Ignore my last post--it's not like I was really going to be packing at 10 pm!
Peter Manseau's Songs for the Butcher's Daughter
I'm really not sure what to think about this book. I loves some parts, hated others, found some to be heartbreaking . . . It starts off with a young man working for an organization that saves Yiddish books, translating the life story of an elderly man while narrating his own life story. Or whatever. The bulk of the novel is the elder's life story--born during a pogrom in Russia (which is brutal reading), he goes to cheder and works in a goose down factory (more brutal reading) and he's in love with a girl he's never met, and then various things happen. The problem is, he's kind of an asshole through the whole thing. I really need to discuss this with a book group to get my head straight--I mean, protagonists should have some flaws, but this guy is really a dipshit in many ways. I was really into the story, don't get me wrong, but didn't like the end much, and found the whole thing to be a little too in the vein of Nicole Krauss or someone like that (and I like her writing--but it all just seems derivative after a while).
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