Book Description
Hans Breuer, Austria’s only wandering shepherd, is also a Yiddish folksinger. He walks the Alps, shepherd’s stick in hand, singing lullabies to his 625 sheep. Sometimes he even gives concerts in historically anti-Semitic towns, showing slides of the flock as he belts out Yiddish ditties.
When New York-based writer Sam Apple hears about this one-of-a-kind eccentric, he flies overseas and signs on as a shepherd’s apprentice. For thoroughly urban, slightly neurotic Sam, stumbling along in borrowed boots and burdened with a lot more baggage than his backpack, the task is far from a walk in Central Park. Demonstrating no immediate natural talent for shepherding, he tries to earn the respect of Breuer’s sheep, while keeping a safe distance from the shepherd’s fierce herding dogs.
As this strange and hilarious adventure unfolds, the unlikely duo of Sam and Hans meander through a paradise of woods and high meadows toward awkward encounters with Austrians of many stripes. Apple is determined to find out if there are really as many anti-Semites in Austria as he fears and to understand how Hans, who grew up fighting the lingering Nazism in Vienna, became a wandering shepherd. What Apple discovers turns out to be far more fascinating than he had imagined.
With this odd and wonderful book, Sam Apple joins the august tradition of Tony Horwitz and Bill Bryson. Schlepping Through the Alps is as funny as it is moving.
From the Hardcover edition.
Customer Reviews:
Not For Jews Only.......2007-09-23
To paraphrase comic Jeff Foxworthy, if you find this engaging travelogue entirely humorless... you might be an Anti-Semite. (Reading it might be a good self-test.) Although Jewishness and Anti-Jewishness are portrayed throughout, Mr. Apple's writing is so genuine and fluid that anyone with an appreciation for English will enjoy its exceptional quality. While comparisons have been made to Woody Allen, author Sam Apple might better be described as the Hunter S. Thompson of Generation X. Perhaps "Rolling Stone" would do well to engage him to cover the upcoming Presidential election--and those uncomfortable with Jewishness (Jews and non-Jews alike)--would find it less frightening to enjoy a bright new literary light. Meanwhile, try this one: reading through it is no schlep.
A Tale spiced up with enough lively and sometimes humorous commentary that will unquestionably keep readers turning the pages........2006-10-01
Sam Apple, author of Schlepping Through The Alps: My Search For Austria's Jewish Past With Its Last Wandering Shepherd, first encounters Yiddish folk-singer Hans Breuer at a concert and slide show in New York. Breuer, as Apple points out, is not just your ordinary run-of-the mill Yiddish folk-singer, rather he is truly a wandering Jew and as he reveals in his book, "If you ever happen to be hiking the Alps and you see a man singing Yiddish songs as he watches a dog chasing a sheep in a raincoat, no need for concern."
Apple, who grew up in Houston and now makes his home in Brooklyn, was quite intrigued by this forty-five year old Austrian shepherd. The result was a one thousand word article that eventually has being turned into a witty yet insightful book, wherein much of Apple's research was accumulated while traveling in Austria as an apprentice to Breuer.
During their first encounter in New York, Breuer mentioned to Apple that he wanted to bring Yiddish to the uninitiated in the Austrian Alps. When asked if he wanted these individuals to remember their Yiddish neighbors, his reply was: "I want to make them confront for the first time in their lives this culture that their uncles and fathers destroyed." With this in mind Apple decided to voyage to Austria and find out for himself what it was like to be a shepherd in the twenty-first century and to make sense of Han's Jewish identity or as he states, what it really meant for him to sing in Yiddish. He also wanted to learn about sheep, Yiddish music and anti-Semitism.
Apple's engaging narrative is what Yiddish speaking readers would probably classify as a good "meinsa," something akin to an old wife's tale only this story is actually true. Apple beckons us to follow his meandering through the Alps following a herd of sheep, a shepherd, his mistress and young lamb herders, while picking up along the way various shepherding tips from his mentor and learning about Austria's past and present political landscape.
During the course of his apprentice with Breuer, Apple learns about Austria's post-war anti-Nazi legislation that led to the sentencing to death of several Nazis and the conviction and incarceration of thousands of low-ranking Nazis. However, a few years after the enactment of this legislation, a general amnesty came into effect and all but a handful of the worst offenders were free to live happily every after. In fact, the government's constant line about complaints about Austria's behavior during the Holocaust was that if you have one take it to Germany.
Quite telling of Breuer's psyche is that he associates the Austrian countryside with fascism and anti-Semitism. When he encounters people along his shepherding path, he believes that they are all staring at him with cold eyes, aware that he is not one of them. Apple notes that Breuer enjoys being a living part of a dying tradition, where Yiddish and shepherding are relics of another time- nonetheless he takes great pride in both. Moreover, he is not quite sure how much of his own romanticizing of wandering and Jewishness has drawn him to Breuer. However, what he observes about Breuer's shepherding is "the rejection of modern society in the aftermath of the Holocaust. In his Yiddish songs I inevitably listened for the millions of missing Yiddish voices that should have been singing along."
Apple does an excellent job of capturing the flavor of the Austrian Alps with its little villages and inhabitants who seem to either have collective amnesia pertaining to their past or consider themselves blameless. Although he never does find as many anti-Semites as he originally feared, Apple does provide his readers with some serious insights, spiced up with enough lively and sometimes humorous commentary that will unquestionably keep readers turning the pages all the way to the end.
