes at profundity but really just re-enacts every episode of Hogan's Heroes, if Hogan had been 10 and a yeshiva boy,” was a both bit harsh and inaccurate. I also suspect that age might be a more important factor in how people view this book than some. When I first read Catcher in the Rye as a young teenager I was blown away by it; twenty years later I was mostly underwhelmed and not nearly as sympathetic towards the character of Holden and this is something that Levin notes too:

When you read that when you’re younger, he’s just so cool, he’s dreamy, right? But then you’re older and you’re like wow, he’s kind of a prick, but he’s also more pitiful. As I’ve gotten older, I love that book. I’ve read it a million times, like most good Americans, but when you first read it you sort of don’t see how horrifying the world is from where he stands. And then when you’re a little older, as an adult, you see it’s rich with fucked-upness. And that’s the genius of Salinger. And he does that with Franny and Zooey, too.

I am fifty-two years of age. I have little patience for ten-year-olds of any race, gender, nationality, religious persuasion or intellectual ability.

Bottom line: would I recommend this book? Yes. Would I read him again? Most definitely, yes. Would I read him again if he wrote another 1000-page book? No way in hell.

You can read my full review on my blog here.(less)

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Oct 25, 2011 Alan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Both Israelites and goyim with an interest in damaging the Arrangement

Recommended to Alan by: Its massive size and striking cover

"Verbosity is like the iniquity of idolatry."
15:23 Samuel I, Gurionic translation

I've never seen this verse rendered that way anywhere else, but Adam Levin's version does make ironic sense, given the cinderblock dimensions of this novel. Don't let the size of the undertaking throw you, though—sure, The Instructions is a daunting monster of a book, over 1,000 pages long, but Levin's genre-defying prose has a headlong momentum that never seems to falter. The easy comparison—it even appears on the...more

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Jul 05, 2011 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

I can't review this book objectively. Not only am I a subjective writer to the core, but The Instructions also hits too close to home for me. It's about a boy, Gurion ben Judah Maccabee. He's in a special program at his current school, Aptakisic Jr. High. He's extremely violent and, along with all the other kids (ranging in age, mostly, from 10-13), is fantastically intelligent. Aptakisic is one of several real-life schools mentioned in the book which I or friends of mine attended. Levin, from t...more I can't review this book objectively. Not only am I a subjective writer to the core, but The Instructions also hits too close to home for me. It's about a boy, Gurion ben Judah Maccabee. He's in a special program at his current school, Aptakisic Jr. High. He's extremely violent and, along with all the other kids (ranging in age, mostly, from 10-13), is fantastically intelligent. Aptakisic is one of several real-life schools mentioned in the book which I or friends of mine attended. Levin, from the same area as myself, mostly fictionalizes the geography of Chicago's North Suburbs, but it's impossible for me not to picture certain places without using my own memory bank.

Gurion, who "may or may not be the messiah," is an learned and, among peers, extremely admired Torah scholar. He has loving parents with whom he nonetheless has universal-feeling issues (and they with him.) His friends at Aptakisic are a twisted, relatable band of misfits. As the story unfolds---four days over 1,030 pages---we also watch his descent into love with a girl named June.

And so we see this consciously-potential messiah plot to overthrow, violently, the social structure (and its physical setting) which he calls The Arrangement.

Now, I doubt I could have read this thing when I was in junior high---if I could I wouldn't have understood it. But The Instructions is tailored to appeal to two sides of me: secondly, The Writer. Primarily, The Sensitive Junior High Daydreamer.

On top of familiarity with and fondness for the geography, characters and action, The Instructions---which is truly an epic book, seemingly traditionally and nontraditionally at once---the book is steeped in Judaic culture, history and text, for which I also have a fetish. (It get at the punk rocker in me too, with a lovely scene that references The Clash and Stiff Little Fingers.)

