Jephte's Daughter (Readers Guide Editions)

Jephte's Daughter (Readers Guide Editions)
Average customer rating:

Awkward Writing, Ridiculous Plot

Jephte's Daughter

a shining and affirmative thing

Book Covers and Reader Expectations

there's good and bad

Jephte's Daughter (Readers Guide Editions)
Naomi Ragen
Manufacturer: Toby Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1902881508

Book Description

A modern classic of Jewish-American literature, a remarkable journey into the shrouded world of Chassidic women. Naomi Ragen's first novel has been called "one of the 100 most important" Jewish books. Abraham Ha-Levi is a wealthy American businessman and the last male survivor of an important Orthodox Jewish family. He decides it's time he finally honoured his religious and cultural inheritance and so forces his 18-year old daughter - the beautiful and intelligent Batsheva - into an arranged marriage. Her new husband is a devout Torah scholar who lives in Jerusalem. Batsheva finds herself plunged into a new life and a strange land, among people who follow their religious laws to the letter. Then she realises that her husband's piety is merely a mask for his cruelty. A magnificent book that builds up momentum compellingly

Customer Reviews:

Awkward Writing, Ridiculous Plot.......2007-05-16

I bought this book on a whim while in Israel, having forgot to pack anything to read on my vacation. Pluses: Ragen knows how to keep the plot moving, and the book provides some insight into the world of the ultra-orthodox. Minuses: Awkward, occasionally excrutiating writing, huge plot holes, and ridiculous (yet utterly predictable and telegraphed) plot twists. How huge are the holes? E.g., at some point the heroine decides to fake a suicide-murder of herself and her son. No bodies, of course, are ever found, but her extremely wealth father never bothers to look into things further. How do I know? Because the heroine winds up in England, assumedly using her own passport! How did she get to England without anyone realizing that the wealthy heiress of a great rabinnic dynasty traveled abroad on her (and her son's passport). Geez, all they had to do was check the airline manifest, or with immigration control. Basically, if you read this book and you are halfway intelligent, you will feel cheated. The good news is that if Ms. Ragen was able to develop into a respected, famous novelist, there is help for us all.

Jephte's Daughter.......2007-01-10

Compelling story within the Orthodox Jewish Community and the struggle to find one's place within.

a shining and affirmative thing.......2006-07-20

It is difficult to categorize this seductive first novelistic offering by Naomi Ragen.

Somewhat sheephishly, this middle-aged, white, male reviewer confesses its tones of over-written girly pop, an aspect that explains its being laid aside half-read for six months before it jumped back into my suitcase and lured me into a hungry, late-night series of readings to finish it. This element of Jephte's Daughter is most charitably explained as the work of an immature but promising novelist.

Then there is the tendency towards caricature, a trait placed in service of an almost Wellhausian disdain for ritual. This leveling of complex religious reality is used against both Jewish and Gentile denizens of Ragen's pages: for example, the preternaturally hateful Hassidic first husband of Ragen's heroine (Isaac ben Harshen) and the erstwhile Roman Catholic noviate who eventually gets the girl (the promisingly named David Hope). The key virtue of the latter protagonist is that he escapes all that churchly stuff that had him tied in knots.

Caricature also appears in the clumsy reconversion of David Hope from the Church's bosom to the heretofore secret Jewish identity of his deceased mother, though this may merely be the quibble of a Gentile and Christian reader who must acknowledge that stories of conversion that run in the opposite direction are rarely handled any better.

She has cast her academics in almost universally unfeeling and villainous form and located them in all the right places, Cambridge chief among them. I suppose it provides a convenient place for that.

Finally, there is the unblinking romanticism of the book, whereby the appeal of strong feeling and its culmination in the girl getting the guy--and vice versa--are granted a self-authenticating absoluteness without the need for further discussion.

So, if Ragen has written these several books within the cover of just one, how is that that this reviewer in the end finds himself strangely moved by the book and eager to move on now to the more mature Naomi Ragen?

'Difficult to say. I think the young novelist touched a vein. She has taken the measure of religious bigotry in several of its guises and offered something that seems compelling and real in its place, even if one wonders how the dazzling Batsheva and her David got along after the rains returned to Jerusalem and the drains clogged from time to time.

She has in the end told a good story, not with the character development of an accomplished novelist, but with enough justice that a chain of improbable sequences actually comes together as remotely plausible and--mirabile dictu--rather gripping.

One actually lays the book down feeling rather fond of Bathsheva and David, shaken by their odyssey, and wishing them well.

Only a novelist on the way to accomplishing her potential could have pulled that off for this grumpy old man. So let's give credit where it's due.

Book Covers and Reader Expectations.......2006-07-03

Jephte's Daughter is the story of Batsheva Ha-Levi, the last surviving descendant of a Hassidic dynasty nearly wiped out in the Holocaust. A dutiful Orthodox Jewish daughter, she marries the man her father chooses for her--a renowned scholar--and moves off to Jerusalem to begin a life with him with nothing but youthful and vague romantic notions and her deep Jewish faith to guide her. In the disastrous marriage that follows, both fail her for a time, but ultimately her faith sustains her and gives her the courage to save herself and her son, and while she outgrows youthful romantic ideals, she ultimately finds love in the end.