Norm Goldman, Editor Bookpleasures
Spot-on social observations from an adolescent personality.......2006-04-26
"Schlepping Through the Alps" opens a fascinating window for Americans into the little-discussed world of Austria's internal politics. Unfortunately, the view is clouded by Sam Apple's insistence on foisting descriptions on the reader of his neuroses, his sexual adventures with a "hip" Austrian woman, and the banal details of the protagonist's dysfunctional family. Woody Allen worked comic wonders with the neurotic secular Jewish character, but that persona lost its freshness nearly 30 years ago. If a reader may offer advice to Mr. Apple for his next book, it would be to share more of the results of his impressive interviewing and observation skills, and to keep his private life private.
Best Jewish Novel In A Long, Long Time.......2006-03-31
I don't understand how people can fall over themselves to sing praises of Jonathan Safran Foer and his ilk when Sam Apple clearly trumps the ever-living hell out of the supposed new Jewish literary elite. Shelpping Through The Alps draws vivid pictures, raises intense emotions, explores history and modernity, is refreshingly honest and non-pretentious, and best of all, is side-splittingly funny. I generally hate novels, but I couldn't put this one down. It's an inviting read and I invite you to read it and compare to the works of every other Jewish novelist adorning Nextbook, Guilt & Pleasure, et al. Could you honestly say you'd rather see another Everything Is Illuminated than a new book from Sam Apple? I doubt it.
A good book to schlep around.......2006-01-21
Sam Apple, a young, Jewish writer from Houston, decided to spend several weeks with Hans Breuer, a Yiddish-folksong-singing, Austrian, wandering shepherd. This books tells of his visit. We learn about Hans's personal history, and how he came to his most unusual occupation. We also learn quite a bit about anti-Semitism in Austria, both historical and present-day. Both of these are fascinating topics. Whether you enjoy this book will depend on whether you also find interesting its third topic, which is Apple's own rather extensive neuroses.
This book has at least two major strengths. First, the topic itself is certainly fresh. I, for one, have never before read a book about anti-Semitism and modern shepherding. And second, it is very funny. Apple has a number of amusing adventures, and he never hesitates to use self-deprecating humor.
I enjoyed this book very much. I felt its focus was a bit too varied--I had a hard time shifting from discussions of Nazi atrocities to descriptions of Apple's sex life. Also, I finished the book without truly feeling that I understand Hans Breuer very well. Nevertheless, I do recommend it, both for its entertainment value and for its educational value.
Book Description
A fascinating history of the Jews, told by a master novelist, here is Chaim Potok's fascinating, moving four thousand-year history. Recreating great historical events, exporing Jewish life in its infinite variety and in many eras and places, here is a unique work by a singular Jewish voice.
Customer Reviews:
Brilliant and engaging, even page-turning, overview of the history of the Jews and Judaism.......2007-08-15
"Each time the light returns and we are able to see the new world that has been created on the ruins of the old, we discover familiar elements of the overthrown civilization in the creativity of the new" (p. 379). Although specifically referring in this passage to those Germanic tribes who conquered and assimilated the Roman empire, this comment is a succinct encapsulation of Potok's larger narrative about the Jewish people. *Wanderings* demonstrates that the history of the Jews and of Judaism is a palimpsest in which the central theme of covenant relationship with God has been regularly reinvented, overthrown as it were and creatively reconstructed, so that it may maintain its relevance in a changing world.
For those of us whose knowledge of the Jewish people and the religion of Judaism effectively begins with "Genesis" and ends with "Malachi," this book is indispensable. It seems equally indispensable for those raised within contemporary Jewry who wrestle, like Jacob, to reconcile the idea of a God who operates in history through his chosen people with a reality that is multi-faith and often seemingly without purpose. It does not hurt that Potok, an acclaimed novelist as well as an ordained rabbi, infuses his historical narrative with a pace and lyrical grace more in keeping with an epic novel than a work of nonfiction.
Potok's narrative begins, in a manner similar to contemporary accounts, with those first great Mesopotamian civilizations, Sumer and Akkad. Against this background of cuneiform and clay, Bronze Age technology, extraordinary civilizational creativity, and the constant threats of catastrophic flood and drought, wanders Abraham of Ur, first of the Hebrew patriarchs. Even in the earliest recorded tales of this wanderer and his descendants, we are told, "the basic themes of the Hebrew Bible-covenant, liberation, redemption; the search for insight into a world assumed to be meaningful-remain essentially the same..." (P. 40) . The wandering tribes descended from Abraham-called Hapirus-mingled with their new Canaanite (aka Phoenician) neighbors; slowly made their way into the Black Land of the Nile to escape famine; were enslaved by the native Egyptians when their Semitic relatives, the Hyksos, were driven from the pharaoh's throne; were liberated when one of their own, a man named Moses, received a call from their God; returned to the land of Canaan, their "Promised Land," with the goal of conquest; established a kingdom under Saul, and then the shepherd boy David; built a magnificent temple under the reign of David's son Solomon; watched all these accomplishments fade under one weak and corrupt king after another; and finally found themselves taken captive by the Babylonians. In short, we follow the rise and fall of the first great Jewish civilization, all while keeping in sight the religious thread that connects these victories and calamities. "The Israelites saw each of these crucial encounters between God and man through the filtering vision of covenant relationships" (p. 141). While all of these stories are familiar to those who have read the Old Testament, Potok ingeniously retells them with a novelist's sensibility and a scholar's insight, making the oftentimes two-dimensional characters of scripture come to life and resonate with the contemporary reader.
