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A highly Academic comedy in which the caricatures of a hedonistic most literal of all Zionists is invited to interview at a backwoods school for a history position, and the only Jew Americanist is required to subject himself (by way of cajoling from the institution) to being on the committee reviewing the application, as well as the actual hosting of the ideologically opposed, perhaps soon-to-be colleague.
While most of the humour comes from the conception—at least for me—it does dip into absurdism. Predominately to accentuate how even in the 1950s campus life had similar polarization of politics and how revisionists were well and truly spotted back then. Given what we now know about the now normalized, once actually absurd revisionist movement the absurd individual that is the Netanyahus absolutely are, pioneering the Israeli state—the fact that this anecdote from Harold Bloom’s life is itself undergone revisionist history in the form of this book, revising the father of revisionism while also subtly (most of the time) showing the do-nothing attitudes leading to that end goal as forgone, but also the anti-semitism steeped in that movement aimed at any Jewish peoples against the movement, is really pretty deft. And where the humour primarily stems from.
Now, this said, there’s also just wild events that occur to make it clear that no character is depicted fairly remotely to reality, other than their ideology. There’s no slip-sliding on that front. That makes it particularly biting while retaining the low brow wit that breaks tension. Heck, even whether or not a particularly funny sex scene takes place is answered with a plumb, if you infer, in the credits and more credits section.
Had I been more into the text. By that I mean, educated on the subjects it speaks intelligently about, I think I’d probably have gotten much more out of it. But the strength of the writing propelled me anyway. And there is, quite literally, a history lesson. The prose do weaken somewhat when it shifts to the framing of the actual arrival of the Netanyahus though. Our man is less razor sharp and playful with diction, which was the primarily enjoyment until I skated to what made this piece funny at a structural, conceptual level.
Especially because the formatting is fairly academic as well: Thick, meaty paragraphs that can go on for pages glide much faster in the first third of the book. The more granular it gets with history, and you have to really hunker down to internalize it, it does creep to a crawl. Will not be to everyone’s taste.
In that way it might be a deft slight of hand, shifting to that. But I think I’d prefer have had the voice maintain throughout. Combined with the niche quality of the high brow humour, it’s probably not got much of a chance to blow me away. Even to a layman, however, very enjoyable.
While most of the humour comes from the conception—at least for me—it does dip into absurdism. Predominately to accentuate how even in the 1950s campus life had similar polarization of politics and how revisionists were well and truly spotted back then. Given what we now know about the now normalized, once actually absurd revisionist movement the absurd individual that is the Netanyahus absolutely are, pioneering the Israeli state—the fact that this anecdote from Harold Bloom’s life is itself undergone revisionist history in the form of this book, revising the father of revisionism while also subtly (most of the time) showing the do-nothing attitudes leading to that end goal as forgone, but also the anti-semitism steeped in that movement aimed at any Jewish peoples against the movement, is really pretty deft. And where the humour primarily stems from.
Now, this said, there’s also just wild events that occur to make it clear that no character is depicted fairly remotely to reality, other than their ideology. There’s no slip-sliding on that front. That makes it particularly biting while retaining the low brow wit that breaks tension. Heck, even whether or not a particularly funny sex scene takes place is answered with a plumb, if you infer, in the credits and more credits section.
Had I been more into the text. By that I mean, educated on the subjects it speaks intelligently about, I think I’d probably have gotten much more out of it. But the strength of the writing propelled me anyway. And there is, quite literally, a history lesson. The prose do weaken somewhat when it shifts to the framing of the actual arrival of the Netanyahus though. Our man is less razor sharp and playful with diction, which was the primarily enjoyment until I skated to what made this piece funny at a structural, conceptual level.
Especially because the formatting is fairly academic as well: Thick, meaty paragraphs that can go on for pages glide much faster in the first third of the book. The more granular it gets with history, and you have to really hunker down to internalize it, it does creep to a crawl. Will not be to everyone’s taste.
In that way it might be a deft slight of hand, shifting to that. But I think I’d prefer have had the voice maintain throughout. Combined with the niche quality of the high brow humour, it’s probably not got much of a chance to blow me away. Even to a layman, however, very enjoyable.