Alex Z

The author’s technique of using modern conversational English for his 16th century dialog works pretty well. The historical detail is interesting and well-researched. But unless the reader has a particular interest in minute details of Jewish culture and history, it gets old after the first hundred pages. The plot, such as it is, takes second place to the detailed information about Jewish religion and custom. The main character is a sort of Talmudic superhero who has apparently memorized every scrap of Hebrew writing from the beginning of time to the mid 1500's. He’s the Bruce Lee of religious debate. He knows more, and quotes more scripture than all the rabbis put together. Every conversation seems to be a kind of poetry slam of battling quotations of ancient Jewish scholars. Certainly there’s a lot of interesting and clever stuff here, and I enjoyed it because I do have an interest in the subject matter. But the plot is really just a vehicle (and a slow one) for all the cultural and historical detail. It seems to me that the tail is wagging the dog here.

The story and it’s setting are reasonably interesting and convincing. As a former Peace Corps volunteer, I have some acquaintance with the poverty and injustice prevalent in undeveloped countries, and I think Mr. Shors writes from his heart. But this novel is shallow and the prose incredibly maudlin. My impression is that Mr. Shors is a compassionate man who has something to contribute to the world; but, in my opinion as a reader, he should consider channeling his talent in some other direction --maybe writing screenplays for soap operas.

Reading this novel was not a satisfying experience for me. To my ear, the story never rang true. Nevertheless, I found it interesting and entertaining enough for the first 3/4 of the book. After that, for me, the author’s style became too didactic to tolerate. Although the political views expressed by the characters in the novel are precisely the same as my own, I had the impression that the author was simply wallowing in the pleasure of expressing his personal viewpoint through the dialog. The overbearing nature of the main character and narrator began to spill over to the voices of the other characters, who seemed to speak with the same, eventually irritating voice. The differences between the characters seemed contrived. Maybe I'm just too provincial, but if there is a deep end to this pool, I never found it, and the wading wasn’t entertaining enough to be worth the minimal effort. As for the professional reviews, in my opinion only the Kirkus reviewer got it right.