Publication
Amsterdam Vassallucci 2004
ISBN
9050005144 / 9789050005142
Language
Collections
Description
The new novel by the internationally acclaimed author- "a farce of nuclear proportions"(Vanity Fair) Arnon Grunberg is one of the most subtly outrageous provocateurs in world literature. The Jewish Messiah, which chronicles the evolution of one Xavier Radek from malcontent grandson of a former SS officer, to Jewish convert, to co- translator of Hitler's Mein Kampf into Yiddish, to Israeli politician and Israel's most unlikely prime minister, is his most outrageous work yet. Taking on the most well-guarded pieties and taboos of our age, The Jewish Messiah is both a great love story and a grotesque farce that forces a profound reckoning with the limits of human guilt, cruelty, and suffering. It is without question Arnon Grunberg's masterpiece.… (more)
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User reviews
LibraryThing member ericnguyen09
"If we start feeling anything we have to stop. As soon as we feel anything, we should never see each other again..."
In this 2008 farce of nuclear proportions, Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg takes us on an epic adventure that is part love story, part philosophical treatise on human suffering.
The book
Aside from such philosphy, while the story is long, Grunberg is a wordsmith whose sentences are like contemporary poetry mixed with influences from PG Wodehouse and the attitude of a half sane Tom Robbins (with none of the fun loss). While not all his ideas are tightly knitted together--indeed, as we come to the end, it feels like he moves too quickly to skip a few years of our character's lives--it doesn't matter because in the end you'll have fun reading it anyway. You'll laugh, you'll cry. It is the type of book that shouldn't end because you fall for the so well developed characters, but again, it must.
In this 2008 farce of nuclear proportions, Dutch novelist Arnon Grunberg takes us on an epic adventure that is part love story, part philosophical treatise on human suffering.
The book
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focuses on Xavier Radek, who we first meet as a 16-year-old with a mission to eradicate the suffering of the Jews, the victims of his grandfatehr who was an SS officer under Hitler. Along the 400+ pages, we meet Xavier's mother who cheats on her lover with an Italian kitchen knife, her boyfriend Marc who admits he has a crush for his girlfriend's son, a Hamas leader with secret homosexual inclinations, and Xavier's personal Jew and lover, Awromele, who is also a major character in this love story wherein both promise never to feel anything for each other. And of course, as we find out, this is impossible. Indeed, as Grunberg argues in the novel, humans suffering is but feelings; the absurdity he explores, however, is the absurdity that there is no escape from such suffering since it through such pain that we comforted: "Our only comfort is destruction." The absurdness of Grunberg's writing--from a botched circumcision by a blind Communist to the frying of Arab resturant owner's feet as a form of mercy--shows how art can be used: as meaning to such suffering, and perhaps it is under such a thesis that writers such as Grunberg can exist.Aside from such philosphy, while the story is long, Grunberg is a wordsmith whose sentences are like contemporary poetry mixed with influences from PG Wodehouse and the attitude of a half sane Tom Robbins (with none of the fun loss). While not all his ideas are tightly knitted together--indeed, as we come to the end, it feels like he moves too quickly to skip a few years of our character's lives--it doesn't matter because in the end you'll have fun reading it anyway. You'll laugh, you'll cry. It is the type of book that shouldn't end because you fall for the so well developed characters, but again, it must.
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LibraryThing member libraryhermit
I was surprised to read about an adult circumcision. I guess I knew that this procedure existed, but had never read about it in a novel before. After I calmed down from reading about some shocking acts of sadistic violence, I felt that I could start to see what themes the author was getting at: the
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only thing that is more screwed up than individual sadistic violence is the sadistic violence of whole societies. By the end of the book, we get a chance to see how one of the most advanced practitioners of it in the individual sphere gets a chance to become the prime minister of a major country. Not possible you say. But wait a minute, there are all kinds of countries around the world that have sadistic leaders. After the dust settles, I realized that the reality portrayed in the book is not all that different from the one that we live in right now. Maybe it was not a send-up or a farce, but rather it was truthful reportage, thinly veiled with made-up names. Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
There was a certain joy in completing this one, perhaps it was the sublime day outdoors, but I was elated to end this contrived rasher of shocking images. The novel shouldn't be considered a meditation, as such, instead, it was an excercise in excess. I didn't flinch, but I was annoyed.
Awards
Dublin Literary Award (Longlist — 2010)
Boekenbon Literatuurprijs (Nominatie — 2005)