Alan Isler (1934–2010)

A comic novel featuring a Jewish priest, his green-eyed Irish mistress and the atheist retired major who is his best friend, a crazed American scholar and a dodgy Romanian rare book dealer, with a parallel story involving an 18th century rabbi and a possible undiscovered edition of Shakespeare. So what's not to like?

OK, you probably won't enjoy this if you are a pious Roman Catholic or Jew without a sense of humour, but for the rest of us it is a very entertaining little novel, with a few show more more serious ideas tucked away here and there. show less

The English Language is the star here. Isler's command of the English language implies a certain flair and panache, which is quite above-average. I detected several words which I had never heard before. For instance halcyon" (as in "halcyon time", which means roughly "time of leisure" or something like that. Yes, I've looked it up...).

There are has so many references to German literature and way of life. It isn't necessary to be a German philologist to enjoy reading this book, but it show more certainly heightens the pleasure.

When the play "Hamlet" is introduced I'd already fallen for Otto Körner. What he confesses about his behaviour towards his first wife, came as an absolute shock at the end of the story.

This novel is one of the best things I've ever read in recent years. The samples for Hamlet production at a New York nursing home with a predominantly Jewish inhabitants of European origin are used by the first-person narrator as an opportunity to reminisce on his own past.

"The Prince of West End Avenue" has caused a wide range of emotions in me. The machinations and intrigues around the theatrical performance of "Hamlet" of seniors in a nursing homes is simply deliciously funny.

It begins at the point where Hamlet ends and it continues with guilt, and envy..." show less

I liked this, although it's pretty much the same book as 'Clerical Errors'.

I would read this book again.