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maria_pulver's review against another edition
3.0
It was supposed to be a heart wrenching story of a jewish youth who lost his entire family and friends to the Expulsion of Jews from Spain. Or maybe it should have been a detective story, a theft and murder perpetrated by a cleric and the truth is discovered by the protagonist, and maybe even vengeance delivered. It could have been a self-search story of a Jew stuck alone in Spain, facing discovery by the Inquisition and still choosing to be a devoted Jew.
It is neither.
Though very detailed and full of explanations, the book fails to convey the severity of protagonist's loss, the story of the expelled Jews remains mainly untold and the atrocities of the Inquisition are shown but little.
The deeds, the travels, the decision makings of Yonah, the protagonist, are also detailed, ad nauseam. But the descriptions are dry, the motives and the logics are extremely weak. We do not see a character development, but have to believe to the author stating it does so.
Any hopes for a detective story in style of Eco's [b:The Name of the Rose|119073|The Name of the Rose|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415375471l/119073._SY75_.jpg|3138328] are vanquished promptly: the killer is mentioned in the very beginning of the book and even the vengeance doesn't come and the excuse is lousy.
Though the book is fast-pasing and promises a lot of excitement just on the next page, it never delivers. Instead of human drama we get a sugar-coated story of the Expulsion.
It is neither.
Though very detailed and full of explanations, the book fails to convey the severity of protagonist's loss, the story of the expelled Jews remains mainly untold and the atrocities of the Inquisition are shown but little.
The deeds, the travels, the decision makings of Yonah, the protagonist, are also detailed, ad nauseam. But the descriptions are dry, the motives and the logics are extremely weak. We do not see a character development, but have to believe to the author stating it does so.
Any hopes for a detective story in style of Eco's [b:The Name of the Rose|119073|The Name of the Rose|Umberto Eco|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1415375471l/119073._SY75_.jpg|3138328] are vanquished promptly: the killer is mentioned in the very beginning of the book and even the vengeance doesn't come and the excuse is lousy.
Though the book is fast-pasing and promises a lot of excitement just on the next page, it never delivers. Instead of human drama we get a sugar-coated story of the Expulsion.
anniefdez's review against another edition
3.0
3.5 stars - interesting , but if I hadn’t recently been to Spain and Toledo I probably would not have enjoyed it as much . Was expecting a little more history on the inquisition
nogayourbroga's review against another edition
All the intriguing concepts in the world can't save your book if the prose is detached from the emotions of your main character and the women exist as little more than objects to fuck and have your children. Perhaps the female characters get better further on in the story, but I'm not holding my breath to see if a male author learns how to treat women like people, especially not when I'm this bored.
alber5759's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
weirdcatmom's review against another edition
1.0
I really don’tlike reading historical fiction, which i knew when i was going into this, so this book really wasn’t for me. It was very boring to me and i didn’t get the storyline and plot. It’s probably a good book for people liking historical fiction and i learned new things so thats a pro
lagobond's review against another edition
1.0
Ugh. Implausible drivel. I was so looking forward to a good historical fiction story. I've only read 6 pages, in which:
* A woman gives birth with the "assistance" of a male physician. Highly unlikely in Europe of the 15th century, a time of midwives attending to births. Oh also, apparently in the author's world, babies are born "rose-colored." I bet they'd sprout little wings too if you slapped them just right on their "tiny nates!"
* Said physician idly muses about perhaps packing a picnic basket later in the day to take his family on an outing by the river. What a lovely modern husband!
* A dead body is found to have been anally raped. Apparently this does not faze the good doctor at all, as this fact is reported with zero reaction or commentary.
* The physician freely tells a church man, of all people, that he dabbles in dissection of human cadavers. Wow... really?! Death wish, anyone?
* We learn that years after his conversion to Christianity, the physician seems oddly unclear on why a man of the church would have a piece of human bone carefully kept in a box, and wrapped in perfumed silk no less. There is no way a 15th century Spaniard would not have immediately known that this is a relic.
I flipped through the book a bit to see if anything else might grab my attention, but no. The dialogues are terribly stilted. The whole thing feels poorly researched and amateurish. The farting donkey was the nail in the coffin for me.
P.S. Did the ex-Jew physician character really need to be named "Espina?" His name is Thorn, really? Get outta here with the heavy-handed symbolism.
* A woman gives birth with the "assistance" of a male physician. Highly unlikely in Europe of the 15th century, a time of midwives attending to births. Oh also, apparently in the author's world, babies are born "rose-colored." I bet they'd sprout little wings too if you slapped them just right on their "tiny nates!"
* Said physician idly muses about perhaps packing a picnic basket later in the day to take his family on an outing by the river. What a lovely modern husband!
* A dead body is found to have been anally raped. Apparently this does not faze the good doctor at all, as this fact is reported with zero reaction or commentary.
* The physician freely tells a church man, of all people, that he dabbles in dissection of human cadavers. Wow... really?! Death wish, anyone?