The Babylonian captivity was not the end of the Jewish people or their religion, although that is all too often assumed by those whose only knowledge of the Jews and Judaism comes from the Christian Bible. Instead, those who were allowed to return to their homeland after almost a century in captivity began the slow transition to the second great Jewish civilization, that of Rabbinic Judaism. Potok discusses the influences of Greek philosophy and Roman political domination on Jewish thought and practice; the origins of the conservative Sadducees and liberal Pharisees; the destruction of the Temple and, later, of Jerusalem by the Romans; the expulsion of the Jews from Judea; the creation of the Talmud in Palestine and Babylon; the high Sephardic civilization of Al-Andalus in Muslim Spain; the difficulties and discrimination faced by Jews on the margins of Christendom; and the ultimate unraveling of the 1,500-year old rabbinical civilization with the coming of the Enlightenment. All along the journey, Potok discusses the regular reinvention of what it means to be one of God's chosen people: from the early days of the doctrine of dual Torah and the Pharisaic emphasis on ethics; to the Kabbalistic notion that keeping God's commandments is a way of restoring the cosmos to its original sacred integrity; to Isaac Luria's conception of God sharing Israel's exile in the process of creation; to the joyous celebration of life itself expounded by the founder of Hasidism, the Baal Shem Tov; to the Enlightenment's questioning of the very need for a sense of Jewish identity.
In short, *Wanderings*, in brilliant and engaging, even page-turning, prose, reveals Judaism to be a dynamic and fluid faith whose drive to find meaning in the world and willingness to change even that which seems most essential has allowed it to survive, and even to thrive, on the margins of civilizations whose views of the Jewish people have vacillated between begrudging respect to genocidal hatred. This book (I almost wrote "novel") is a remarkable achievement.
Comprehensive historic account.......2007-03-05
In this work, Potok outlines the narrative of Jewish history against the canvas of world history. The Jewish people have influenced and been influenced by the world in equal measure.
Book One outlines the struggle of the Hebrew Nation, against the backdrop of ancient paganism. He discusses the Sumerian civilization in Mesopotamia, before introducing Abraham, the patriarch of the Hebrew Nation, who migrated from Ur in southern Mesopotamia, to Canaan, as recorded in the Biblical narrative.
Each chapter explains the history of the dominant civilization of the time, in which the struggles and contributions of the Nation of Israel took place, before describing the role played by the Jews and their specific history. There are chapters on the struggles of the Jews under the Mesopotamian , Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman and Islamic Empires, and the long exile of a large portion of the Jewish people in Christian Europe.
There is other ancient documentation, as sources for the ancient history of Israel, describing how the word 'Hapiru' was first used in Egyptian records during the reign of Amenhotep II, who ruled Egypt from about 1440 to 1415 BCE.
Much of this epic account deals with the unique contribution of the Jewish people to world civilization. Hence we discover that the Biblical recognition of a slave as an individual with rights, though he still lacks the status of a free man, has no parallel in the laws of Mesopotamia or any other ancient civilization, and was indeed a Judaic initiative.
Egyptian accounts record the presence of the Israelites in Canaan, around the year 1220 BCE.
The town of Shechem (now called Nablus by the Arabs) is nowhere claimed to have been conquered by the Israelites under Joshuah, and was most likely a Hebrew enclave all through the centuries of the enslavement in Egypt.
One's attitude to the Jews and Israel is a very good litmus test for the character of people, entities and nations.
In some instances, their general actions have preceded their actions against the Jews, and in other instances what has begun with the Jews has not ended with them.
A foretaste of the cultural genoicide of the Moslem Arabs, against the cultures of lands they invaded, was the burning of the ancient libararies of Alexandria, Egypt by Arab Moslem invaders in 647 CE, described by the author.
The Land of Israel retained a Jewish majority long after the destruction of the Second Temple, by the Romans in 70 CE, and probabely until the Arab invasion of the Land of Israel in 634 CE. Like all the lands that came under the Arab Moslem domination, attempts were made by the Arab Moslem invaders to eradicate all presence of the indigenous cultures.
Hence on the site of the Temple Mount of Jerusalem, the holiest site in Judaism, the Moslems erected the Dome of the Golden Rock, in 691 CE.
The author explains the roots of Christian and Islamic anti-semitism, and the massacres that took place against Jews, during the crusades, across Europe through the ages, the horrific genocide of Jewish communities in Eastern Europe, by the marauding Cossacks of Bogdan Chmielnicki, in 1648 and the Kishinev massacre of Jews in 1905.
The Chmielnicki massacre is recounted by a letter written during that period about the capture of some Jewish towns by the Cossacks: "They slaughtered eight hundred noblemen, together with their wives and children as well as seven hundred Jews, also with their wives and children. Some were cut into pieces, others were ordered to dig graves into which Jewish women and children were thrown and buried alive. Jews were given rifles and ordered to kill each other."
The author also discusses the numerous repeated blood libels and accusation of host desecration: "Mystery plays depicted the Jews as Christ killers, demonic allies of Satan, and blood-sucking moneylenders".-libels being repeated under new guises in the early 21st century, in the climate of the new anti-semitism-vicious anti-Israel hate and hysteria.
The book details the life of Jews in exile in mediaeval Spain, Italy, Germany and Eastern Europe. We learn about great Jewish thinkers and writers like Judah HaLevi, Abraham Ibn Ezra, Ben of Tudela, and the great religious influences of such luminaries as the Baal Shem Tov the Vilna Gaon, and Moses Mendehlson.
