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Not My Kind of Novel Dec 11, 2005 (31 of 55 found this helpful)
In a sense, it's sort of silly to try and write anything useful about a book so completely hyped by critics and carefully studied (cf. New Essays on Call it Sleep), but I'm going to anyway, because I didn't like it. Now, to be totally up front, I read it under a certain amount of duress. My book group picked it, and after the first ten pages I decided I wasn't going to read it and would miss the discussion for the first time in four years. However, it happened that at the exact same time, I started a research project in which I needed to learn about Manhattan in 1916. Since that's just a year or so after when this novel is set, I realized I could kill two birds with one stone -- and so I went ahead and read it.
In hindsight, I realize that I should have skipped the introduction by Alfred Kazin which appears in my edition. It gives away almost every significant plot point and plants far too much in the reader's head -- I cannot conceive of why it wasn't the afterword. Plussing as which, it's not a great essay, even a light skim of it will reveal at least one logical flaw and a total misreading of a scene from the book. So, skip the introduction until after you've read the story. And that story is basically the heavily autobiographical inner life of a emotionally damaged 8-year-old Jewish kid in a rapidly modernizing New York. Many like to laud this book as the best novel about the immigrant experience ever written. This seems rather a strange proposition, for while one of the central themes is certainly the boy's attempt to discover an identity in this brave new world, his circumstance is far from typical. First of all, the Jewish immigrant experience in New York is a very particular one, especially as it relates to cultural persecution in the old world and the notion of alienation and always being "the other". Trying to say the "New York Jewish immigrant experience" is representative of the "immigrant experience" in general is clearly ridiculous. Secondly, by their own choices and actions, the boy's family is almost completely cut off from their fellow immigrants, and are hardly representative. Indeed, it's almost refreshing to find a depiction of immigrants whose hardships are largely of their own making.
The boy protagonist is a particularly irksome guide to this world, as he is the ultimate mama's boy (although not without reason). One of the running menacing subplots is the question of whether or not his father is truly his biological father or not, and what exactly his mother got up to in the old country that led to her being married off to a brute of a man (elements apparently drawn from Roth's own childhood). The bulk of the book concerns the boy's horrendous struggle both to assimilate into the world around him and to decipher the spiritual world. The former is a reasonably well-told and familiar portrait of an outsider who just doesn't "get it". The latter fills the book with religious symbolism, which remained largely a mystery to me owing to my utter lack of religious education and knowledge. Clearly, readers with a strong understanding of Judaism and Christianity will certainly find plenty to chew on. The sexual realm is another running theme, and one that's treated with a great deal of angst, confusion, and negativity. This takes on an entirely different aspect if you read the book knowing that Roth, as his biographer so gently puts it, "indulged in incest" with his sister Rose (and a cousin) for several years during his early teen years. A less sugar-coated way of putting it is that he sexually abused and raped his little sister for several years... This is hardly incidental to the book, as his biographer writes: "Roth would ultimately recognize that incest was the engine that drove his composition." Roth's tortured soul comes through very clearly in his younger alter ego, and it's not a pretty sight.
The style and language used are certainly distinctive, and doubtless ma
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Great study of America, and of immigrant life in early NYC Apr 10, 2001 (21 of 29 found this helpful)
I read this book several years ago as an American Studies major at Penn State University. At first I began to read it only because it was a requirement of my major, but this quickly became one of my favorite books I've read in my studies. The story is of a young jewish boy, being brought up in a ethnically diverse New York City. It is about his grappling with his spirituality, and his perceptions of the world. One thing I learned about the Jewish culture is of its strong patriarchy, and this book shows conflicts that arise between father and son, and how a son can almost never live up to his father's expectations. The story is haunting, and the landscapes are vivid and picturesque. I also recommend a similar book, "Bread Givers", by Anzia Yezierska.
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A fully satisfying reading experience... Feb 21, 2000 (14 of 14 found this helpful)
I read this book many years ago, in college, and remember enjoying it thoroughy. I have recently heard it read (Recorded Books, Inc.) by the incomparable George Guidall, who seems to read books requiring Yiddish phrases/accents particularly well (try Stanley Elkin's "Mrs. Ted Bliss" for a hilarious and compassionate thrill).
I was not disappointed this second time around, having matured myself, both as a reader and a writer. One of the most striking aspects of the novel is Roth's obvious love of women; few novels by men present women in such a truly beloved light. David's aunt - something of a shrew, a harridan, and a slob - is nevertheless incredibly good-hearted - and alive! Now I want to know more about Henry Roth. Does anyone know if there is a biography of this great writer available? Also, I noticed that there is a book of essays about "Call It Sleep." I plan to get it.
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The Quintessential American Immigrant Experience Aug 14, 2003 (14 of 19 found this helpful)
Henry Roth's book "Call It Sleep" truly describes with great depth, feeling and emotion, the American Immigrant experience. Roth chose to use a 7 year old boy to narrate his story, thus making it more visceral and intense. Roth takes advantage of a 7 year old's state of mind and innocence, to portray the mid-childhood experience in a NY City East Side tenement ghetto.
Though Roth happened to choose a Jewish part of the ghetto to portray in his story, the true beauty and excellence of the book, is that the story could have taken place in any one of the ghettos of New York City. It can easily be generalized to the Irish immigrant experience, or the Chinese immigrant experience, or the Italian immigrant experience or virtually any other immigrant experience at that time. All of those immigrants experienced this cultural mixing and its attendant discriminations as immigrants in New York City in the 1920's and 1930's.
Roth published his book in the midst of the depression in 1934. But it came to real prominence when printed in paperback in 1964. The books true appeal is that it is universal to all Americans, except Native American Indians. All of the rest of Americans immigrated somewhere in their past. And thus, whether one be an immigrant today, or a 1st generation American or 2nd or 3rd, even if our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, we are all immigrants somewhere in our past.
Even if one's ancestors were Pilgrims, parts of Roth's book would ring true for them as well. Through the use of intricate analysis of the thoughts of Roth's main character, he portrays those innate emotions that we have all experienced, and from time to time, continue to experience.
The book is highly informative, highly emotional and highly entertaining. It reads very quickly, and is written impeccably. "Call It Sleep" is truly one book that all Americans should have in their collection.
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Very powerful book Aug 9, 2004 (12 of 12 found this helpful)
This, for me, captures the pure terror that often attends childhood, and the process of dealing with things you can't understand. It's also a brilliant evocation of the alienation of the Jewish experience-- you can't really compare it, as one of my fellow reviewers did, to the experiences of other ethnic groups. The Scherls are a family profoundly alienated from everyone else-- which serves to heighten the terror. This book is written in a stream-of-consciousness style that is really brilliant in that it is completely convincing and totally natural on the part of the author-- it never seems forced-- and in that it beautifully evokes the thought process of childhood. I read this when I was very young and it has stuck with me ever since-- it helped me to understand the feelings of my own childhood.