The comparisons which The Instructions has won to Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace, are apt in ways and miss the mark in others. It is an enormous, unique, articulate book. The scope, though, is smaller. But that's not to say it's any less dense. The Instructions is simply more focused, and its story---the climax of which, by the way, knocked me on my ass---is more conventionally structured, and that's a very good thing. Infinite Jest made me feel like I was working much of the time, which is sometimes good. The Instructions felt like play. I read it with much more pure enjoyment with remarkably less difficulty. It is entertainment that will make you smarter. (There are many passages of dialogue and internal monologue wherein characters weigh their situations from every possible angle they can think of. This book will nourish your reasoning skills, if you pay attention.)

So, while I admit this book is a personal favorite for personal reasons, it is great on its own merits: Old Testament overtones, realistic dialogue (if you forget that many of its speakers are in 7th grade), masterful storytelling, and one goddamned unforgettable central character and narrator.

Shit, the book's first scene is of kids trying to waterboard each other in swim class, a scene which gets a heartbreaking callback on the final page.

The Instructions is the opposite of suck.

(less)

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Apr 30, 2011 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in Judaism, kids, religious philosophy, morality

Recommended to Kirstie by: Zachary

I finished this awhile ago but I couldn't wrap my head around the ending and before I knew it was on a trip to Portland and just wasn't thinking of it.

Ok, so basically this chronicles a very short time in the life of a young Jewish teenager in a Chicago suburb who thinks he might be (and wishes to be) the Messiah. A matter of days turns into over 1000+ pages so you can imagine the depth of his philosophies. He's incredibly intellectual, is really obsessed with Philip Roth, and is held as a Rabbi...more I finished this awhile ago but I couldn't wrap my head around the ending and before I knew it was on a trip to Portland and just wasn't thinking of it.

Ok, so basically this chronicles a very short time in the life of a young Jewish teenager in a Chicago suburb who thinks he might be (and wishes to be) the Messiah. A matter of days turns into over 1000+ pages so you can imagine the depth of his philosophies. He's incredibly intellectual, is really obsessed with Philip Roth, and is held as a Rabbi by all of his school mates at various schools, private Jewish and public schools for his intellectual prowess and his advanced insightful take on many stories in the Torah.

In alot of ways, his advanced thinking is completely unbelievable but rather intoxicating nonetheless. His level of analysis is something to behold and wrap your head around over and over again.

The unfortunate thing is that he's witnessed some acts of violence against his people (he wouldn't call them fellow Jews, though, they are to him Israelites which are elevated from mere people of the Jewish faith) In any case, these acts of violence have scarred him a bit, causing him to issue a violent ulpan about creating homeade weapons to all of his Israelite disciples. His violent nature, however misunderstood, has caused him to be placed in a higher security school prison for delinquents and those with cognitive impairments called THE CAGE. Of course, that sort of treatment isn't going to work at all for someone like him and rebellion can be very ugly indeed.

Gurion also struggles with the sense of love for his father who seems to turn his back on his people to fight for the rights of Non-Israelite freedom of speech, which causes discord in the community and within his family unit.

Oh yeah, and Gurion (this intellectual protagonist) is in love with a non -Israelite girl but Adonai wouldn't let him fall in love with a non Israelite of course so he can just convert her.

So, I'm going to talk a little bit about the ending here. If you'd like to read it for yourself, please skip the rest. You have been warned. No whining!

I have tried to wrap my head around this ending which is extremely violent. I work in Chicago Public Schools so this kind of scene is a bit traumatic for me in that way. It's fantastical, over the top, and literally caused me one of the most vivid nightmares of my life. Besides extreme violence, there's a miracle of sorts and alot of presuppositions which lead you to wonder which is really the truth and almost set up different choose your own adventure scenarios about what may have actually happened. There's also a sense of betrayal and keenness of revenge from non Israelite students..anyone who feels they have been wronged as in a violent sort of atonement.