The final chapter deals with the blight of Secularism on the Jewish people. The author aptly describes secular humanism (or modern paganism) as thus:"
It is probabely the most creative, the most liberated, the wealthiest, most dehumanizing and most murdeous civilization in the history of our species. Among those who suffered the most from it's excesses is the Jew. Ironically Jews helped to mould this civilization"
Most secular humanists today display the most breathtaking hypocrisy on issues such as human rights, especially under it's offshoot-the cult of political correctness.
Under the enlightenment a new form of anti-semitism came into being, shaped by the likes of Voltaire and Karl Marx-the mother of the new anti-semitism of today, prevalent at university campuses , media houses and leftist NGOs.
Finally the author writes about the founders of modern Zionism the return of Jews to the Land of Israel, and the struggle for the rebirth of a Jewish State.
It is inpiring to read of Herzl's journey to the Land of Israel in 1898: "Beneath the hot Medittaranean sun he was greeted by Jews who established the new settlements in the land. He saw tanned Jewish children, and men at ease on galloping horses. He saw groves of trees and new houses and grass on sand dunes..."
Potok deals too briefly with the subjects of the Holocaust and the rebirth of the Jewish Nation, with the refoundation of the State of Israel.
But he succeeds in putting across how Israel is a warmth for Jews, everywhere , how we fear for her, tremble when her people are hurt and support her.
The world lost a third of it's Jewish population during the Holocaust, and now almost half of world Jewry live in Israel (including hundreds of thousands of the descendants of holocaust survivors). The survival of Israel is the survival of the Jewish people.
Great Book.......2006-12-31
I really enjoyed this book. Chaim really hits the nail right on the head. So elloquent and educated, a great story teller.
The Narrative wanders also.......2006-11-02
This is one of two historical works written by the great Jewish novelist Chaim Potok. While Potok's novels are wonderful, his writing style oddly doesn't lead itself to the writing of history. This book is perhaps the lesser of the two non-fiction works he wrote: the text meanders all over the place, spending 15-20 pages on digressions that have nothing to do with the main story that he's relating. At times, it's very tedious.
Potok's main point seems to be his pride in the Jews for maintaining their faith, and to a lesser extent their culture, through all of their tribulations. I salute him for that: Judaism, after all, really has been through the wringer, and for the most part Jews are a peaceful people who only want to be left alone. I'm afraid that this didn't make up for enough of the rest of the book for me, so that it loses two stars. I only regard it well provisionally: it took me much longer to read than I think it should have.
I would only recommend this book to those interested in the subject, and warn them about the prose and style and other oddities of the narrative.
the KEY that unravels much of world history, i.e., the perennial conflict between FAITH & REASON.......2006-04-30
WANDERINGS (a history of the Jews) by Chaim Potok
It was Mark Twain's quotes, that acquainted me with the stunning fact that Jews constitute only a tiny percentage of the world's population, yet they constitute by far the majority of the world's genius. What was clear to me at the time, was that Jews celebrated FAMILY, of which I had none when growing up in a public institution. I wanted that very badly.
Other elements of Judaism stand out to me:
1. At the core of Judaism is the idea of GOD.
2. Jews do not "teach" HATE
Potok's clarification of the perennial conflict between FAITH & REASON, made sense of all the ideological conflicts in world history. [The Alcoholics Anonymous "BIG BOOK" contains this clarification also, which I think is cute.] Potok shows how the two great cultures of civilized history, the Greek & the Hebrew, have evolved in the context of what some philosophers have termed "The Great Dichotomy" or "The Eternal Duad". The Greeks perfected REASON, which eventually codifies in the body of knowledge known to us as SCIENCE. The Jews perfected FAITH, which eventually codifies in the general idea of religion and metaphysics.
Whereas in fact there are grey areas where Greek & Hebrew culture create a philosophical common ground [both cultures embraced the idea of "soul"] ....the ideological divisions come down to us even today, such that the conflict between FAITH & REASON manifests in two common conflicts, which are now recognized by everyone.
(1)
The conflict concerning ABORTION, which articulates a conflict between Science and Religion
(2)
The conflict concerning Evolutionary Theory and it's teaching in public schools, which also articulates a conflict between Science and Religion
When our foggy minds clear, and we understand this, we finally come to know what Solomon meant when he says, in Ecclesiastes, that "...there is nothing new under the sun". There are no NEW ideas in conflict in our world, but OLD ideas dressed up and offered again and again in perennial conflict.
Whereas there will always be those who, in their wisdom, HARMONIZE the distinct spheres of SCIENCE & FAITH, there will always be those who see the world in extremes of a BLACK and WHITE dichotomy. It does us no earthly good, to deny that some of humanity cannot resolve or balance the two KEY elements of our nature, the physical & spiritual, and who always seem to offer up an ALL or NOTHING model for human understanding.
I would venture to say that the Jews were the people who first stopped running from reality, merely because of persecution. All nations have suffered invasion and conquest, but the Jews have endured it better than anybody.
We, in our personal lives, must learn to stop running from reality also. There comes a time when individuals, like nations, must hold themselves accountable for what they say, and what they do.
I went on to read Potok's novels:
"My Name is Asher Lev" and "The Chosen"
Both of which I can recommend as well.
Book Description
Book is author's personal account of physical remains of vanished Jewish communities in Spain. Beginning with brief summary of history of Spanish Jewry, chapters that follow deal with 25 pre-Expulsion Jewish communities. Holy Office of Inquisition and Expulsion in 1492 part of "legal process" harking back to Visigoth era (5th C.E.) when Jews were forcibly separated from both pagans and Christians. Ultimate purpose was extermination.