* We learn that years after his conversion to Christianity, the physician seems oddly unclear on why a man of the church would have a piece of human bone carefully kept in a box, and wrapped in perfumed silk no less. There is no way a 15th century Spaniard would not have immediately known that this is a relic.
I flipped through the book a bit to see if anything else might grab my attention, but no. The dialogues are terribly stilted. The whole thing feels poorly researched and amateurish. The farting donkey was the nail in the coffin for me.
P.S. Did the ex-Jew physician character really need to be named "Espina?" His name is Thorn, really? Get outta here with the heavy-handed symbolism.
debi246's review against another edition
4.0
Would have enjoyed it more without all the coincidental encounters. It was too clean. But a good look at 15th century Spain.
lpm100's review against another edition
5.0
Book Review
5/5 stars
"The Last Jew "
Noah Gordon
This book is proper historical fiction.
*******
As it's gripping and well written: I think I found a suitable rival to James Michener. (He, too, takes times in history and reverse engineers characters from known events in order to teach history with the narrative arc.)
I've never read anything about the Spanish Inquisition and its effect on Jews specifically, and if you want information about said topic then this book is an excellent choice.
The Single Biggest Thing that I have learned from this book is that, yes there were actually several Jews who converted to Christianity. (Heretofore, I had thought that this was something that happened maybe one or two times per thousand years. Or, maybe the conversion ratio was one out of a million. And that is for a variety of reasons--not least of which that some genetic historians have suggested that 999 out of 1000 Jews chose death over conversion during The Crusades; Also, because of the iron wall created by the rabbinate; Also because illiterate surrounding populations didn't have anything to offer literate Jews that would give them a reason to want to convert.)
The Second Biggest Thing that I have learned is that mixing of Judaism and Christianity is not something that only happens in podunk towns that house a bunch of hicks, nor only with the moronic Hebrew Israelites.
Apparently, the same thing happened in Spain and Portugal many centuries ago and Jews who have been forced to convert to Christianity created something like a syncretic mixture of Christianity and judaism.
First thoughts:
1. I was surprised how much Catholic terminology there is in this book. (I have never been a Catholic.)
2. The biggest takeaway that I get from this book, before any other is the reason for the separation between church and state.
That dreadful and corrupt institution known as the "Catholic Church" was in bed with the Spanish/ Portuguese government(s), and that was the cause of untold suffering of Jewish people as well as backsliding of scientific progress-all in order to support a corrupt elite of clergy. (You want to talk about some people not reading their Bibles too carefully!)
3. In addition to the cautionary tale of putting the church / mosque in bed with the state (because we see how well that worked out in Spain and Portugal and how well it is working out in Iran and Afghanistan), this was a particularly painful bildungsroman.
Do they even make human beings like that anymore? (People who learned everything through the School of Hard Knocks? These days, you make a mean face at someone and 5 minutes later they're diagnosing themselves with PTSD.)
4. A Jew who converts to Christianity can expect that his family will follow proper procedure and proceed as if he is dead (even saying kaddish for him and sitting shiva). From this book, we can know that that procedure is at least 600 years old.
Second thoughts:
1. The Jews in Spain got a really raw deal, and it's unfortunate that they paid with their lives to produce the evidence that it is a really REALLY bad idea when religious zealots run the government.
2. It is and always has been the Jewish way to bury people without embalming so that they can return to the earth. And that does make sense, given that the desperate machinations the form the seeds of the plot of this book (The securement of Bones thought to be related to Mary-- whose identity is nonetheless impossible to ascertain. If somebody was just directly buried, then after 12 years it wouldn't be an issue anyway.)
3. The Jew as viceroy/ vizier/ physician started with Joseph and continues all the way through to Jerome Powell. (Pre-expulsion Spain was just another way station on the trip of high functioning / high IQ people that had the ear of government.)
4. The author of this book is a Jew and he seems to think that Spanish Jews converted to Catholicism in large numbers. At least the author is willing to admit that this was the *only* mass conversion in thousands of years of Jewish history (p.14).
Of the book:
1. 46 chapters over 344 pages works out to about 7.4 pages per chapter. Very bite-sized chapters that can be read one or two over a lunch break or while the baby is napping.
2. Very good, page turning writing.
Verdict: Strongly recommended.
*******
Acquired vocabulary:
Sacristan (sexton)
Soap boba
Priory (one step below a monastery)
Sacellum
Paternoster (prayer)
Reliquary
Ciborium
Ewer
Rood
Cistercians
Miter
Crosier
Pallium
Majorat
Prebend
Benefice
Burro
Sere
Alguacil
Potro
Toca
Windlass
Sueldos
Realest
Maravedis
Menudos
Finca
Breviary (Christian version of a siddur.)
Shriving (oneself)
Sanbenito
Trull
Footpad (archaic use)
(Gypsy) voivode
Burnoose
Scabbard
Purloin
Dirk
Tonsure
Ordure
Bann
Caper
Malum venereum
Hutchinson's teeth (not name directly in the book, but caused by congenital syphilis)
borage
Folie paralitica
portcullis
theriac
sawyer
geld (castrate)
Mendicant
Sconce (archaic meaning)
Surplice
Chrism
Shrive/shrove/shriven
Benison
Luteous
5/5 stars
"The Last Jew "
Noah Gordon
This book is proper historical fiction.