This is my take on it, finally, after pondering it. You may choose not to agree with me and I don't know at all if this was what Levin was aiming for. But this is the only thing that makes sense to me. In some ways, I see Gurion and the ending as a sort of microcasm of what is happening between Israel and Palestine. In other words, violence has begotten violence and it has all turned a little ugly with no mensches in sight. What we have is something alarming and chaotic, completely indecipherable. Gurion feels that he and those he loves are being persecuted and that, as a chosen person, this is wrong. His mother also feels strongly this way. The conflict with his father probably only adds to the keen sense of his own inner persecution. Gurion feels he is in the fight of his life. He stops being rational, only seeing the wrongs and dividing those into the Israelites and non Israelites. Even within these categories, complexities exist such as his friend with a cognitive disability who in the middle of the utter violent turmoil ends up shouting the lyrics to Radiohead's "You and Whose Army?" It's a strange kind of apocalypse..the kind that happens more than the real one because life still continues whether it's been changed or, to use a more appropriate word for the novel, damaged.

There's some bits about property damage all throughout the book but the major theme of damage evolves as a concept into human damage, even world damage. I'm not sure the moral of the story needs to be anything but the very fact that any act of violence can lead to a much larger progression of events or can damage the human spirit. I think this in and of itself is a profound message. However, I'm still not ready to make complete sense of the ending the way it's written either. It's message becomes emotionalized and unclear within itself and perhaps that was the point. On the other hand, it still sticks out like a major flaw and makes the reader feel in a state of shock. (less)

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Feb 26, 2011 Ren rated it 2 of 5 stars

Let me be succinct (a quality which totally escapes Adam Levin): this is not a great book. Those reviewers who are writing "I'm 2 chapters in and it's amazing!" should heed warning - it dazzles in the beginning and fades out like a muffled fart. I damn my own literary hubris for blindly believing that The Instructions would ultimately reveal itself as the messiah of contemporary fiction. Instead, I am embarrassed to admit that I have spent nearly two months pushing through this constipated, babb...more

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Feb 22, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 5 of 5 stars

Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee is a ten-year-old Jewish misfit in Deerpark Illinois, but a brilliant misfit and Talmudic scholar. He aims for "perfect justice" and claims to be a person of peace, but he keeps getting into fights at school. He invented the pennygun, a handmade weapon that is laid out in his tract, "The Instructions." This coming-of-age novel, which takes place over four days and 1000+ pages, is so packed with adventure and metaphysics that I felt like I lived through an odyssey. Oh, I...more Gurion ben-Judah Maccabee is a ten-year-old Jewish misfit in Deerpark Illinois, but a brilliant misfit and Talmudic scholar. He aims for "perfect justice" and claims to be a person of peace, but he keeps getting into fights at school. He invented the pennygun, a handmade weapon that is laid out in his tract, "The Instructions." This coming-of-age novel, which takes place over four days and 1000+ pages, is so packed with adventure and metaphysics that I felt like I lived through an odyssey. Oh, I did!

Gurion is in the behavior-disorder section called "The Cage" at his middle school, which is monitored by a cruel, one-handed Australian named Botha. Gurion falls in Olympian love with a Gentile named Eliza June Watermark, who is not in the Cage and is a little older, being twelve, and is a superb mirror to his soul. However, according to Talmudic edict, he cannot have a Gentile wife. He already knows he wants to marry June. So there's another rub, along with the quest for perfect justice. Gurions's mother is a retired Israeli commando of Ethiopian descent and his father is a frequently reviled civil rights lawyer who is ensconced in a case to defend the free speech of the most appalling human beings. They have endowed Gurion with a lot of chutzpah.

Gurion may be the Messiah, or he may not be the Messiah. In the meantime, he is translating his story in Hebrew and English--the four days leading up to and including "The Gurionic War," with the help of some unorthodox Orthodox classmates. Lovers of David Foster Wallace will feel an aphrodisiac-like pull to Infinite Jest, but this book reads faster and is more to the point, albeit with fantastic digressions.

