The Ministry of Special Cases |
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The Ministry of Special Cases
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by Nathan Englander
Sales Rank: 35029
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List Price: $25.00
$16.50
At Amazon
on 6-2-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Hard Cover with 352 pages
Published by: Knopf April 24, 2007
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0375404937
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0375404931
Book Dimensions:
9.1 x 6.5 x 1.4 inches
Weighs: 1.4 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
[Signature]Reviewed by Allegra GoodmanYoung writers are often told to write about what they know. In his 1999 collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander spun the material of his orthodox Jewish background into marvelous fiction. But the real trick to writing about what you know is to make sure you know more as you mature. Englander's first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases, conjures a world far removed from "The Gilgul of Second Avenue." The novel is set in 1976 in Buenos Aires during Argentina's "dirty war." Kaddish Poznan, hijo de puta, son of a whore, earns a meager living defacing gravestones of Jewish whores and pimps whose more respectable children want to erase their immigrant parents' names and forget their shameful activities. Kaddish labors in the Jewish cemetery at night. His hardworking wife, Lillian, toils in an insurance agency by day, and their idealistic son, Pato, attends college, goes to concerts and smokes pot with his friends. When Pato is taken from home, Kaddish learns what it really means to erase identity, because no one in authority will admit Pato has been arrested. No one will even acknowledge that Pato existed. As Lillian and Kaddish attempt to penetrate the Ministry of Special Cases, Englander's novel takes on an epic quality in which Jewish parents descend into the underworld and journey through circles of hell. Gogol, I.B. Singer and Orwell all come to mind, but Englander's book is unique in its layering of Jewish tradition and totalitarian obliteration. At times Englander's motifs seem forced. Kaddish, whose very name evokes the memory of the dead, chisels out the name of a plastic surgeon's disreputable father, and in lieu of cash receives nose jobs for himself and his wife. Lillian's nose job is at first unsuccessful, and her nose slides off her face. One form of defacement pays for another. Kaddish fights with his son in the cemetery and accidentally slices off the tip of Pato's finger. Attempting to erase a letter, Kaddish blights a digit. But the fight seems staged, Pato's presence unwarranted except for Englander's schema. Other scenes are haunting: Lillian confronting bureaucrats; Kaddish appealing to a rabbi to learn if it is possible for a Jew to have a funeral without a body; Kaddish picking an embarrassing embroidered name off the velvet curtain in front of the ark in the synagogue. When he picks off the gold thread, the name stands out even more prominently because the velvet underneath the embroidery is unfaded, darker than the rest of the fabric. Englander writes with increasing power and authority in the second half of his book; he probes deeper and deeper, looking at what absence means, reading the shadow letters on history's curtain. (May)Allegra Goodman is the author of five books, including Intuition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Bookmarks Magazine
Eight years ago Nathan Englander published his acclaimed short story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges. He brings the same historical profundity to his first novel. While focusing on the pessimistic Kaddish, whose name honors the dead, and his optimistic wife, Englander tells a much greater story about terrorist regimes and asks universal questions about remembering the dead, dealing with evil, and addressing assimilation, love, ritual, and generational gaps. Most reviewers praised the novel's tense, Kafkaesque qualities; others criticized the obvious symbolism (the Poznans' bartered rhinoplasties, for example) and wished for more emotional empathy. Overall, however, Englander once again displays his ample talents in this much anticipated novel.
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
Reader Reviews
Set in the Argentina of 1976 - a dark and violent time of upheaval - "The Ministry of Special Cases" is about a family torn apart by a power-corrupted government. It centers primarily on the actions of Kaddish and Lillian Poznan after their teenaged son, Pato, is `disappeared' by mysterious officials one night, perhaps never to be seen again. Kaddish and Lillian are locked in a futile race against time, knowing that every day their son is missing the likelihood that he has not survived increases. But how can they penetrate the defenses of the government and the police to get information regarding a son whose existence is now denied? At best, Kaddish and Lillian are told that their son must have run away from them, and are advised to give up their search before making `needless' trouble. But the Poznans know the truth about Pato's disappearance - Kaddish was home when his son was escorted from their apartment by mysterious men, who also removed three of Pato's books that they had deemed inappropriate. The search for their son leads Lillian to Argentina's Ministry of Special cases, where hundreds of people line up and fight for information about missing loved ones, and are frustrated by bureaucratic dead-ends. Worse than the government's unswerving apathy toward Kaddish and Lillian is the fearfully uncaring attitude that they find from general citizens they turn to for assistance. Everyone is too wrapped up in their own problems to care about the Poznan's plight - and much too afraid of losing their own family if they anger the government. Until their own son was taken from them Kaddish and Lillian themselves had been blind to the severity of the problem - Lillian is genuinely startled to find so many people waiting at the Ministry of Special Cases, and dismayed to hear from a couple that is finally giving up hope after two long years of no news. The strength of Englander's story is that the Poznans are a believable family unit. They are not the utopian family of amateur fiction, but a realistic family burdened by animosity and failure and bitter disappointment. Kaddish is marked by his low birth - an `hijo de puta' who will never earn respect or dignity, and the spectacular failures of his numerous get-rich-quick schemes to overcome his status have put a great deal of strain on his marriage to Lillian, who had believed in his abilities as a young (naïve?) young woman. And Pato is your typical disgruntled teenager; he hates his parents, acts out, runs away to his friends' home, smokes pot, and refuses to listen to their sage advice that could have kept him safe. And yet the reader feels the strength of their familial bond thanks to Englander's prodigious talents as a writer. Despite their fighting, it feels devastating when the Poznans are torn apart. But is "The Ministry of Special Cases" for everyone? No. Englander is a gifted writer, but his eccentricities will turn some readers off as unnecessary and annoying. As a fan of Nathan Englander's story collection, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories, perhaps I was already primed for his style before picking this book up, but I enjoy his quirks and I have spoken to several other people who do too. For those who can appreciate them, "Ministry" is a one-of-a-kind treat and an amazing novel. Grade: A-
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The Ministry of Special Cases
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