Ben Tanzer's Blog, page 80
February 2, 2014
This Book Will Change Your Life - Zinsky the Obscure by the Ilan Mochari.
Should we begin by talking bias and subjectivity? Influences? Or fathers? Should we riff on the awesomely Jewey tones and textures of Zinsky the Obscure by the Ilan Mochari, easily the most Jewey thing we've read since the equally Jewey League of Somebodies by the Samuel Sattin? And what is Jewey anyway, much less the Zinsky himself? A mix of humor and suffering, sardonic wit, self-deprecation, striving, and needy desperation? Mothers and masturbation? Roth meets Dickens meets Lenny Bruce? It is all of that. It is also talking Bruce and Saul Bellow and Meyer Lansky with our father, and the pride he took when talking about Jews. The first, the best, the toughest, the smartest, and in the case of Lansky, the rarest of mob guys: a mobster who actually retired before dying of old age. Old age! Only a Jew. And so it is with Mochari and Sattin, and Roth before them. They are writers of not so great men, who still believe they can be great, and maybe even are, despite the suffering, the mothers, the fathers, the abuse, and the sense that they are being persecuted. Because who's to say they aren't? Or haven't been? Don't all Jews know from persecution? So yes, we are biased, and raised to embrace, if not consume the Zinsky in all his funny, sad, abusive, intelligent, fucked-upedness, but that shouldn't obscure what Mochari has done in creating the sweeping story of one man's life, if not in full, than at least the beginning of a life that might still get better, if only incrementally, and at best by achieving some hard-earned contentment.
February 1, 2014
January 31, 2014
January 30, 2014
"Compelling." Orphans gets Vol. 1 Brooklyn'd. And likes it. A lot.
Quite a lot. And the Galactus shout-out, quite delightful that. So, many thanks to the Tobias Carroll and the whole Vol. 1 Brooklyn crew, and drinks, many, on us, for sure. Excerpt? Word."Tanzer ably chronicles a man in over his head within a larger society that’s also over its head. Reading Orphans, I felt the same gnawing dread I’ve felt when a job begins to spiral out of control; that Tanzer can tap into that same anxiety and work it into a work that’s this compelling suggests that he’s struck a very appropriate chord."
January 29, 2014
"Orphans is a marvel." Orphans gets some Goodreads love. And likes it. A lot.
It does. We do. And big thanks to the Sarah Lippmann for all of it. That, and drinks, many, on us. Excerpt? Word."Forget genre. I do not know anything about sci-fi, but I do know this is a book of taut, muscular prose, impeccably paced, so you can't you won't want to put it down, propelled as it is by a story that is all human heart."
January 28, 2014
January 27, 2014
Brand. Cromley. Peterson. Tanzer. The Book Cellar. This Friday. January 31st. 7:00 pm. Local favorites, yo.
It just might change your life. For real.