I could lay out some flaws here, such as--these pre-adolescents act and think like thirty-five-year-olds! I considered closing the book at the beginning rather than take that leap of faith. But all the flaws are crushed beneath Levin's intrepid imagination and iconoclastic ambition. He commanded this story with an epic gracelessness--yes, gracelessness-- that was infectious and wholly original. What's a few bumbles and brambles in the midst of a spiritual apocalypse? I recommend this tome to readers who can cut some slack to a little obtuseness. The story is its own redeemer.
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Feb 13, 2011 Greg Zimmerman rated it 5 of 5 stars

(Much like the very-long novel itself, I fully realize this very-long review won't appeal to most readers. For that, I make no apologies — brevity not being the soul of wit here, hopefully. But if you've heard of The Instructions or Adam Levin and are the least bit intrigued, I'd suggest you make at least a good skim of what follows. This is a novel you should read.)

Imagine the frustration: You may or may not be the Messiah, destined (or not) to lead your people to "perfect justice." But the wor...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars

So I just finished this book and it took me a while. Honestly, I did get a tad impatient near the end but that didn’t mean that the book wasn’t doing its job or lost its vision, it was more about me being the kind of reader who, (like most, I assume) wants to know what’s going to happen and how it's all going to end, the kind of reader who is wanting things, by page 800, to start wrapping up. But that, I’d argue, is more my fault than the book’s. So yes, the book is big, but it didn’t take me th...more So I just finished this book and it took me a while. Honestly, I did get a tad impatient near the end but that didn’t mean that the book wasn’t doing its job or lost its vision, it was more about me being the kind of reader who, (like most, I assume) wants to know what’s going to happen and how it's all going to end, the kind of reader who is wanting things, by page 800, to start wrapping up. But that, I’d argue, is more my fault than the book’s. So yes, the book is big, but it didn’t take me that long to read, maybe a couple weeks start to finish, and that was without having too many substantial stretches of time to sit back a devour it, and devouring it is what the prose asks you to do. For whatever reason, I didn’t underline while reading, but instead dog-eared pages where stuff I really liked appeared, maybe because it was difficult enough to actually hold the book much less an additional writing instrument. Anyway, I probably dog-eared as many pages of this book as a regular book would have, and to be honest, I could’ve dog-eared a lot more as the book is, as many people have said, great, and is worthy of five stars if only for how relentlessly entertaining it is. One of the first things I feel compelled to point out is that other than its length this book bears little—and I do mean very little—resemblance to Infinite Jest. Sure, the writing’s SORT of like DFW in that it’s voice-driven and often bends back on itself and the author really very deeply hunkers down inside the characters or really character (singular) since it’s technically first person (I say technically because there are plenty of POV shifts thanks to artifacts—emails, transcripts, essays, letters, etc.—that are included in the narrative) but the comparison seems lazy (long, voicey book = DFW) especially since the character does not resemble, in the least, any character that DFW—not being obsessed or even overly concerned with either Judaism or God—would have created. Mostly, though, what struck me about this book is how generous it is. It’s a funny book. It seems simultaneously to give a shit and not give a shit about the reader in that it makes no bones about going on and on about something for as long as it wants but at the same time, it’s really, really good at generating linguistic energy (in a Saramago-ian or Bernhardian or even Stephen-Dixonian way). It’s sort of like taking a road trip with someone who’s speeding and driving recklessly ninety-five percent of the time, while talking and texting and smoking and cracking jokes. Which means that because of the speed of the narrative, which is really the speed of Gurion’s consciousness processing and reprocessing and explaining and re-explaining stuff (like why “African-American” is an inadequate way to identify people of African descent or why it’s bad to twist the wording of a Law or why Adonai bargained with Avraham about whether or not to destroy Sodom), there's not much time to stop and smell the sensory details, though the details that you do end up getting are vivid and/or idiosyncratic and/or funny. A random smattering: “Flowers thumb-flicked his swearfinger” (325) and “A woman with nostrils the size of dimes chomped on gum the way kids stomp bugs that keep not dying.” (330) and “I dumped the sip of cloudy topwater from a tub of Greek yogurt” (773) and “For the duration of the ride, she chewed granola from a bag and, though graciously muffled, her crunching was audible, and oat particles gathered on her lip unswiped.” (776) and “a blue pelican was embroidered on the tit of his shirt” (same page). Yes, it is weird that a ten-year-old boy is as superintelligent and superarticulate as Gurion but the thing about that is it never comes across as pretentious, there’s always this mix of high (thinking about Adonai’s Law) and low (cursing and playing slapslap) to keep it balanced. I can’t say that I ever “struggled” with believing how Gurion and his friends could have conversations that most 25 year olds aren’t capable of having, because I love it when kids in fiction are supersmart, but I did wonder what he was up to. And the way I read it was that these kids, they’re Israelites. And if you’ve ever read the Old Testament, you know that the Children of Israel, most of whom are adults, often act like children, so maybe here what we’ve got is a reversal of that, we’ve got children who act like adults (and also children), children who act like a sort of mutant child-adult and maybe we’re being asked to question what makes a child and what makes an adult. I don’t know. In the end, what’s haunting about the book is that while I feel like I’ve never read anything that so clearly lays out the way in which a single character’s consciousness operates, I also feel as though Gurion is essentially unknowable, as if all this talk and all this talk about talk and thinking about thinking is obscuring something essential. But I also can’t say what that essential thing is or explain what it might be. Maybe that’s just me. (less)

