Status
Available
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Publication
Milano, Adelphi
Description
Jobais the tale of Mendel Singer, a pious, destitute Eastern-European Jew and children's Torah teacher whose faith is tested at every turn. His youngest son seems to be incurably disabled, one of his older sons joins the Russian Army, the other deserts to America, and his daughter is running around with a Cossack. When he flees with his wife and daughter, further blows of fate await him. In this modern fable based on the biblical story of Job, Mendel Singer witnesses the collapse of his world, experiences unbearable suffering and loss, and ultimately gives up hope and curses God, only to be saved by a miraculous reversal of fortune.
User reviews
LibraryThing member kidzdoc
This novel was written in 1930 and reissued by Archipelago Books last month. Mendel Singer is a pious and ordinary Jewish man who is barely able to provide for his wife and children as a teacher of young children in early 20th century Russia. His life has been one of struggle and misery, compounded
Years later, as the Singers sink deeper into poverty they are encouraged to emigrate to America by their son, who has found success in New York. Torn between their responsibility to Menuchim, their familiarity with their neighbors, and the possibility of a better life in America, the Singers decide to emigrate. However, new challenges await them, and for Mendel his personal suffering is magnified, as his faith in God is severely tested.
This modernized retelling of the Biblical story of Job was very well done, with sympathetic and realistic characters, and excellent portrayals of the crushing poverty and struggles of pre-revolutionary Russia contrasted with the chaos and stresses of life in New York's Lower East Side, and is highly recommended.
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by a loveless marriage and the birth of his last child, who is severely delayed and epileptic. His two adult sons are called into military service; Jonas joins the Russian Army willingly, but Shemariah deserts to America, leaving Singer with his wife, their promiscuous daughter and their afflicted son. A rabbi instructs Mrs Singer to never leave the young Menuchim, and predicts that his situation is not a hopeless one, but one that will take many years before he begins to improve.Years later, as the Singers sink deeper into poverty they are encouraged to emigrate to America by their son, who has found success in New York. Torn between their responsibility to Menuchim, their familiarity with their neighbors, and the possibility of a better life in America, the Singers decide to emigrate. However, new challenges await them, and for Mendel his personal suffering is magnified, as his faith in God is severely tested.
This modernized retelling of the Biblical story of Job was very well done, with sympathetic and realistic characters, and excellent portrayals of the crushing poverty and struggles of pre-revolutionary Russia contrasted with the chaos and stresses of life in New York's Lower East Side, and is highly recommended.
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LibraryThing member jwhenderson
I have just read the novel Job and find it to be a moving retelling of the Job story from the perspective of the Jews from the netherland border between Poland and Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. It was published in 1930 and marks a turning point in Roth's career. With this novel, Roth
Mendel Singer is a pious, God-fearing and ordinary Jew who lives in the idyllic Schtetl Zuchnow and performs there with his family a modest life as a village teacher. But the rest of his life will not be long because it through a chain of hard blows from the meaninglessness of his existence is torn by fate. Still he believed humbly that misfortune was just a test from God. The first blow hit him when his youngest son Menuchim is born with epilepsy. This was followed by the drafting of his oldest son Jonas into the military, with which his traditional Jewish faith did not agree. His second son Schemariah flees to America. Ultimately, Mendel Singer must discover that his daughter Miriam is with Cossacks, French, and what the strictly devout Jews considered the epitome of depravity. The Singers decide to emigrate to America. This trip can only be bought while leaving his youngest son Menuchim behind. In New York Mendel meets a new fate: He loses both sons in World War I, and his wife dies from grief over it. When his daughter becomes insane, he loses his strength, to tolerate and to believe, leading from humility and piety to rebellion and spite; Mendel loses his faith in God. From now on he no longer prays and lives quietly and inward. But now he learns the grace of the Lord; and the prophesy of a rabbi's wonder that his sick son Menuchim would become healthy is fulfilled. When the gifted composer and conductor Alexei Kossak (really Menuchim) comes to America he introduces himself to his father.
Joseph Roth tells the story of Mendel Singer in a language both allegorical and with biblical directness, whose theme is one of divine visitation and the wonder of God's grace. Roth's answer to the question of the meaning of suffering in the spirit of the Bible is the answer of a skeptic, whose life was visitation, the redeeming grace one fervently longs for, but do not to believe they could find or receive.