*******
As it's gripping and well written: I think I found a suitable rival to James Michener. (He, too, takes times in history and reverse engineers characters from known events in order to teach history with the narrative arc.)
I've never read anything about the Spanish Inquisition and its effect on Jews specifically, and if you want information about said topic then this book is an excellent choice.
The Single Biggest Thing that I have learned from this book is that, yes there were actually several Jews who converted to Christianity. (Heretofore, I had thought that this was something that happened maybe one or two times per thousand years. Or, maybe the conversion ratio was one out of a million. And that is for a variety of reasons--not least of which that some genetic historians have suggested that 999 out of 1000 Jews chose death over conversion during The Crusades; Also, because of the iron wall created by the rabbinate; Also because illiterate surrounding populations didn't have anything to offer literate Jews that would give them a reason to want to convert.)
The Second Biggest Thing that I have learned is that mixing of Judaism and Christianity is not something that only happens in podunk towns that house a bunch of hicks, nor only with the moronic Hebrew Israelites.
Apparently, the same thing happened in Spain and Portugal many centuries ago and Jews who have been forced to convert to Christianity created something like a syncretic mixture of Christianity and judaism.
First thoughts:
1. I was surprised how much Catholic terminology there is in this book. (I have never been a Catholic.)
2. The biggest takeaway that I get from this book, before any other is the reason for the separation between church and state.
That dreadful and corrupt institution known as the "Catholic Church" was in bed with the Spanish/ Portuguese government(s), and that was the cause of untold suffering of Jewish people as well as backsliding of scientific progress-all in order to support a corrupt elite of clergy. (You want to talk about some people not reading their Bibles too carefully!)
3. In addition to the cautionary tale of putting the church / mosque in bed with the state (because we see how well that worked out in Spain and Portugal and how well it is working out in Iran and Afghanistan), this was a particularly painful bildungsroman.
Do they even make human beings like that anymore? (People who learned everything through the School of Hard Knocks? These days, you make a mean face at someone and 5 minutes later they're diagnosing themselves with PTSD.)
4. A Jew who converts to Christianity can expect that his family will follow proper procedure and proceed as if he is dead (even saying kaddish for him and sitting shiva). From this book, we can know that that procedure is at least 600 years old.
Second thoughts:
1. The Jews in Spain got a really raw deal, and it's unfortunate that they paid with their lives to produce the evidence that it is a really REALLY bad idea when religious zealots run the government.
2. It is and always has been the Jewish way to bury people without embalming so that they can return to the earth. And that does make sense, given that the desperate machinations the form the seeds of the plot of this book (The securement of Bones thought to be related to Mary-- whose identity is nonetheless impossible to ascertain. If somebody was just directly buried, then after 12 years it wouldn't be an issue anyway.)
3. The Jew as viceroy/ vizier/ physician started with Joseph and continues all the way through to Jerome Powell. (Pre-expulsion Spain was just another way station on the trip of high functioning / high IQ people that had the ear of government.)
4. The author of this book is a Jew and he seems to think that Spanish Jews converted to Catholicism in large numbers. At least the author is willing to admit that this was the *only* mass conversion in thousands of years of Jewish history (p.14).
Of the book:
1. 46 chapters over 344 pages works out to about 7.4 pages per chapter. Very bite-sized chapters that can be read one or two over a lunch break or while the baby is napping.
2. Very good, page turning writing.
Verdict: Strongly recommended.
*******
Acquired vocabulary:
Sacristan (sexton)
Soap boba
Priory (one step below a monastery)
Sacellum
Paternoster (prayer)
Reliquary
Ciborium
Ewer
Rood
Cistercians
Miter
Crosier
Pallium
Majorat
Prebend
Benefice
Burro
Sere
Alguacil
Potro
Toca
Windlass
Sueldos
Realest
Maravedis
Menudos
Finca
Breviary (Christian version of a siddur.)
Shriving (oneself)
Sanbenito
Trull
Footpad (archaic use)
(Gypsy) voivode
Burnoose
Scabbard
Purloin
Dirk
Tonsure
Ordure
Bann
Caper
Malum venereum
Hutchinson's teeth (not name directly in the book, but caused by congenital syphilis)
borage
Folie paralitica
portcullis
theriac
sawyer
geld (castrate)
Mendicant
Sconce (archaic meaning)
Surplice
Chrism
Shrive/shrove/shriven
Benison
Luteous
renbuecher's review
adventurous
informative
reflective
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
2.25
gnull's review against another edition
5.0
Oh my goodness what a read! Tremendous loss, self-sacrifice, aloneness - much more than loneliness, repeated reinvention and struggles. Exhausting amazing book. Thanks to the author for the heavy historical research.
Another wonderfully heavy book set during the Spanish Inquisition is THE HERETIC by Lewis Weinstein.
Another wonderfully heavy book set during the Spanish Inquisition is THE HERETIC by Lewis Weinstein.