Has value as guide book for tourists, esp. Jewish tourists. 187 illustrations included are author's creation.
Customer Reviews:
English review of Sepharad Aljamas.......2006-11-13
I am very pleased with this product as I have the Spanish "Caminos de Sefarad" that is very good. I live in Spain and am Sephardic. The English version is older but still gives a good idea of where the Aljamas used to be. Sometimes the authors' pessimism came through the text (understandable really) but English readers can get a good idea of where to go to "feel" the one time Jewish presence in Spain.
A Masterpiece of Jewish History in Spain.......2003-10-14
Dr. Markman is a wonderful writer and photographer. Remnants is a must have for anyone interested in either Jewish history or Spanish History. The illustrations are superb and his storytelling is a knowledgeable account of Jews in Spain. A great supplement to tour books as well.
Average customer rating:
- Classic Novel of French Socialist Writing
- An amazing story, but is it true?
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The Wandering Jew (European Classics)
Eugene Sue
Manufacturer: Dedalus Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 19th Century
| British
| World Literature
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
| Classics
| Comic
| Contemporary
| Literary
ASIN: 0946626332 |
Download Description
Christ's charge of â€~Verily, thou shalt go on till the day of thy redemption.." begins this sweeping historical fiction; a classic that brought Eugene Sue world renown when first publised in the 1800's.
Customer Reviews:
Classic Novel of French Socialist Writing.......2003-11-13
Written in 1845, just 3 years before revolutions swept Europe, this 887 page five volume novel is a classic piece of French socialist writing that has been swept under the rug of history. It was originally serialized in a French newspaper and created quite a stir with its strong positions on women's rights, worker communes, and anticlericalism.
I originally started to read this book because I was interested in the legend of the wandering Jew. This is a mythical person cursed to live forever and wander without rest because he refused Jesus a place to rest as He carried His cross to Calvary. Although the wandering Jew and his equally long-lived sister Herodias, who gained her longevity because of her involvement in the death of John the Baptist, make occasional appearances in the book, the story is really about the heirs of Herodias, seven members of the Rennepont family. So if you are seeking a work on the legend of the wandering Jew, I recommend you do not read this book.
The Rennepont family lost their position and most of their wealth during the French persecution of the Protestants. What was left of the Rennepont fortune was entrusted for 150 years to a Jewish banker and his heirs who were loyal to the family. Over the course of time through wise investments, the small inheritance was carefully nurtured into a fortune.
Any surviving members of the Rennepont family were directed to meet at a certain address in Paris in 1832 by bronze medallions cast in 1682 that have been passed down from generation to generation. Those present on the given date will divide the inheritance. This book is the story of the seven members of the family left at this time. They are Jacques Rennepont, a Parisian workman who favors drinking and the wild life; Francis Hardy, an enlightened industrialist who has built communal living quarters for his happy workers; Rose and Blanche Simon, twin teens who travel with an old soldier from Siberia where their mother has just died to Paris; Adrienne de Cardoville, a beautiful and independent-minded woman of means; Abbe Gabriel, an orphan who has been raised by the Jesuits, and Djalma, an Indian prince.
Two Jesuits and a female accomplice have devised a plan to keep the Renneponts from their inheritance and to claim it for the The Society of Jesus. They hope to obtain the fortune to secure their futures and pay for the rehabilitation of the Order.
The story moves from one cliffhanger to another throughout the book as the struggle between the family and the two Jesuits unfolds. The Perils of Pauline and A Series of Unfortunate Events come to mind as contemporary stories with similar plot devices. This structure is a byproduct of the newspaper serialization. However, Eugene Sue is a master of his craft and he develops the various subplots with great skill. Characters are well-developed and scenes are vividly described. It is sad that this book has been out of print for so long. A new edition with a modern translation would be a great literary treat.
An amazing story, but is it true?.......1999-07-10
The favorite novel of Lew Wallace who wrote Ben-Hur, it inspired him to write The Prince of India, his own version of the tale. Now in a new book, entitled MAL TEMPO, available from Amazon, you can read the story behind the story of the Eternal Wanderer!
Average customer rating:
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The Wandering Jew Part Three
Eugene Sue
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
Contemporary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Literary
| General
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Historical
| Genre Fiction
| Literature & Fiction
| Subjects
| Books
Similar Items:
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Wandering Jew
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The Wandering Jew, Vol. 1
ASIN: 0766197387 |
Book Description
1844. Volume III of III. Sue, who was trained as both a physician and seaman, achieved his greatest fame as a writer of novels and worldwide renown with the publication of The Wandering Jew. He went into exile when Napoleon III came into power. The Wandering Jew was first serialized in the French magazine, Le Constitutionel, in 169 installments. The themes of the novel made it a socialist icon in its time. This sweeping historical fiction is about the Rennepont family. During the French persecution of the Protestants they lost their position and most of their wealth. What remained was entrusted to a Jewish Banker and his heirs for 150 years. Through their wise investments the small inheritance grew into a fortune. In 1832 the surviving members of the Rennepont family were called to an address in Paris. Those present would divide the fortune among them. There were seven members remaining. They are Jacques Rennepont, a Parisian workman who favors drinking and the wild life; Francis Hardy, an enlightened industrialist who has built communal living quarters for his happy workers; Rose and Blanche Simon, twin teens who travel with an old soldier from Siberia where their mother has just died in Paris; Adrienne de Cardoville, a beautiful and independent-minded woman of means; Abbe Gabriel, an orphan who has been raised by the Jesuits, and Djalma, an Indian prince. Now, enter two Jesuits and their female accomplice who have devised a plan to keep the family from their inheritance and to claim it for The Society of Jesus. The rest of the book describes the struggle between the family and the Jesuits. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Volume 1 ISBN 0766197360, Volume 2 ISBN 0766197379.
