The Family Moskat: A Novel (FSG Classics)
by Isaac Bashevis Singer

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Book Reviews of The Family Moskat: A Novel (FSG Classics)

Book Review: Masterful stuff from the Big Man
Summary: 4 Stars

In anybody else's hands, this story of a Warsaw Jewish dynasty from the last days of its "golden era" to the verge of destruction at the hands of the Nazis would struggle to avoid appearing trite, melodramatic and overly ambitious. But Singer's taut and elliptical evocation of historical dangers (we never actually experience the First World War or the Russian Revolution at first hand, and we never get to see the Germans) brilliantly ratchets up the drama and tension without succumbing to melodrama, as we share the characters' experience of history from the inside.

Throughout the novel, pessimism (who could avoid a degree of pessimism in light of what we all know happened to Poland's Jews?) battles for elbow room with the lusty - but by now fading - glories of Warsaw Jewish life. While the action remains resolutely in Poland, only rarely venturing away from the Warsaw region, emigration to Palestine repeatedly features as a double-edged sword of an escape route.

God knows what it would look like if they ever made a movie of it. Or have they made one? I think I prefer not to know.

The characterisation, as usual, is brillant. As the parade of vividly-imagined personalities staggers down through the first part of the 20th century, we marvel at their complexity, and our sympathies waver as Singer nudges them first one way, then another. What does he really want us to make of the pessimistic "philosopher" (and key character) Asa Heshel Bannet? Singer can rarely have realised so difficult a portrayal so convincingly.

As the survivors of the family's tribulations live through the start of the second world war, the breathless and brilliantly handled conclusion still manages to surprise. I won't spoil it.
Read more I.B. Singer, learn more about loads of stuff you never thought related to you. They ain't thrillers or airport novels, but they'll enrich your life.

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