Meredith's review
The Ministry of Special Cases by Nathan Englander
This book doesn't really deserve to be on the "Eh,fine" shelf, b/c it was pretty good and interesting and smoothly written, but I was sort of disappointed by what Englander left out.
The book is about being Jewish in Argentina in the 70s, when, basically, Argentina was corrupted to the point of crumbling and was easily mistakable for hell. Especially for Jewish people, evidently. If that seems like a really vague description, it is.... I feel like ENglander did research and is interested by the topic but gave very little vivid info. I wanted specifics, and he simply could not re-construct the stage to a believable level. The characters were interesting, fine, but standard. there were some really cute parts, some character quirks taht I was impressed by, but overall character development was disappointing and weak. I'm being really harsh; this book was good and should be considered an achievement... but from what I knew about Englander, and how much buzz surrounded the rele...more
The book is about being Jewish in Argentina in the 70s, when, basically, Argentina was corrupted to the point of crumbling and was easily mistakable for hell. Especially for Jewish people, evidently. If that seems like a really vague description, it is.... I feel like ENglander did research and is interested by the topic but gave very little vivid info. I wanted specifics, and he simply could not re-construct the stage to a believable level. The characters were interesting, fine, but standard. there were some really cute parts, some character quirks taht I was impressed by, but overall character development was disappointing and weak. I'm being really harsh; this book was good and should be considered an achievement... but from what I knew about Englander, and how much buzz surrounded the rele...more
