His first book and, of all the ones I’ve read by him, I’m sorry to say this one is easily the least impressive. Reading this when it came out, one would imagine he was a writer to watch, a writer with things to say, but this isn’t the book where he comes into his own. The story tells about the effects on a tiny, remote shtetl in Poland in the 17th century when a wave of hysteria over the claims of Sabbatai Zvi—claiming to be the messiah—were taken quite literally throughout parts of Eastern Europe. People begin to neglect or even invert their traditional religious practices and abandon their moral precepts--and soon even their daily lives--in preparation for the coming apocalypse when Zvi would lead them to salvation.I am Jewish and reasonably conversant with Jewish beliefs and liturgy and practices and although I understood many things, just as many were beyond me. I don’t know that such knowledge or familiarity is essential but this often was a difficult book for me, one that the “later” Singer, I think, would have written differently. ( )

Dense with cultural references, but hugely interesting.

The formal shift at the end of the novel makes me think something else is going on that I don't quite get . . .

I'm not fully sure what to make of it yet. ( )

(from the cover) A Powerful Novel about a False Messiah

"But it is the way of the world that in time everything reverts to what it has been."

This is one of those books where you finish it and just kind of sit back and go ...huh. I don't really know what to say about it. The writing is certainly well done. But it's...yeah I just don't know.
One thing it's not, is for the squeamish. Butchering, blood, death, beatings, rape, this is not your light reading for the faint-hearted. There is plenty of depravity of all sorts to go round.

The whole thing is very heavy, from the start. It tells the story of a small Polish town (shtetl), Goray, in the 1660s, after the Chmelnicki massacres had wiped out a large portion of the Jews/town population in 1648, and of what happens when the false messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, becomes known in the world and the town.

"Once Rechele saw two blood-smeared butcher boys skin a goat and let it lie there with eyeballs protruding in amazement and white teeth projecting in a kind of death-smile."

It's pretty much a lot of thinking "What, no, stop! Why are you doing that! Think! Be smart! What's wrong with you!" and so forth. Frustrating!

That said, it does feel realistic. People caught up in the messianic cult, in the fervor of their beliefs, tend to do pretty awful things. The mob mentality catches on quick and people forget their sense of morality. And when you've survived your town being ravaged, well, it's easy to want to believe that the Messiah has come to take you away from the bad things in the world and bring you to glorious peace and happiness. So, why not put your faith in that stranger who comes to town and says all the right things and promises you heaven, literally!

But I did have some issues. One, there was really not a single redeeming character in the book. Even the "good" ones were too flawed. So, while in a sense I wanted the town to wake up and pull through and get their act together, I really couldn't say that I gave a hoot what happened to the individual characters. I felt bad for Rabbi Benish, his last scene, especially, but, it was more about what he stood for and what the town was losing.

Also, and maybe this is just me, or that I set the book down for a couple weeks, but I had trouble keeping some of the characters straight. There were a few similar names (Nechele & Rechele?), and a lot of characters, especially for such a very short book. But it wasn't a very big deal, just a mild annoyance.

"All night the voice called to Rechele, without interruption, at times in the holy tongue, at times in Yiddish. The air thickened with smoke and a glowing, ghostly, purple light. Rechele felt the walls sundering, the ceiling dissolving, and the whole house above the clouds. Swooning with fear, she lay with inert limbs: her eyes glazed, her arms and legs distended and wooden like those of a corpse." ( )

A fabulous story of the life of a closed, isolated jewish village in the 17th century Poland. A village where everyone waits for the messiah coming but someone completely different arrives and the village's life turns upside down... ( )