The Book of Paradise: A Yiddish Comic Novel

by Itzik Manger, Robert Adler Peckerar (Translator)

“Electrifying…sparkles with Manger’s song and poetry, and is brilliantly layered with literary and folkloric references.” — Tablet

“There is something joyous about Manger’s playful language.” — The Jewish Chronicle

The raucously witty Yiddish classic about a Jewish Paradise afflicted by very human temptations and pains, in a new translation

On being expelled from Paradise, young Samuel Abba pulls a crafty trick, managing to arrive on earth with his memory intact. He quickly begins regaling the humans around him with mischievous stories of a Paradise far from their expectations: a world of drunken angels, lewd patriarchs and the same divisions and temptations that shape the human world.

The Book of Paradise is a comic masterpiece, and the only novel by one of the great Yiddish writers. Written in the midst of rising anti-Semitism in 1930s Europe, its raucous blend of sacred and profane is a slyly profound reflection of the author’s turbulent times.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Judaica, Humor, Fantasy, Religion, Judaism

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Manger was born in Czernowitz, in Austria-Hungary. He lived in Romania, Poland, France, England and finally in Israel where he died in 1969.

http://www.eilatgordinlevitan.com/war...

Reviews

[Richard Derus · Rating 5 out of 5]

Real Rating: 4.5* of five, rounded up for its saudade-inducing effects

The Publisher Says: The raucously witty Yiddish classic about a Jewish Paradise afflicted by very human temptations and pains—a delightful new translation perfect for fans of Michael Chabon

Witty, playful and slyly profound, this story of a young angel expelled from Paradise is the only novel by one of the great Yiddish writers, which was written just before the outbreak of World War II.

As a result of a crafty trick, the expelled angel retains the memory of his previous life when he’s born as a Yiddish-fluent baby mortal on Earth. The humans around him plead for details of that other realm, but the Paradise of his mischievous stories is far from their ideal—a world of drunken angels, lewd patriarchs and the very same divisions and temptations that shape the human world.

Published here in a lively new translation by Robert Adler Peckerar, The Book of Paradise is a comic masterpiece from poet-satirist Itzik Manger that irreverently blurs the boundaries between ancient and modern and sacred and profane, where the shtetl is heaven, and heaven is the shtetl.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA EDELWEISS+. THANK YOU.

My Review: A wild, funny, irreverent take on how power looks to the powerless, how memories of Home persist in the exile, how impossible it is to fit into pre-existing systems when you're not One Of Us. Manger's entire life, a Jew in the nexus of a Jew-hating country be it the Habsburg Empire, Romania, Ukraine, or Poland. Escaping certain death in France, another deeply anti-Semitic place, by running to the United States in 1939 before coming to rest in newly-founded Israel, where he died in 1969, a man without a homeland or a language to speak in. Yiddish culture, alive and vibrant in ancient Imperial Austrian lands, in independent Poland, Romania, Soviet Ukraine and their cousins in the wide-open United States, vanished entirely after the Holocaust. One of many, many crimes against humanity that occurred during that brutal time, it's one that most of us just don't even slightly realize took place. We don't, most of us, remember hearing elders speak Yiddish, don't recall the culture's last lingering gasps of the 1930s being part of even our parents' knowledge base. It was embarrassing, it was Foreign, it was lower-class. It was also the home of millions and millions of people whose passports, like Manger's, could be yanked by the issuing country because they simply didn't like the person holding it for being Other.

Does all this ring any bells yet?

Samuel Abba, as our kicked-out angel's human form is called, recalls his time in Paradise to the delight of his human mother, the fearful shushing of his human father, and the stern corrective admonitions of the Elders of their community to change his tune. Paradise can't be like that! Power dynamics are *good*for*us*! (The question of who exactly "us" consists of is answered thus.) Abusive parents, cheating lovers, Authority out of touch with lived reality, these are Earthly problems...these can't be your memories.