Book Description
This monumental work has been called a novelized story of civilization. The Wandering Jew is a cosmic symbol—he is man, he is woman, he is sex, he is history, he is life itself. Continuously in print since 1928, this is the millenium edition.
Customer Reviews:
Wonderful read.......2007-02-15
It's been 20 years since I last read this book, and I've read literally hundreds of books since, but this book has stayed with me, and I am very glad to have found it again. This is one of those books that, when you loan it out, it NEVER comes back. It's history, science fiction, mythology, philosophy and religious thought all rolled into one wonderful read.
A Fictional Rendering of a Christian Legend.......2005-01-06
This is the story of Cartaphilus, the wandering Jew, who begins his life in the holy land of Jerusalem over two thousand years ago during the time of Jesus Christ. A Hebrew man turned Roman solider, childhood friends with Mary Magdalene and the beloved apostle John, Cartaphilus refuses to join his friends and follow this new and rebellious prophet. Although he loves Mary and John more than life itself, and despite their pleads to accept Jesus and his teachings, he remains steadfast in his convictions that Jesus is no more than a clever magi, a false prophet, jealous perhaps, that this man has taken away the two people he loves most in the world. Cartaphilus attends the trial of Jesus as Pontius Pilate hands the final judgement to the crowd, where the crowd unanimously call for the crucifixion of the "King of the Jews". As Jesus carries the cross to the Place of Skulls and falls for the third time, Cartaphilus calls out and mocks him. Jesus lifts his head, looks at Cartaphilus direct in the eyes, and utters:
"I will go, but thou shalt tarry until I return."
Thus begins this man's immortal journey through two thousand years of history, tirelessly searching, attempting to find the meaning of his existence, protesting constantly at his plight, escaping torture and death, witnessing hundreds of religions and great civilizations rise and crumble, though the central thread of his long existence remains constant - his search for the truth.
Most would agree that the Christian legend of Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew, is a metaphor, some would go as far as to say, a cosmic symbol, of the plight of humankind. Cartaphilus asks the same questions we all ask at one time or another. He recognizes the absurdity and humour of our lives on earth - our suffering, constantly seeking happiness, our search for the divine, our confusion over life's many contradictions, the great love and the great evils that appear to live side by side. Is life merely an illusion, a sadistic trick played on us by some mischievous god? Does our existence abruptly end at death or do we continue on in some other form? As Cartaphilus moves through the centuries, he recognises people, friends and lovers that lived before in other guises, only to come back to him again. He asks, is existence merely circular, recurring again and again? These are profound questions that the cursed one, made to tarry the earth until Christ's return, attempts to answer throughout the ages.
Throughout Cartaphilus' journey, we meet great historical personages such as Marcus Aurelius, Nero, Attila the Hun, and Mohammed, Leonardo da Vinci, Spinoza, Peter the Great and many others. One becomes so immersed in this intriguing narrative that these historical figures truly come to life. In the end, however, does Cartaphilus finally make peace with Jesus?
The great German writer Thomas Mann, called this novel, "Audacious and magnificent." I would have to say that it is the most original novel, encompassing religion, philosophy, history, and psychology, et al, which has ever been written.
top 100 novel on the subject of the Wandering Jew & Jewess.......2003-02-11
THE WANDERING JEW AND WANDERING JEWESS?
AHASVER CD-ROM ISBN 1895507901 (SALE)! "THE JEW" (I-IIII):
"...Audacious and magnificent." "The book is in both substance and method of the highest originality; it is both fascinating and brilliant; the historic pageant is unrolled with a colorfulness and clearness that astonish me. And I am delighted too by the play of implicit wit, the quaint malice of the innuendos, the symbolic pattern sustained throughout." "...fascinatingly interesting and instructive...very ingenious conception and treatment of the various psychological and philosophical themes...I am particularly impressed with your ingenious way of presenting the various phases of psycho-sexuality....A great work." "It is a remarkably interesting idea to present the pageant of the World as it unfolded before the eyes of the same man during two thousand years. Also, to keep him a young man instead of a doddering grey-beard. It is like reading a series of entrancing short stories with the added interest of logical sequence. Their erudition is amazing, and it is presented in a manner that lures one on-and-on, as well as inducing the pleasant belief that one is learning something really worthwhile. It is a big thing to have attempted, and as far as I have gone there is certainly nothing to cavil at." "The book is gorgeous in its epigram and cold satire. It is one of the most brilliant books of sophisticated World-wisdom ever written. It sums up the case of intelligence against life. Isaac Laquedem is the Ulysses of your brain." "`My First Two Thousand Years' looks to me like a big thing." "Instead of leaving the reader stimulated, this would-be entertaining and philosophic tome leaves you prostrated...quality-of-life, so difficult to define to any healthy piece of literature, is absent." "The story captures the reader's interest in the beginning, holding it enthralled through every short chapter to the very end of five hundred and one pages. This number is significant. It recalls those gentle tales of one thousand and one nights." "The halfpenny cynicism in which the authors revel is the type resulting from protracted adolescence. The greatest mystery of it all is that the authors if not