Mazel (Library of American Fiction)
by Rebecca Goldstein
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Book Summary Information
Author: Rebecca GoldsteinEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-08-26
ISBN: 0299181243
Number of pages: 374
Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press
Book Reviews of Mazel (Library of American Fiction)
Book Review: A sane and ordered work
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an intelligently written story of three generations of Jewish women. The major part is given to the Polish born grandmother the flamboyant actress Sasha but the key element in the work is the relationships between the generations. The grandmother abandoned Jewish religious life, the daughter is an introverted classical scholar, and the granddaughter also a professor returns to Jewish religious life.
As Murray Baumgarten parts out in an extended review of the book the narrative - view- point often shifts, and the focus is not so much on one person as on relationships.
The book is interesting and has a 'smartness' about it. The central idea that it is Mazel ( Luck) and not Saychel (Wisdom) that is the main factor in life is elaborated through comparison with Hume's famous analysis showing our ordinary conception of 'causation' in life cannot be proven. i.e. there is not the connection of events which is simple, direct causation but rather their conjoining. Goldstein seems to suggest that this means that Life goes more randomly than lovers of planning and order would like to suggest. My own thought is that this is a bit simplistic, and that a lot depends in life on the 'saychel' we have in dealing with our own 'mazel' and that 'mazel ' too may come of 'saychel'.
Summary of Mazel (Library of American Fiction)
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 mathematician who is drawn to traditional Judaism and the sort of domestic life her mother and grandmother rejected.
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