The standard invalidation of a thousand Nos, in other words, used to teach all of us to stay in our appointed places. Not "this isn't true" but "this can't be true," an entirely different assertion of the consensus world-view that QUILTBAG people know so very well. The translator's HUGE challenges in making the ideas of the storytelling format, harkening as it does back to the school of creating midrashim, as well as the very specific cultural usages like Abba's Paradise-bound friend "Little Pisser"'s name...literal translation of "pisher" but lacking the affectionate, dismissive, gentle put-down of the Yiddish term for a more biological and rude one...highlighted for me the sad, irreplaceable loss of the globe-spanning Yiddish culture. It's one thing to revive individual artists' work; the gestalt is still gone. Another black mark on the souls of the multinational fascist bastards whose tiny little hearts had no room for Others.

If you have even a particle of resistance to the recrudescing idea of All Must Be One, I can't encourage you strongly enough to read this story by a man who lost every single thing he'd grown up with, every sound out of his mother's mouth, the mouth itself, the music the poetry the food the films...all of it slaughtered and burned and vanished to serve the "ideal" of "One Fatherland"...and look around you at what's happening in our world today.

Resist.

[Karen·]

A comic novel, yes, this made me laugh out loud in several places. The whole situation is beautifully comical: Paradise as a place where there is unrequited love and all the heartbreak and desperation that entails, where there is poverty, prejudice, class distinction, drunkenness, violence and segregation, for there is a Jewish, a Gentile and a Turkish Paradise, with border controls and passports, where there is wife beating, and larceny. As Samuel asks his best friend, Little Pisser:

"What about 'Thou shalt not steal'?"
"Oh, my dim-witted birdbrain," Little Pisser laughed. "Don't you know that 'Thou shalt not steal applies to people, not angels? Go on then, show me where it's written in the Bible that the Lord of Hosts has commanded the angels not to steal!? Maybe in the Book of Numbskulls?"

Young Samuel Abba pulls a clever trick on the scoundrel and well-soaked angel Simon Bear, who accompanies him to be born into an earthly existence: Simon Bear has to flick Samuel's nose, so that he will forget everything about Paradise, but through a judicious use of wine to further befuddle Simon, and a plug of clay to protect his nose, Samuel reaches Earth with his memories intact. He tells us all these crazy stories, maintaining that it is nothing but the absolute truth, he's not making anything up, really....

Episodic adventures: there is no real plot, as such, only the story of how the Behemoth ran away to Gentile Paradise and had to be brought back.

It kept me amused.

[Vio · Rating 4 out of 5]

My very first *complete* Ițic Manger (still reading a poetry collection)

I discovered Ițic Manger a few years ago and I was quite shocked to find out that, although quite famous, he is not so famous in his country of origin. Ok, he was born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in Czernowitz, but I know *my people*, anybody having even a very little something to do with Romania, we adopt them, they are Romanians, they are the beeeeest! (except when we hate them, that's it.)

Now I realize I did stumble upon his name during my first Yiddish course some 10 years ago maybe, when I read one of his most renowned poems, "Oyfn veg shteyt a boym". I don't remember remembering (!!!!) that he was from Cernăuți though.

Anyways, I read some poems (translated in German) by him and I even performed a very timid and modest rendition of his ”Jassy” poem (that's the name of the city where I was born) in class.

This particular book, Cartea Raiului/The Book of Paradise is beautifully translated by Iosif Andronic and, even at the second edition, true to a Romanian book, has quite a lot of #typos (really gave up counting).

I loved the idea of the book, the tone, the figures both from Paradise and from the Earth, the irony, the honesty, the never-ending story, the hope, the fatigue :), the language and the beauty of it. And the surprising construction à la Scheherezade.

I think I would like to read it again in some years. Give it a try, if you like irony and a marvellous use of the language. Ah, I think this is called ”talent”, both from the author and the translator. :)

[Kate O'Shea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this ostensibly because I'm unfamiliar with Yiddish literature in any way whatsoever.

