Synopses & Reviews
David Lurie learns that all beginnings are hard. He must fight for his place against the bullies in his Depression-shadowed Bronx neighborhood and his own frail health. As a young man, he must start anew and define his own path of personal belief that diverges sharply with his devout father and everything he has been taught....
From the Paperback edition.
Review
"In the tradition of the Bildungsroman, this novel is the story of David Lurie, born to Jewish immigrants in New York City in the 1920's. A first-person narrative, it traces the young boy's orthodox education in an alien environment and his growing awareness of his traditions. These, he comes to realize, lie not only in the Torah but also in the graves of the concentration camps of the Second World War. Lurie becomes a Biblical scholar who sees as his essential task the need to make non-Jews understand the religious and cultural values that have sustained Judaism as a civilization. The novel grapples with the problem of new beginnings and provides a moving statement of some of the personal and familial dilemmas of our time." Reviewed by Daniel Weiss, Virginia Quarterly Review (Copyright 2006 Virginia Quarterly Review)
Synopsis
"Powerful . . . It successfully recreates a time and place and the journey of a soul."--The New York Times All beginnings are hard--that is the lesson David Lurie learns early and painfully in his life. As a boy in the depression-shadowed Bronx, he must begin to hold his own against neighborhood bullies and the treacherous frailties of his own health. As a young man in a world menaced by a distant, horrifying war, he must begin once more--this time to define a resolute path of personal belief that departs boldly from the tradition of his teachers and his own father, a courageous defender of their people.
Learning how to remember his past as he nourishes the future, David struggles to complete his first long journey into ancient beginnings.
"A major work in every sense."--Pittsburgh Press
Table of Contents
In the beginning (6:53) / C. Fischer -- Restoration (8:59) / H. Blanchard -- Gymnopedie #1 (3:55) / E. Satie -- Come ye disconsolate (5:21)-- Airegin (5:32) / S. Rollins -- Moment's notice (6:56) / J. Coltrane -- Reconciliation (10:08) / R. Grant -- Mean Lene (15:28) / H. Laws.