their book comes recommended, however guardedly, by no less than Sigmund Freud, George Bernard Shaw, and Havelock Ellis." "`My First Two Thousand Years' has occasional defects, but, out-weighing these, are pages of beauty, clearly seen and transcribed; and chapters of adroit and smiling satire...throughout there persists the restless reach of man toward a forever elusive finality." "This is in may respects and astonishing book, and in all respects one that deserves attention." "Cartaphilus's speculations and comprehensions about life, as without growing older, watching others grow old and idle; his amatory experiences, his judgments of great men of history, his increasing self-knoledge...all these give the book substance and intellectual stimulation, as well as very occasional brilliance. But in no major sense does the book triumph over its inherent difficulties. It is not history surveyed from high philosophical peaks, but history regarded by two intelligent minds. It is all human experience collected and annotated, but not interpreted with any profundity. So is its irony without depth, and its wit without freshness." You would think that anyone might, in two thousand years, grow weary of tryingto solve the riddle of life through sexual orgies, especially if, along about the middle of the fourth century of it, a Chinese adept has taught him two hundred and eighty secrets of love. But not Cartaphilus...undeniably an eenormous achievement." "...a work that must not be measured by ordinary standards....It will be read and thoroughly enjoyed by any lover of good fiction no less than by him who has a preferment for history and biography." "...As a work of creative imagination, Viereck and Eldridge have written a fascinatingly unique and alluring story. It is done with a spareness of words that sometimes approaches the beauty of the Greeks....In summing up the book...it is the story you remember." "...an unusually good story...some readers will detect a slight suspicion of Kraft-Ebbing; our respectable ancestors would have burned the book -- and perhaps the authors -- with a clear conscience. But a good many moderns will read it with enthusiasm." "...too colossal, too powerful, too broad in scope to be tarnished by the tired adjectives of reviewers....No detail is left untold; no intimacy is too delicate to go unrelated....A great work."
With fascinating social commentaries.......2001-08-09
George Sylvester Viereck (1884-1962) was a German-born poet and novelist. Paul Eldridge (1888-1982) was a poet and authored a number of plays and essays. In My First Two Thousand Years: The Autobiography Of The Wandering Jew, Viereck and Eldridge collaborated to write an impressive, 512 page novel that purports to be the story personal story of Cartaphilius (alias Isaac Laquedem), a young man who was the "wandering jew" of ancient myth. An elegant and immortal young man, his "autobiography" provides us with portraits of Salome, Jesus, Mary Magdalen, Nero, Attila, Mohammed, Don Juan, Leonardo da Vinci, Pope Alexander, Rothschild, Spinoza, Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Lenin, Mussolini, and other historical figures. All intertwined with fascinating social commentaries, philosophic observations, as well as history and science based episodes with a new perspective through which we can view them. My First Two Thousand Years is an original and enduring work of literary substance that a whole new generation of readers can now discover with enthusiasm and appreciation.
Celebrates the story of love through Time and Space........1999-09-12
Viereck, later a propagandist in the Nazi Regime, corresponded with Albert Einstein, incorporating the nature of relativity to the story of mankind, using the extra-scriptural legendary characters, the Wandering Jew (Isaac Lakedam) searching the earth for his female counterpart, the Wandering Jewess (Salome) who is similarly cursed to dance forever, for having asked for the head of John the Baptist to be served upon a silver platter. The specific expression of their version as a novel makes for enlightening and fascinating reading on the nature of historical events through the past two milleniums. Please enjoy watching the movie!
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The Wandering Jew
Eugene Sue
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0766197360 |
Book Description
1844. Volume I of III. Sue, who was trained as both a physician and seaman, achieved his greatest fame as a writer of novels and worldwide renown with the publication of The Wandering Jew. He went into exile when Napoleon III came into power. The Wandering Jew was first serialized in the French magazine, Le Constitutionel, in 169 installments. The themes of the novel made it a socialist icon in its time. This sweeping historical fiction is about the Rennepont family. During the French persecution of the Protestants they lost their position and most of their wealth. What remained was entrusted to a Jewish Banker and his heirs for 150 years. Through their wise investments the small inheritance grew into a fortune. In 1832 the surviving members of the Rennepont family were called to an address in Paris. Those present would divide the fortune among them. There were seven members remaining. They are Jacques Rennepont, a Parisian workman who favors drinking and the wild life; Francis Hardy, an enlightened industrialist who has built communal living quarters for his happy workers; Rose and Blanche Simon, twin teens who travel with an old soldier from Siberia where their mother has just died in Paris; Adrienne de Cardoville, a beautiful and independent-minded woman of means; Abbe Gabriel, an orphan who has been raised by the Jesuits, and Djalma, an Indian prince. Now, enter two Jesuits and their female accomplice who have devised a plan to keep the family from their inheritance and to claim it for The Society of Jesus. The rest of the book describes the struggle between the family and the Jesuits. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Volume 2 ISBN 00766197379, Volume 3 ISBN 0766197387.