The story of Samuel Abba certainly was fun. Samuel is a provisional angel who has been sent to earth to be born of as a human child. He should have no memory of his time in paradise but he and his angel friend, Little Pisser, have pulled a fast one and when his memories were supposed to be knocked out of him they were not.

So, on arriving on earth, not only is his mother delighted to have a beautiful boy but she is also smitten with his chatter even though he has just been born. His father is more skeptical, as are the elders so each night Samuel regales them with tales from paradise.

These tales are absolutely crazy and fun. They seem to describe a paradise which is just as corrupt as earth with behemoths being held against their will, various religious factions arguing and fighting over who is best, drinking, misbehaving, thievery etc.

If you, like me, knew nothing I'm sure you'll enjoy this. I understand from the translator that it was a difficult text to translate because the Yiddish idioms cannot bear direct translations and therefore the text itself has lost something of the feel of its original language. Its a problem you always encounter with any translation. However since I would never have been able to read it otherwise I am delighted the translation is available. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance review copy.

[Kyle C · Rating 4 out of 5]

A parodic Midrashic romp. Itzik Manger's "Book of Paradise" is the impish story of an angel, Samuel Abba, who is banished from Paradise and reborn in a human mother. Immediately after birth, he regales his new family with all the zany stories of his childhood in Paradise with his friend, Little Pisser—their pranks on pious teachers (gluing the wings), their naughty escapades in the Garden of Eden (where they observed Adam and Eve undressing), and street-kid shenanigans (stealing goats, spying on King David, tormenting the Behemoth). As it turns out, Paradise is not so different from the human world, with zoning regulations and segregation (there is a Jewish quarter of Paradise and a Gentile quarter), customs laws (the police are looking for smugglers of Turkish tobacco) and stratified inequality (Little Pisser's father is a down-and-out patchworker). There is escalating tension between the angels and the prophets, and all the while traveling circuses of Turkish conjurers disrupt the order of the city. Even in heaven, there is domestic violence, love lost and broken hearts. The boys skip school and spend their day provoking the biblical prophets and taunting them with mocking ditties.

I'm not very familiar with Yiddish literature or Midrashic spoofs of biblical stories. The novel reminded me a lot of the subversive, carnivalesque stories of Witold Gombrowicz (especially, "Ferdydurke") and Fyodor Sologub (especially "The Petty Demon") where authority is perverted, parents and teachers are lampooned, and delinquent children and sadistic adults run amok. I definitely recommend this as a fascinating novel, skewering the sanctimonious, an irreverent comedy of demonic angels, despotic patriarchs, alcoholic thugs and anti-Semitic hierarchs. It might have been called the "Book of Numbskulls" (or so Little Pisser suggests as a title to an alternative to the Book of Exodus).

[Frank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Witzig. Originell. Jüdisch. Toll...

[Ana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ce s-ar întâmpla dacă un nou-născut ar începe să povestească celor din jur cum e în rai?

Fostul înger, Şmul Abe reuşeşte să-l convingă pe îngerul uitării, a cărui metodă preferată de manipulare a memoriei e trasul unui bobârnac pe sub nas, să îi lase memoria intactă şi se naşte unui cuplu de evrei. Cuplul, rabinul, bogătaşul etc ascultă realitatea raiului şi sunt şocaţi. Să fie raiul atât de imperfect?!

Cartea am citit-o foarte repede şi e hazlie, dar cam lungă. Aş fi preferat să citesc despre aventurile lui Şmul Abe pe pământ, nu pe cele din rai. Cred că am citit parodii mai bine făcute şi de aceea nu m-a impresionat mult această carte. Sunt sigură că, pentru cititorii din 1939, această carte ar fi fost mai şocantă, de altfel a fost foarte populară la vremea lui.

A meritat o lectură, dar tot prefer poeziile lui Manger.

[Sophie Davidson · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was funny and all but I expected something else?

