The Book of Daniel: A Novel

This is not a Biblical story. It’s about the execution of Julius & Ethel Rosenberg, but even so, it’s not much of a political story either. It’s more about history; how history’s made, written, who tells it, its helping to cope and make sense of actions, the events around us, which is exactly Daniel Isaacson’s reason for sitting down at his university library in 1967 to look back 14 years to his early bar mitzvah: the death of his parents Paul & Rachel, attempting to write his metahistorical thesis for Ronald Sukenick and understand just what the hell happened to him, his sister and his parents in 1953, why his parents were taken from him as part of the infamous McCarthy hunt for the Red American.

Daniel employs every obnoxious show more literary trick he can to dig and shift through his own history whether it be addressing directly the reader, even straight out yelling at us, the prick, taking Faulknerian liberties with the use of pronouns, throwing in some very real details on the history of torture and death, the tools used by societies up to modern times, how they worked, &c., or going back and forth in time from the present to his childhood, often even midsentence, from his own fucked up ‘60s life and disturbing attempts to feel anything at all for his teenage wife and child to his own fucked up childhood starting from before his father’s arrest and the night his very innocent mother vanished talking often of his father’s naïve political beliefs, his unwavering trust in justice especially, and his backwards relationship with the government even after their hopes to pin treasonous charges on him become transparent; both these story threads go side by side, ending together in The Book’s last few pages, with Daniel finally finding (sort of) a sense of peace and understanding with the former family friend that pointed his finger at the Isaacson’s in order to get a lax prison sentence and the death of his parents, the actual action presented to the reader in gruesome unwanted detail, down to Rachel/Ethel not exactly dying on the first go…

Daniel’s day deconstructing Disneyland was the novel’s highlight. I mean, damn, those nine pages provide one of the most powerful postmodern passages these eyes have seen. Daniel’s here at Anaheim's Disneyland to meet—finally—the indirect executioner of his parents, the man whose finger pointed the Isaacsons to their electric deaths in June ’53 to satisfy the socially predominant America v. Russia Cold War Hysteria. Disneyland’s used to, despite the intense and obvious change of colors/scenery, work alongside the rest of TBOD’s bleakness, extending both the antagonistic personification of electricity and the idea of social simulation. Disneyland’s womb is cut into numerous zones—Adventureland, with a plasticized imagining of Mark Twain’s river boat “Life on the Mississippi” experience, Frontierland, Fantasyland, Main Street USA, and, where Mindish, mind now far gone from SDAT, spends his remaining days, Tomorrowland—each with its own individual concentrated sentimental focus of simulation.

Everything’s a simulation. The Cold feud between the Red White & Blue and the just Red is a simulation of war, both sides holding the other at bay threatening and boasting their own nuclear arms supply. The trial Daniel’s parents were pushed through was a simulation of a trial, a bullshit stage show put on by our own government to appease the social demand for justice. The whole American way of life, man, consuming and seeking out entertainment, it’s a sham, an illusion, transparent in its banality and its unreal hunt for that particular sentimental high. No one even reads Carroll or Twain anymore, they just watch Disney’s romanticized vision—a technique Doctorow refers to as an “abbrieviated shorthand culture for the masses”—anything as long as it has the Disney stamp of approval, an ounce of that cultural respectability that makes this harvesting of icons so worthwhile on behalf of the Corporation…

I only wish I got the chance to spend more time with Doctorow’s brilliant novel, a lot more time with that trip to Disneyland. I’m going to cut this short here. Highly recommended, &c.&c.&c.

80%
[619] show less

This is not an easy book to read on many counts, mostly due to its historic truths and ability to turn larger narratives into personal mirrors. Doctorow does not resort to victimizing the Isaacsons (who represent Julius and Ethel Rosenberg), and there are no heroes. He unfolds the layers of complexity in the Rosenberg case by re-framing it more intimately, primarily from the perspective of the fictional Daniel. This is perhaps where the reader is the most sympathetic because he reminds us that traitors, villains, conspirators are also mothers, fathers, spouses, siblings. Daniel's character is the sum total of the worst consequences of American anti-Communism in the 1950s, carrying the current of the electric chair far beyond the show more execution room. show less

Reason read; 2023, Sept botm
This is not my first book by Doctorow but it is my least favorite. It is the story of what would happen to the children when their parents were arrested and executed by the US government during the Cold War hysteria. It is of course a story based on the Rosenbergs but the names are changed. The children, Daniel and his sister, Susan, are students during the sixties.