Amazon.com
As a journalist, Joseph Roth's greatest strength, and perhaps his greatest weakness, was his self-professed love for his subjects. Roth, who is best known for his novels (particularly The Radetzky March), was the star journalist for the Frankfurter Zeitung in the early 1920s, when he began writing stories that led to The Wandering Jews. This book, newly translated by Michael Hofmann, is a masterpiece of literary journalism whose political prescience (regarding tensions between Eastern and Western Jews and the too-easy consolations of assimilation) is grounded in eclectic character studies (of, for instance, Parisian elites, a carnival performer from Radziwillow, a dock worker in Odessa). In an age of idea-driven journalism, when stories are often tailored to prove a writer's pre-existing thesis, Roth's lovingly inductive reasoning is refreshing. And his aphoristic insights are as spontaneous as they are circumspect. ("When a catastrophe occurs, people on hand are shocked into helpfulness.") The statement that best summarizes Roth's belief about the unalterable fate of the Jews also epitomizes the polished spontaneity of his style: Roth writes that wandering is "a tribulation that is appropriate to all Jews, and to all others besides. Lest we forget that nothing in this world endures, not even a home; and that our life is short, shorter even than the life of the elephant, the crocodile, and the crow. Even the parrots outlive us." --Michael Joseph Gross
Book Description
The classic portrait of a vanished people. Every few decades a book is published that shapes Jewish consciousness. One thinks of Wiesel's Night or Levi's Survival in Auschwitz. But in 1927, years before these works were written, Joseph Roth (1894-1939) composed The Wandering Jews. In these stunning dispatches written when Roth was a correspondent in Berlin during the whirlwind period of Weimar Germany, he warned of the false comforts of Jewish assimilation, laid bare the schism between Eastern and Western Jews, and at times prophesied the horrors posed by Nazism. The Wandering Jews remains as vital today as when it was first published.
Customer Reviews:
The Fears of 1937 Were Realized Sooner than Roth Thought.......2007-01-09
This book was a paen by a 'civilized (read westernized)' Jew on the cusp of WW2 and the holocaust. Roth travelled in most of post-WW1 Eastern Europe to learn the plight of his Jewish compatriots. In the original edition (written in 1926) he speaks of Eastern European Jews (mostly those of Galicia and the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires) being able to find freedom of conscience and a world without anti-semitism by moving to the West. Unfortunately, by the West he meant Germany.
In the epilogue of the 1937 edition (which he wrote from self-exile in Paris) he takes the "New Germany" to task for the treatment of the Jews. He make major points as to the failure of the League of Nations to protect the Versailles Treaty 'national minorities' and specifically the treatment of DPs (displaced persons, people literally without a country). He makes the point that animals are protected in most countries better than Jews and DPs.
He is prescient when he speaks of an 'impending disaster' and seems to presage 'donor burnout'. He tells how right after a calamity, everyone seems to want to pitch in, but after awhile, except for a few philantropists, everyone pretty much wants to go back to their own lives.
This book is among the strongest statements made prior to WW2 of the approaching calamity, not just for Jews but all of Europe.
The Ostjüde Writes Back.......2005-10-12
Joseph Roth's "The Wandering Jews" is one of the best written and most important books about East European Jews ever published. At a time of growing anti-Semitism (the first edition was written in 1926 and an update was published in Paris in 1937) and an immigration crisis affecting Germany as countless refugees poured into Berlin from the East, Roth--himself a Jew from Galicia, the easternmost part of the former Austrian empire--creates a sympathetic yet clearsighted portrait of contemporary Jewish life. In the process he effectively responds to all the stereotypes and libels heaped on East European Jews. For the contemporary reader, however, what is most affecting about this portrait is Roth's ability to convey a panorama of Jewish life on the brink of destruction. Though no one (except maybe Hitler) could have predicted, even in 1937, the extent of the devastation that would be visited on European Jewry, Roth's writing in this book serves as an indelible and moving memorial to a civilization that would soon disappear forever. It must therefore count among the first books in what would now be called "Holocaust literature," and one of the most meaningful works of protest literature--protest against the stereotypes that reduced Jews to objects of scorn and contempt; protest against the violence that would ensue from these stereotypes--of all time. Michael Hofmann's understated and articulate translation of this poignant, heartbreaking little book is a tremendous service for English-language readers. It fills in a vital space in the emerging image of Joesph Roth, a writer finally receiving his due in the precincts of European modernism, and it should be read by everyone interested in good writing and the problems of 20th century history.
an elegy of love and tears, shame and foreboding.......2005-08-03
Again and again--with one neat phrase--Roth puts anxieties into words that it took others whole books to communicate, and then, only vaguely. Not even the magnificent Kafka comes close to a tidy phrase of self-condemnation such as this, referring to the deracinated Western Jew, with his "secret perversities, his cringing before the law, his well-bred hat held in his anxious hand". This statement took my breath away. So did many others in this short book throbbing with love, fear, and sadness. Roth was himself a Jew, one of the thousands who had served his "adopted 'country' " in the Great War (as so many other Jews did for so many other countries) only to have reality--eternal victimhood, eternal wandering--thrust him away, from Vienna, to Berlin, and then to Paris. Like so many educated Western Jews, he looked back to the shtetl with admiration for its nurturing of an authentic self (coupled with a faint relief at not having to live there). This tension--and its guilt-feelings--are so tidily explained in Roth, and his predictions made in the 1930's so chilling--that I jumped almost with relief on his touting the Soviet Union as a better place for Jews. Ah...but an afterward to the second edition contains Roth's warning that things in the USSR have changed, and perhaps his enthusiasm was misplaced...
Then, reader, I cried uncle. Joseph Roth was perfect. Anger and love mix with poetry and humility. He neither rolls in the mud of guilt, nor clutches an ideology through all contrary evidence. Instead, he sings Kaddish for a people gone, a people authentic and pure and of, as Kafka said, "the prayer shawl, now flying away from us..."
A fine book.......2001-07-16
This book, like a more recent one by WG Sebald, The Emigrants, gives a speaking, stunningly well-written account of what it was like to be a Jew in central Europe in the first half of the 20th century. But it is a book that would fascinate anybody, even a deracinated Irishman like me.
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