I was really looking forward to reading this book since it’s be my first Yiddish novel (there aren’t many Jewish novels out there, let alone Yiddish ones) but I felt a bit disappointed.

The plot is great, albeit a bit weird. A baby tells a story of how they were exiled from Paradise in their previous life as an angel. There were many comparisons between Paradise and Earth with borders, corruption and something that reminded me a lot of camps.

I can see that this book would not be for everyone (especially if your knowledge of the Jewish culture or Torah (or at least the Old Testament) are nonexistent), and yet despite the fact that I’m familiar with both of these themes I just didn’t find the book engaging enough.

[Chris Bland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lowkey Little Pisser stops sounding obscene halfway through the book and the whole experience becomes 10x more enjoyable.

[Jacky Kroon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dank maud voor het lenen hihi

[F. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was recommended by my teacher, and I think it was the best Yiddish bukh I read so far.

Shmuel Abe is a very likeable character, who is sent to Earth, but doesn't forget what happened to him in paradise. Shmuel Abe has to cope with losing his friend over a girl, spending weeks in Christian Paradise without staying there for good and trying to convince the rabbi, the dayen and the richest person of his village that everything he tells about paradise is true.

Also, if you want to fully understand this book, you have to either be an expert in Jewish culture/religion/history or know the Old Testament very well.

[Eavan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was so delightful. I just want to hold it in my hands like a little baby. The Book of Paradise is a perfect little book that speaks to all the Bible stories I read and reread as a child. I haven't felt this innocent in a very long time.

On a critical level though, Manger has a lot to say about inequality, and it can be quite shocking. Reading about how horrible all the father-patriarchs are with their little peasant-angels toiling away for them can be hard to wrap your head around, but I think it's to remind us of the insidious and mundane power structures that surround us. All that in a kid's book!

[Ushan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read quite some Yiddish literature in translation as a child, but wasn't prepared for this novel: a Voltarian satire set in the Jewish Paradise (distinct from the Christian and the Turkish Paradises!), which parallels life on Earth, specifically in Manger's native Czernowitz in the early 1900s. I think that of all the books I've read last year, this one was the most enjoyable.

[K · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Book of Paradise is a witty and somewhat irreverent look at Paradise from a pre-WW2 Jewish perspective. The characters are shown with all their flaws, and (dare I say it?) with human frailties and personal problems. Clever and intelligent--a nice treat to read.

[Gabrielle Danoux · Rating 5 out of 5]