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takes a transformation of socio-politically motivated journalism to author as a poet of conservative myths. Roth takes for his presentation of Jewish existence within the elements of traditional storytelling. "Job" for Roth meant his breakthrough as a novelist.Mendel Singer is a pious, God-fearing and ordinary Jew who lives in the idyllic Schtetl Zuchnow and performs there with his family a modest life as a village teacher. But the rest of his life will not be long because it through a chain of hard blows from the meaninglessness of his existence is torn by fate. Still he believed humbly that misfortune was just a test from God. The first blow hit him when his youngest son Menuchim is born with epilepsy. This was followed by the drafting of his oldest son Jonas into the military, with which his traditional Jewish faith did not agree. His second son Schemariah flees to America. Ultimately, Mendel Singer must discover that his daughter Miriam is with Cossacks, French, and what the strictly devout Jews considered the epitome of depravity. The Singers decide to emigrate to America. This trip can only be bought while leaving his youngest son Menuchim behind. In New York Mendel meets a new fate: He loses both sons in World War I, and his wife dies from grief over it. When his daughter becomes insane, he loses his strength, to tolerate and to believe, leading from humility and piety to rebellion and spite; Mendel loses his faith in God. From now on he no longer prays and lives quietly and inward. But now he learns the grace of the Lord; and the prophesy of a rabbi's wonder that his sick son Menuchim would become healthy is fulfilled. When the gifted composer and conductor Alexei Kossak (really Menuchim) comes to America he introduces himself to his father.
Joseph Roth tells the story of Mendel Singer in a language both allegorical and with biblical directness, whose theme is one of divine visitation and the wonder of God's grace. Roth's answer to the question of the meaning of suffering in the spirit of the Bible is the answer of a skeptic, whose life was visitation, the redeeming grace one fervently longs for, but do not to believe they could find or receive.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Mendel Singer is a good, simple, pious Jew who's always done his best to serve God, his community and his family. He certainly hasn't had an easy time of it, but as he starts to look forward to the end of his life, he can be happy that he will be leaving all his four children better-placed in life
Or, to put it another way, the biblical story of Job transposed to a Galician stetl and the Jewish quarters of Manhattan in the early years of the 20th century. But with a twist, because Mendel finds his redemption not in his faith but in the searing flame of his anger with God, which allows him to rediscover his buried humanity.
Up to 1929, Joseph Roth was effectively a very successful journalist who had also written a few books: with the publication of Hiob he suddenly established himself as an important - and bestselling - novelist. The book came out at about the same time as Berlin Alexanderplatz, but with its aggressively simple "fairy-tale" narrative style and its subjective, mythical theme, Roth was clearly signalling that he didn't want anything to do with modernist expressionism or "the new objectivity".
Roth is probably also being deliberately provocative in setting the book in such a very Jewish context, against the background of the sort of small town where he grew up himself. Unlike Mendel, Roth was a pretty astute observer of politics, and he had a good idea of the way things were headed in the Europe of the late 1920s (although he was still working for a German paper, after 1926 he only accepted assignments outside Germany). He knew that the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe had little chance of surviving in between the equally hostile political forces that were emerging in Russia and Germany, and he wanted to make a record of it before it was too late.
(I accidentally bought this in a Suhrkamp school edition with lots of unnecessary, distracting notes, but the small selection of critical essays in the back of the book were worth having)
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than he could reasonably have hoped for. But then God, through the agency of the First World War, smashes everything Mendel depends on with a series of devastating hammer-blows. Or, to put it another way, the biblical story of Job transposed to a Galician stetl and the Jewish quarters of Manhattan in the early years of the 20th century. But with a twist, because Mendel finds his redemption not in his faith but in the searing flame of his anger with God, which allows him to rediscover his buried humanity.
Up to 1929, Joseph Roth was effectively a very successful journalist who had also written a few books: with the publication of Hiob he suddenly established himself as an important - and bestselling - novelist. The book came out at about the same time as Berlin Alexanderplatz, but with its aggressively simple "fairy-tale" narrative style and its subjective, mythical theme, Roth was clearly signalling that he didn't want anything to do with modernist expressionism or "the new objectivity".
Roth is probably also being deliberately provocative in setting the book in such a very Jewish context, against the background of the sort of small town where he grew up himself. Unlike Mendel, Roth was a pretty astute observer of politics, and he had a good idea of the way things were headed in the Europe of the late 1920s (although he was still working for a German paper, after 1926 he only accepted assignments outside Germany). He knew that the Jewish culture of Eastern Europe had little chance of surviving in between the equally hostile political forces that were emerging in Russia and Germany, and he wanted to make a record of it before it was too late.
(I accidentally bought this in a Suhrkamp school edition with lots of unnecessary, distracting notes, but the small selection of critical essays in the back of the book were worth having)
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LibraryThing member dreamingtereza
Rather beautiful - both wise and poignant, though a little predictable toward the end. Definitely worth reading.
LibraryThing member mattresslessness
Roth's adaptation of the story of Job in the person of a Russian Jew. Adaptation is a bit of a strong word actually. Not quite sure what to make of it. Isn't picking one of the pillars of Western literature a little ambitious, something a little too deeply established for such an unassuming
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retelling? Can you really wring any more insight out of the book of Job if someone shuffled the names around a bit and substituted historical turmoil for the wind of God? Roth has a gift for elemental storytelling, but it seems more the labour of love of someone going through a personal spiritual renaissance than having anything new to bring to the table. Show Less
Language
Original language
German
Original publication date
1930
2011-06-20
ISBN
9788845909153