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Mazel
Mazel means luck in Yiddish, and luck is the guiding force in this magical and mesmerizing novel that spans three generations. Sasha Saunders is the daughter of a Polish rabbi who abandons the shtetl and wins renown as a Yiddish actress in Warsaw and New York. Her daughter Chloe becomes a professor of classics at Columbia. Chloe’s daughter Phoebe grows up to become a mathe
...morePaperback, 368 pages
Published
September 1st 1996
by Penguin Books
(first published 1995)
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There are so many great aspects of this book, a fascinating historical look into Ashkenazi (specifically Polish but whatev) culture on the cusp of the Holocaust- children leaving isolated shtetls for the big city, chassidim versus assimilation and greater acceptance (or so they thought,) the advent of Yiddish theatre (guuuh) and Jewish political stances, particularly Zionism- always stands out to me, of course, due to it's prominence today, but to think of it *then*, and to hear young Warsaw Jew...more
My M.A. advisor passed this book on to me as I was leaving town-- to move to New Jersey. She thought it would a suitable read, as a portion of the narrative unfolds in suburban Lipton, NJ. I gave the book a mere two stars because - though I can now say that I enjoyed the experience of reading it - I found the writing inconsistent. I had to push myself through it at times. Goldstein is at her best when she evokes the Yiddish folk style. Some of the moments and stretches that lack this import lag...more
You want to hear something depressing? This author won a MacArthur Genius Grant, and her book is published by a university press. That said, I loved The Mind/Body Problem, so I expected to love this, and didn't. I can't pin my finger on what's missing - it just seems a bit, well, dull.
Dec 22, 2009
Nancy
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
book-club,
jewish-fiction
Read for my Jewish book club,and boy was it Jewish! I did not really like it. Story of a woman raised in an orthodox family in a small town in Poland, goes to Warsaw and becomes a famous actress in a yiddish theater, moves to NY after WWII, gets married and has a daughter. Rejects Judiasism and becomes a real New Yorker. Shocked when her granddaughter embraces orthodoxy. What comes around goes around.
I thought the book was very boring. It did not hold my attention. There was a lot of jumping around from place to place and character to character.
I loved this book, it is told in the same format as a Yiddish folktale and incorporates awesome scenes from Yiddish theatre. It had a great debate about luck vs. mental choice.
a good read with an underlying philosophical question that takes this book out of the realm of just a good story
Just a good, sink-your-teeth-into, satisfying, lovable, wonderful story.
Descriptions of this novel make it sound like it is about 3 generations of women. It is really only about the grandmother with a bit about the daughter and granddaughter serving as bookends to the story. That being said it is a very interesting story. Though some of it may be lost on people without a Jewish / Yiddish background it deals with universal themes of choices people make about how the universe works and being religious or not. Like other books by the author there are philosophical idea...more
Saw this book on a Jewish Book Club list and ended up borrowing it from my friend Sharon. I couldn't even get through the first chapter - her writing style is really distracting and she couldn't seem to get to the point. Not my cup of tea at all.
3 generations of jewish women with some magic or "mazel" thrown in. I was put off by the cover, but the book is pretty and moving. very much a jewish "house of the spirits."
I enjoyed this book. It left me looking for more novels by Goldstein.
Feb 24, 2013
Dina
marked it as to-read
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Rebecca Newberger Goldstein grew up in White Plains, New York, and graduated summa cum laude from Barnard College, receiving the Montague Prize for Excellence in Philosophy, and immediately went on to graduate work at Princeton University, receiving her Ph.D. in philosophy. While in graduate school she was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship and a Whiting Foundation Fellowship.
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