Quelques mots d'abord sur Tchernovtsy, la ville de naissance d'Itzik Manger. Elle est aujourd'hui ukrainienne, d'où son nom. En allemand, puisqu'elle a fait partie de l'empire austro-hongrois jusqu'en 1918, c'est Czernowitz, nom qu'on emploi le plus souvent en français, et en roumain Cernãuți. Entre 1918 (environ, puisque les droits de la minorité juive ont été progressivement intégrés dans la loi) et l'approche de la seconde guerre mondiale, il y eut à Cernãuți, où une université roumaine fut implantée, une sorte d'effervescence littéraire. Rosa Ausländer y est née, Aharon Appelfeld, Paul Celan également et en l'occurrence Itzik Manger. Une de ses particularités était qu'il écrivait en yiddish, dans une ville et une langue où sévissait aussi Avrom Goldfaden et son théâtre. Il existe également une traduction française de ce livre, introuvable mais peut-être que certains d'entre vous auront plus de chance que moi. Toujours est-il que ce livre de 1965, traduction en allemand de l'original en yiddish de 1963, six ans avant la mort de son auteur, est toujours lu aujourd'hui en Allemagne et plus ou moins oublié ailleurs, ce qui est un petit miracle, d'autant plus que je l'ai eu pour trois fois rien.
Plus paradoxal encore : autant que j'ai pu trouver d'informations là-dessus, Itzik Manger se considérait comme roumain et sa patrie était plus ou moins un paradis perdu (l'homme était nuancé). Né en 1901, en 1928 il s'est exilé en Pologne, puis à Paris pour échapper aux nazis une première fois, puis en 1940 à Londres une deuxième fois. En 1951, il partit pour New York puis vécut ses dernières années en Israël. Il vivait quelque peu en dehors des innovations modernes, à l'écart, sans téléphone par exemple. Corollaire : bien qu'il ait été un des plus importants poètes de langue yiddish, voire le plus important, il était quasiment inconnu, anonyme, comme aujourd'hui en Roumanie. Son récit lui ressemble un peu, c'est une délicieuse parabole à l'ancienne (1963 c'est l'année de "Pour un nouveau roman" de Alain Robbe-Grillet !) mais profondément iconoclaste. Au départ une légende juive selon laquelle les enfants avant leur arrivée au monde sont des anges : juste avant leur naissance, un ange leur donne une pichenette sur le nez et ils oublient tout. Mais Schmuël Abe réussit à échapper à la pichenette en question (je ne vous dirai pas comment), aussi se souvient-il de tout ce qu'il a vécu au paradis et le raconte-t-il à ses parents, au rabbin et à un riche propriétaire. Son paradis ressemble étrangement à la terre avec ses défauts, avec aussi des aventures : les magiciens turcs, une nuit sur la propriété du roi David, un passage de Schmuël Abe avec son ami Pisserl au paradis chrétien, etc. C'est un peu génération désenchantée : l'amour est impossible, le couple une folie, le paradis très terrien, l'ange juif voué à l'errance. Mais ces désillusions produisent un humour roboratif, assez difficile à décrire à vrai dire : on y apprend par exemple comme un ange fait fuir un taureau, comment Jacob et Isaac se disputent toujours au Paradis au sujet d'Esaü, comment les deux jeunes anges essaient de voler une chèvre à des riches et de la donner à un pauvre pour rétablir la justice sociale et quelles sont les conséquences…
On touche ici un paradoxe particulièrement délicat : une large partie de la littérature roumaine était issue de ses (nombreuses) minorités ou de ce que même le président Iohannis appelle aujourd'hui la diaspora. Aujourd'hui, il y a de moins en moins, voire presque plus, de minorités et la diaspora, par définition, est ailleurs.
Ce qui n'enlève rien à la beauté de cette précieuse antiquité, oubliée sur sa terre d'origine, que pour ma part j'ai retrouvée miraculeusement sur celle de ceux qui furent ses pires ennemis.

[Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only novel from this acclaimed Yiddish writer, “Di vunderlekhe lebnsbashraybung fun Shemuel Aba Abervo” is a playfully irreverent midrashic engagement with the heroes and tales of Torah and Talmud, positioning them in a Paradise that appears disappointingly similar to life on Earth - for instance, we’ve got broken hearts, violent drunks, and abusive teachers. Then there are the poverty stricken laboring angelic masses in King David’s fields and household, and the cruelly antisemitic angel of the neighboring Gentile Paradise, where Saint Nicholas appears and attempts to bribe the young visiting angels with toys if they’ll agree to be baptized and turn their backs on Jewish Paradise.

This shrinking of the distance, so to speak, between heaven and earth seems to be characteristic of Manger’s work. You can imagine it not being appreciated by everyone; a contemporary rabbi in Poland wrote in response to another of Manger’s texts that “the holy forefathers - who were the most luminous, loftiest, and purest personalities, the holiest creatures - represent the foundation of eternal spiritual vitality and the full range of positive attributes for all of mankind. The patriarchs are, in fact, held in the highest esteem by every nation on earth. The worst enemies of the Jews did not dare tamper with their luminous and holy image.”

