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sjgrodsky's review
3.0
I took a long time to complete this book. Partly because I dropped it for a week while completing another title for my book club. But also because I found it a difficult read.
First because 350-plus pages really is more than I wanted to know. Solomon, like so many writers, has to tell you everything she learned in her research. Did it add to my understanding to know, for example, that El Al's promotion for the production in Israel described it as "5,760 miles off Broadway"?
A related problem is Solomon's writing style, which too often features sentences stuffed with subordinate clauses and parenthetical additions. I would finally reach the end of a marathon sentence that had wandered through several continents not knowing just what I was supposed to have learned.
But the real issue is that, in Solomon's passion to be comprehensive, she leaves some illuminating paths unexplored. Such as: the Japanese described this story of a Ukrainian shtetl as "so Japanese". Huh? What about it was Japanese? Solomon includes the quote but doesn't probe further.
Having levied all of these criticisms, I am yet grateful to have this compendium. In the end there is only the play (which always draws tears) and the songs, which lodge in my ears for days.
First because 350-plus pages really is more than I wanted to know. Solomon, like so many writers, has to tell you everything she learned in her research. Did it add to my understanding to know, for example, that El Al's promotion for the production in Israel described it as "5,760 miles off Broadway"?
A related problem is Solomon's writing style, which too often features sentences stuffed with subordinate clauses and parenthetical additions. I would finally reach the end of a marathon sentence that had wandered through several continents not knowing just what I was supposed to have learned.
But the real issue is that, in Solomon's passion to be comprehensive, she leaves some illuminating paths unexplored. Such as: the Japanese described this story of a Ukrainian shtetl as "so Japanese". Huh? What about it was Japanese? Solomon includes the quote but doesn't probe further.
Having levied all of these criticisms, I am yet grateful to have this compendium. In the end there is only the play (which always draws tears) and the songs, which lodge in my ears for days.
victoriae's review
5.0
This book was AMAZING. Basically, Fiddler was Hamilton way before Hamilton. Really made me appreciate the show's legacy, how almost radical it was, the power of musicals. Just so so so good.
caib's review against another edition
I got a couple of chapters in and just found it too dense and confusing. Maybe I'll try again some day.
netanya's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
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