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Mar 16, 2012 Stuart rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked this up at a bookstore because the owner was kind enough to let a radio station interview me on his landline (they didn't want to talk through my cell phone) and I felt rachmoones (Yiddish word alert, something that might happen to you while reading The Instructions as well) for him, since he was doing zero business. The Instructions, given its heft, wasn't going to be something I was going to successfully read via the library. But while I'm quite happy to stave off the death of another...more I picked this up at a bookstore because the owner was kind enough to let a radio station interview me on his landline (they didn't want to talk through my cell phone) and I felt rachmoones (Yiddish word alert, something that might happen to you while reading The Instructions as well) for him, since he was doing zero business. The Instructions, given its heft, wasn't going to be something I was going to successfully read via the library. But while I'm quite happy to stave off the death of another bookstore through this purchase, I'm not so happy to see all those trees die because of a book like this. Save a few trees, Mr. Levin, please. This book is just too oongehbloosen (Yiddish word alert again) to merit a significant audience.

If you are going to write 1000 pages and call them a novel, the weight is on you, the author, to deliver with a masterpiece that justifies every one of those 1000 pages. There is no margin for error. Adam Levin is a talented author. He can be amusing and insightful. But he's no Joyce. He's no Gaddis. He's no Pynchon. He's no Wallace. And he needs to write shorter.

Here we get a tale of a young Jewish boy in junior high in suburban Chicago (in the same school district where my mother-in-law taught, for what it's worth) with a Messiah complex and problems with anger management. It's a coming of age story with some Mishnah (Hebrew word alert, something that definitely is going to happen to you if you read this book) thrown in to add gravitas. After all, how much gravitas can a ten year old boy, even a very smart one with a Messiah complex, have?

The key problem here is that we are, when all is said and done, dealing with adolescent thought and emotions. The adults here serve as comic foil. The thoughts of these youngsters are, by definition, immature. The end result is not a dense, enjoyable read, but a huge marshmallow of a book, funny and engaging, but ultimately full of a lot of air.

You don't have to read this whole thing to get the gist of it. I won't. I stopped at page 400. And that's where I hope Mr. Levin stops when he writes his next novel. (less)

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