Yet the popularity of Manger’s writings demonstrates their appeal. Dara Horn notes that Manger’s father used the word “literatoyre”, a portmanteau of literature and Torah, to describe his own writings, and that Manger’s work “is truly literatoyre, timeless art that brings Torah to life.” It shows us that even the tzadiks are human, like us, and wrestled (wrestle) with the same human issues. They are not distant and unrelatable, far from it! And despite the presence of familiar problems of life as noted, there is an overall sense of joy here in Manger’s prose and poetry. Finding joy in the midst of trouble would be a task of the Jewish diaspora of Eastern Europe up to its destruction, and continuing for us today.

“Maybe it is indeed a flight of fancy,” said the rabbi like a drowning man grasping at a straw.

“It is no flight of fancy at all, gentlemen, but the honest truth. Perhaps the Paradise that you have dreamt up is a fantasy, a work of fiction. But the Paradise I come from is the real Paradise and, even though it may have its faults, it’s lovely all the same. The proof is that I miss it and, if they’d only let me, I’d go right back.”

[Holly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I received an ARC of Robert Adler Peckerar's translation from the publisher via NetGalley.

I found that I enjoyed this a lot more that I thought it was - the prose was accessible and engaging, not stuffy and thick with obscure language like I was expecting. It was genuinely funny at several points, especially in how Talmudic figures were utilised and certain traits emphasised. I definitely think my enjoyment came a lot from recognised figures from RE lessons and my partner's study of Judaism as a theology student.

That said, the ending was where I just got a bit less enthused with it. The concept of the 3 paradises - Jewish, Gentile and Turkish didn't work for me because it seems like they're meant to be Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Mentions of the Turkish paradise reference Ishmael, the prophet Muhammed (pbuh), and refer to God in the Arabic, as Allah. Yet the only characters from this paradise get drunk and praise Allah for alcohol (which just seemed like an odd choice since alcohol is haram - obviously that doesn't mean no Muslims drink but when every other paradise has a strict adherence to religious ideas like this, it seems disjointed). These characters also rob everyone in Paradise City which just felt like a more orientalist/racist representation of the stereotypical idea of 'Turks' and people from that region. So that just didn't sit right with me and felt pretty disconnected from the way the Jewish characters and Christian characters were treated - like in Gentile paradise St. Peter, St. Nicholas and the young angel girl Aniela all come across well - they balance out the vastly cruel and antisemitic Dmitry. Yet, for those from the Turkish paradise, there's now such diversity of character.

I also found the idea of Samuel Abba being a newborn baby just talking about his time in Paradise to be so weird, I really had to try and suspend my disbelief to try and accept the nature of his parents and the invited individuals just accepting this talking newborn.

And, as a final note, it definitely does have a feeling of being an unfinished story which is a shame. The Preface notes the potential sequels Manger thought of and it is notable - the ending just kind of ends because Samuel Abba left paradise and leaves a lot of loose threads like the consequences of the city-wide theft and what happens to Little Pisser.

Overall, I wouldn't not recommend this book but I does lose it's charm towards the end.

