Mazel

This is the 4th book I have read of Rebecca goldstien, and this was my 2nd favorite (after the superb Mind-Body Problem). I liked the "generational" aspect where we follow Sasha (Sorel) from early childhood in a Schluftchev shtetl to present day USA where she has a grown daughter (Chloe) and a granddaughter just about to get married (Phoebe). I must admit I enjoyed the early childhood and early adult descriptions of Sasha the best - here there is a rich sense of storytelling and the human characterizations are gripping and vivid. Sasha evetually rejects and leaves behind the old-fashioned Jewish ways of the shtetl and becomes a great stage actress and part of the Jewish intellectual life ("The Enlightenment") in prewar Warsaw. The story show more in the present is also good, but I thought Sasha's antics were described with too much cliche and suffered a bit from the "feminine-writer syndrome". In addition, the daughter and granddaughter stay very one-dimensional. Mazel means LUCK in Yiddish, and this book very successfully plays with its meaning throughout someone's life. Finally, Phoebe's decision about going back to traditional Jewish ways is one of the best contrasts in the story...perfectly unimaginable and understandable at the same time! show less

Descriptions of this novel make it sound like it is about 3 generations of women. It is really only about the grandmother with a bit about the daughter and granddaughter serving as bookends to the story.

That being said it is a very interesting story. Though some of it may be lost on people without a Jewish / Yiddish background it deals with universal themes of choices people make about how the universe works and being religious or not.

Like other books by the author there are philosophical ideas interwoven throughout the story.