The book is written in 4 parts with Daniel the main narrator;
1. Memorial Day, 1967, Daniel is married and has a child; closes with dropping of Atom Bomb
2. Halloween, children and the trial of parents to start
3. Starfish; refers to his sister Susan, Daniel is protesting, sister is dying
4. Christmas; closing of the trial, funerals of the parents

I did show more not like this book much mostly because it is sexually violent and explicit and it is physically violent. Daniel is not a person you can like. I am not a communist nor even a progressive. The books explores the politics around the arrest and execution. It is not hard to believe that the government may have lied and misrepresented facts. I still dislike the ideology behind left, progressive politics because it is a lie and capitalism is not evil or good. People are evil or good.

Quotes: "Leo Crowley, Harry's Foreign Economic Administrator, tells Congressmen the theory behind this move: "If you create good governments in foreign countries, automatically you will have better markets for ourselves."

What I liked; in the section Christmas, Disneyland at Christmas. "There are numerous references, usually in the form of rides, exhits or setores to figures or works of our literary heritage." And other figures of history, legends, myths. It is possible to to interpret the Disney organization's relentless program of adaptation of literature, myth and legend, as an attempt to escape these dark and rowdy conclusions of the genre....many of these characters are dark and rowdy..." "Disneyland proposes is a technique of abbreviated shorthand culture for the masses..." "Its real achievement, handling of crowds." So many good tidbits here.

Achievement
1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die (2006/2008/2010/2012 Edition)
Guardian 1000 (State of the nation)
National Book Award finalist (1972.2 | Fiction, 1972)
ALA Notable Books for Adults (1971) show less

I struggled at the start to engage with this book, but was glad to have persevered by about half way through and then compelled to the end. The eponymous Daniel starts off as a fiercely dislikeable, rebellious young man, angry and taking out his anger on those around him - the teenage wife he sexually humiliates, the baby whose life he risks and the adoptive parents he goads and taunts. Stylistically Doctorow veers between first and third person, individual stories and geopolitics, present and past, creating further dislocation and dissonance. But as the book focuses more on the betrayal of Daniel's Isaacson parents, naively strong individuals caught up in events beyond their control, and the devastating effects such loss has on the show more children they leave behind, it is emotionally wrenching, fierce and sad. The end gives an unexpected, and uneasy closure; the future will not be untroubled, but is at least possible. show less

I can tell just how much I love an author's writing mostly the days after I've finished reading one of his books. When I start writing an e-mail to a friend and after a couple of sentences think"wait a minute, this is not my style, where did I get this from?". When an author is that good, his way of using punctuation or syntax, his unusual metaphors or sentences or a certain attitude and tone behind the words inevitably work their way into your own writing style. Doctorow is that kind of author. His voice stuck inside your head for days and days. Using language and writing in a way that constantly undermines the reliability o language and writing. "The early morning traffic was wondering - I mean the early morning traffic was light, but show more not many drivers could pass them without wondering who they were and they were going" Or if you prefer: "In any event, my mother and father, standing in for them, went to their deaths for crimes they did not commit. Or maybe they did commit them. Or maybe my mother and father got away with false passports for crimes they didn’t committ. How do you spell comit?" And if you think all this is postmodern mumble-jumble and where's the plot, the story? The story, I will let you know, is wonderful. Wonderful and sad and infuriating and thought-provoking and suspenseful and everything you could wish for. This is the story of the execution of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg (renamed in the book Paul & Rochelle Isaacson) seen from the point of view of their son - Daniel in the book. Our protagonist. Trying to make sense of something that could not and should not make sense for any person calling himself/herself a human being. I could go on with this review but I find that all I want to do is not describe the book (which would be doing it an injustice) but quote passages from it. So I'll just say for me this is a must-read. And stop there.

"The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one has ever been put to death in Socrates’ name. And that is because Socrates’ ideas were never made law." show less

Picked this up at Powell's some time ago after greatly enjoying Ragtime. Attempting to slowly read Doctorow forward. Hard Times was OK. This was next.

This is a difficult/uncomfortable novel to read. Our hero Daniel isn't very nice. There are amazing echoes of the sibling relationship (younger sister lust, institutionalization) in McCarthy's latest two books, to the point that I wonder at the influence.

I suppose this novel captures the madness of the moments, the heights of Cold War hysteria & hippiedom in levitating the Pentagon. I wasn't there, it is all historical/hysterical to me.

Given the political moments I have experienced, I no longer forswear nothing from the possible.

Ragtime was better, I am very hopeful of Waterworks, but show more have a few novels to get there. show less

This book informed me about a part of history I knew little. The account of the trial of the Isaacsons was the best part of the book. Daniel himself; I did not like so much. The sexual politics of this book are objectionable. Daniel sees every woman as a sexual object (including his own sister!) and thinks every woman wants to have sex with him too. This stopped me from really enjoying the novel.