"Moscow, February 1953. A week before Stalin's death, his final pogrom, "one that would forever rid the Motherland of the vermin," is in full swing. Three government goons arrive in the middle of the night to arrest Solomon Shimonovich Levinson, an actor from the defunct State Jewish Theater. But Levinson, though an old man, is a veteran of past wars, and his shocking response to the intruders sets in motion a series of events both zany and deadly as he proceeds to assemble a ragtag group to help him enact a mad-brilliant ...
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"Moscow, February 1953. A week before Stalin's death, his final pogrom, "one that would forever rid the Motherland of the vermin," is in full swing. Three government goons arrive in the middle of the night to arrest Solomon Shimonovich Levinson, an actor from the defunct State Jewish Theater. But Levinson, though an old man, is a veteran of past wars, and his shocking response to the intruders sets in motion a series of events both zany and deadly as he proceeds to assemble a ragtag group to help him enact a mad-brilliant plot: the assassination of a tyrant. Levinson's cast of unlikely heroes includes Aleksandr Kogan, a machine-gunner in Levinson's Red Army band who has since become one of Moscow's premier surgeons; Frederick Lewis, an African American who came to the USSR to build smelters and stayed to work as an engineer, learning Russian, Esperanto, and Yiddish; and Kima Petrova, an enigmatic young woman with a score to settle. While the setting is Soviet Russia, the backdrop is Shakespeare: A mad king has a diabolical plan to exterminate and deport his country's remaining Jews. And wandering through the narrative, like a crazy Soviet Ragtime, are such historical figures as Paul Robeson, Solomon Mikhoels, and Marc Chagall. As hilarious as it is moving, as intellectual as it is violent--with echoes of Inglourious Basterds and Seven Samurai--THE YID is a tragicomic masterpiece of historical fiction"--
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
PLEASE NOTE, WE DO NOT SHIP TO DENMARK. New Book. Shipped from UK in 4 to 14 days. Established seller since 2000. Please note we cannot offer an expedited shipping service from the UK.
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, the book is in fine condition in , the wrapper is unclipped and in fine condition jacket. Hardback. [14] 5-307 [3] pages signed by the author on the title page "Feb 18, 2016 Paul Goldberg., 21.5 x 14.5cm.
Paul Goldberg's novel, "The Yid", madcap and highly serious, is set in Moscow during the week before the death of Stalin on March 1, 1953. The premise of the book is that Stalin had planned a large scale action against the Jews in the USSR, including pogroms and killings followed by mass deportations. The plan coincided with Stalin's death and was not carried out.
In Goldberg's novel, a mixed group of characters come together in a plot to assassinate Stalin before this contemplated second Holocaust. The group includes an aging actor from the former State Jewish Theater, a gifted Jewish surgeon, an African American engineer, a young woman immigrant, a former member of the Jewish bund, and an elderly Christian woman who had been a friend of the great poet Anna Akhmanova. The group observes the beginnings of the planned action, following the notorious and historical "Doctor's Plot" and works to take action with several preliminary killings along the way.
The novel is wordy with a varied tone. It is presented in the form of a three-act Shakespearean play with comments and editorializing from the narrator. The characters often speak in idiomatic and expressive Russian or Yiddish which is presented in the text and then translated. Portions of the story are told in play-like dialogue.
The book offers a detailed portrayal of life in Stalinist Russia and extends back through the Russian Revolution. The actor and the physician were both war heroes prior to assuming their roles in civilian life. The book describes their exploits in the army and in Moscow's celebrated Yiddish Theater and in the operating room. The book has a great sense of intellectual liveliness and of particularity with depictions of famous poets, novelists, scientists, actors, and others who for a time were attracted to what appeared to be the promise of Communism and of an egalitarian society. The book also shows the rampant anti-Semitism in the USSR with its libels and violence against Jewish people.
As a whole, the storyline of the book is broad implausible and involuted, and sometimes confusing. The reader is pulled in too many different directions. The flashbacks into the lives of the many characters often are intrusive making the book difficult to follow.
The book works best in its many individual scenes, even when these scenes do not hang together. The many scenes of violence and killing are sharply done and would not be out of place in a Tarrantino film. The portrayals of the Yiddish Theater and its actors and writers are wonderfully done, as are the portrayals of Paul Robeson, Shmuel Halkin, Akhmatova, John Scott (an American who wrote a book called "Beyond the Urals" about his experiences working in the USSR) and many others. The portrayal of Jewish life, largely but not entirely secular, is fondly done. The thugs and criminals of Moscow are convincingly portrayed as are the insidious preparations for the planned pogrom and deportation.
In short, the book suffers from its organization, from attempting too many things, and from its shifts in tone. The book's many particular scenes, discussions of character and of ideas, and portrayals of Soviet life and of the madness of the totalitarian state outweigh these deficiencies and on the whole make the book rewarding.