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Itzik Manger was born in 1901 in Czernowitz, then in Romania, and was one of the most widely known Yiddish writers of his age, at one point even having more readers than the better known Sholem Aleichem. He was a poet, playwright and literary critic, but only produced one novel, The Book of Paradise. He moved to Warsaw in 1929 and the next 10 years were his most productive. He managed to escape to Paris, later to London and finally ended up in New York, where he sadly produced little. He died in Israel in 1969
The Book of Paradise is the story of an angel, Samuel Abba, who is banished from the Jewish Paradise where he has so far lived happily to be reborn to a human mother on earth. There’s a legend that before a Jewish baby is born an angel flicks his nose so that he will forget all about his time in Paradise but something goes awry when Samuel Abba is sent to earth and he can remember everything about his past. Immediately after his birth he begins to tell his new family and their acquaintances all the crazy adventures from his childhood, and it soon becomes apparent that life in heaven is not so different from life on earth. It’s all quite a romp with many amusing incidents, but not always light-hearted, as there are some darker passages, especially when Samuel Abba and his friend are sent on a mission to Gentile Paradise where they encounter a rabid anti-Semite who treats them in a way that foreshadows the experiences of many Jews during the war and its build up. I found this episode upsetting indeed. However, overall the book is a charming and clever depiction of life in Paradise, and even for those readers not so conversant with Jewish history and culture, there’s much to relate to here and I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual, inventive and original novel. Highly recommended.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are two running jokes here: (i) the outer story in which our narrator, a baby, is born miraculously able to speak from birth and remembering his time in paradise before he is born, which he relates to the town's puffed up know it all/know nothing dignitaries, and (ii) the idea that paradise is fundamentally just like normal life - It's a world of rich and poor, where the angels and holy men all have their petty cares and jealousies, there is lying, theft and drunkenness, and some of the angels in the neighboring Christian paradise are deeply anti-Semitic. These were clever ideas that made me smile. And I liked that the joke is in part a mockery of the Christian idea of paradise from a Jewish perspective in which paradise is not so important and may or may not even exist. But the running jokes were only funny enough to sustain a story of fifty pages. They wore thin on me as I slogged along through the book. Maybe it is funnier in the original Yiddish. I'll never know, but I think that my problem was more that it isn't my style of humor. Or maybe I'm just a hard case because I have never much liked stories about angels.

God is strangely absent from the story. The people of paradise don't seem to interact with Him. He doesn't have a palace there. If he lives as an ordinary angel among the people, there is no hint of it. You'd think that He would have to be a presence in paradise even if not in any sort of physical form. Maybe His absence is meant to be a subtle part of the joke.

[Moonkiszt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A saucy tale - a Yiddish flashback of an angel born to a Jewish couple. . .and this clever little baby is full of stories of where he's just come from - Paradise!

Stories of holy celebrities, of monsters (the Behemoth), of winged beings who are not as floaty and heavenly as you'd think they should be, of prophets and other famous folk who've made it big in the scriptures. Meanwhile this little guy is making the rounds, mixing in with David, Bathsheba and the New Girl brought in to keep David warm. . .it's raucous and crosses lines all over the place. For a baby who was a former angel, he is quite brilliant about the Human Condition.

Written by Itzik Manger, this was my first foray into his work and his world, so googling was required - and He, Himself was a remarkable human who needed satire to make it through the life he lived. This was his only novel - he contributed more usually in stories submitted to Jewish publishers, and it was written just before WWII - not exactly the easiest time to be Jewish, a writer or flaunting authority figures.

I'm sure I've missed a lot in this book, but I'll come back to it and Manger in future reads.

*A sincere thank you to Itzik Manger, Pushkin Press, and NetGalley for an ARC to read and review independently.* #TheBookofParadise #NetGalley

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

As everyone knows, unborn babies know all the secrets of the universe until an angel taps them on the upper lip, sending them into the world with empty minds and that little dent below their noses. All except Samuel Abba, who plays a trick on his drunken angel escort, sending him into the world brimming with jaw dropping tales and songs of Paradise, which turns out to be full of the same longings, follies, class struggles and petty nonsense of our bad old world below. Like an angelic Huck and Tom, Abba and his best pal Little Pisser wing their way around Heaven, playing pranks, spying on King David’s philandering and generally raising Cain. When the great Behemoth runs mad into the neighboring Gentile Paradise, the intrepid pair are sent on a perilous mission to negotiate its return with wily Saint Peter, encountering both anti-semitism and romance among the Christians. Freely employing American idioms, Peckerar’s energetic translation captures the hilarity and pathos of Manger’s prose and the lyricism of his songs, restoring this delightfully irreverent Yiddish classic to a contemporary readership.

[Kris · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an interesting one. I never read anything quite like it. It deals a lot with religion, Judaism in this case, but does so very tongue in cheek and truly was funny in places and very silly in others.

Because it is written from a Jewish point of view I was not too familiar with some of the elements in the story and I cannot comment on the representation of that culture. Even so, I quite enjoyed the tone and this world of various paradises (paradisae?) that the author was describing. It really was quite unique.

It did lose me a few times and maybe it was a tad too silly for me, but I still enjoyed it. I do think it’s quite a niche type of story and I don’t think it would have very broad appeal. But if you have a general interest in religion and don’t mind a bit of crazy, you may well enjoy this one.

On a side note, I thought the translator’s notes on this text were interesting to read as well.

[An · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is, my first time reading a comical novel and in terms of that it scored decent, it made me giggle quite a few times throughout the book. The plot itself is quite entertaining and unique, an angel reincarnating as a mortal baby with his memory intact, rather uncomfortable to fit in the new society since his days of paradise are ingrained in his mental space quite prevalently, it makes me think about whether the author created this illusion to portray his life incidents. As for other things we see that the mythical paradise is nothing like the religious scripture portrayed to be, the paradise is like a mortal world, There's classicism, sexism, xenophobia, scandalous affairs and perverted/tyrannical superiors. Although most of the book of quite entertaining it fell flat after Samuel and Little Pisser's behemoth rescue mission.
Overall it was a nice read 3.5/5

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK, this was one of the better books I have abandoned at some midway point this year. No great claim, I know, but this didn't seem to me to travel to readers outside the Jewish experience as well as it might. For this goy, certainly, it was better when showing the narrator as a newborn in Eastern Europe, with his beautiful and forthright mother, and henpecked father, dealing in different ways to their son's arrival as a fully-fledged, speaking, knife-and-fork-using child. To me the tales of ribaldry, drunkenness and so on in the world of the angels this character left to live as a human were less interesting, and proof perhaps of just how far this book could have gone with its scabrous thoughts about religion and hypocrisy yet didn't.

[Kathy Piselli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful stories of Paradise, which Manger apparently called his happiest book. His account has three paradises which correspond probably to the three groups known to him in eastern Europe - Gentile, Jewish, and Turkish (the last possessing the best cigarettes). These angels of Paradise, though, are swindlers, drunkards, and adulterers, along with the greatest of the prophets and holy rabbis. There are also poor ones who do the washing. "Fair shmair" says Abraham - because there is no fairness either on the earth or in paradise. "Though it may have its faults, it's lovely all the same" says Samuel Abba, and it's interesting that as much as angels hate to be sent to be born on earth, so do those on earth hate to die and go to paradise.

[Sharondblk · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is peculiar. Originally published in 1939 in Yiddish, It's the story of "Jewish Paradise" as told by an angel who is born as a human baby, and tells the story from when he is born (i.e.an infant is telling the story). It's odd, and I didn't get it. I kept wondering if it was satire, or a commentary on (then) current events, or if was meant to be funny. I could go down an academic rabbit hole on Yiddish literature of the mid-20th century, but really I just wanted a book to enjoy and pass the time with, and this book might be many things, but it wasn't that.

Thanks to NetGalley and Pushkin Press for the e-Arc in exchange for an honest review.

[Charles Jacobson · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book incredibly depressing. Paradise is no different from earth with all the prejudice, selfishness and material desires we find from the most cynical of people on earth - reaching by all the way up to the Patriarchs. Ethnic and religious divisions and prejudices continue. Of course this is no surprise in the environment that Manger wrote the book but it would be kind of nice if we could find a chunk of light in the drudgery of angelic life!

[Perlie · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are moments in this book that are charming, funny, and thought-provoking. I did get the impression that the author was also mocking religiosity and piety. I loved loved loved the illustrations, and their charm enhanced the reading. I think there was some translations that could have been done more elegantly.

[Sarah W · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for me. I didn’t understand the religious references and had to look up a lot of the words and people (thankfully this is easy to do on a kindle). The idea behind the book was interesting but I didn’t get on with the writing style. Maybe this is partly due to it being a translation.

[Marcin Piątkowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

An ingenious, witty tale about how human images of paradise collide with brutal reality.