If I had bought Jephte's Daughter in the new edition, packaged as women's literary fiction in trade size with an abstract design on the cover, I probably would have been as disappointed as many of the readers reviewing it here were. Yes, the storyline is often silly and unbelievable. Some of the supporting characters and dialogue are almost unbearably cheesy.

But I read the original paperback version of the book, published in 1989. The mass market paperback features an exotic Jerusalem backdrop and a beautiful long haired woman in the foreground, gazing out with longing and determination, and the cover art and packaging show the books true origins: not an Oprah-style literary novel, but a romantic saga of the kind that was so popular in the 1980s, of the Belva Plain/Judith Krantz variety. Judged as a product of the 1980s women's fiction market and not that of the 2000s, Jephte's Daughter actually succeeds pretty well, meeting the conventions of those stories (fabulous wealth, family history, bad experiences with men before the right one emerges, a strong central female character) but departing from them into the interesting setting of the Orthodox Jewish world.

The parts of the book showing Batsheva's upbringing and life in Jerusalem are the best parts of the book. Ragen's love for the rituals and the learning that suffuse traditional Jewish life is evident in the details that she pours into this part of the book. Batsheva's husband and mother in law are cartoonish bad guys, but underneath the soap opera melodrama are real issues, as Orthodox women in Israel sometimes do find themselves trapped by tradition and mores in disastrous marriages with abusive husbands who refuse to give them divorces.

The book weakens when it leaves this setting, and the section set in England is cringeworthy in its depiction of goyish male lust and snobbish anti-semitism. Some of the dialogue is simply laughable. And the man who ultimately turns out to be Batsheva's true love is unbelievably perfect. But the story was suspenseful enough to keep me turning pages quickly, even if I did wince at some of the worst dialogue and skim over the purplest prose.

I can't wholeheartedly recommend the book, but I know that the author, Naomi Ragen, has continued to write books set in the world of Orthodox Jewry which is a setting that fascinates me, and I know that her recent books have been fairly well received, so I would definitely read more of her work. Taken as a dated 1980s novel and a first novel at that, it's not horrible, but it probably should have been left back in the 1980s rather than dusted off and repackaged for current day release.

there's good and bad.......2006-01-30

it's a compelling story, but as other reviewers have noted, hard to believe. I found the portrayal of the conversion to Judaism to be completely unrealistic. No one should trust a man who is in the seminary suddenly converting like that. These religious issues would normally take years to work out. Any why does every convert have to have a hidden Jewish ancestry? That seems like a cheap plot device.

still, I liked the fact that Batsheva had a happy ending :).

Average customer rating:

Jephte's Daughter

Manufacturer: Pan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0330307037

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Jephtes Daughter
Ragen
Manufacturer: Warner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000JGP1J0

Average customer rating:

Dump-Jephtes Daughter-27cy
Gene Walden
Manufacturer: Warner Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: 0446151327

Jephte's Daughter (The Toby Press Reader's Guide edition)

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Jephte's Daughter (The Toby Press Reader's Guide edition)
Naomi Ragen
Manufacturer: Toby Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Amazon.com

Sandra Hill is an author to watch. Her innovative romances are some of the hottest and sassiest on the market. And her hilariously funny time-travel romances are cutting edge; they're always just a little too racy, raunchy, wild, and funny. If you haven't read Gone with the Wind or seen the movie, you will still laugh out loud at this half take-off, half homage to one of America's greatest love stories. Sandra Selente ("Selene") is a supermodel whose favorite movie of all time is Gone with the Wind. When she finds herself transported back in time to the old South, Selene's only point of reference is the movie. She quickly learns she is not cut out to be a Southern belle. When James Baptiste rescues her, she declares him to be her very own Rhett--until she discovers he has a penchant for blondes. Thank goodness that for Selene "tomorrow is another day."

Customer Reviews:

frankly not worth reading.......2006-06-18

The heroine gets on the bad side of a voudine and is sent by curse back into the pre civil war south where she is mistaken for a Quadroon, a light skinned woman of color.

The plot is boring even dragging. The characters are two dimensional. And when it comes to period this book does the job badly. The authress should have done better research. It gives the reader hardly any feel of romance and nothing of what life for quadroons was like. Not a feel of the Quadroon balls where they saught white protectors among the southern elite to become their concubines nor the slave market where they were sold as Fancy Girls. It does not even give us anything of the relationships of these women even though their exoticness gave them the reputatation of being the most beutiful women of the south.

Better reading would be The Quadroon by Mayne Reid written before the civil war or Old Creole Days by George W. Cable written after the civil war.

Supermodel Goes Back in Time to Pre-Civil War Louisiana Bayou.......2006-04-05

So far, I've read three romances by Sandra Hill, all which I found funny and endearing. However, this book, FRANKLY, MY DEAR, is my least favorite of the three, mostly because I thought it cheesy. Entertaining, but cheesy.

Inspired by "Gone with the Wind," FRANKLY, MY DEAR is a time-travel in which a supermodel from 1996 named Selene is swept back in time to New Orleans circa 1845 by a voodoo curse. At first, she is mistaken for a quadroon (and then a runaway slave), but is saved by handsome James Baptiste, a plantation owner who grudgingly employs her as the governess for his young soon, Etienne. James is no Rhett Butler; at first, he is unbelievably overbearing and rude, but the two quickly fall in love, despite their differences and the fact that Selene intends to return to her own time.

What I enjoyed most about this book was its humor and the repartee between James and Selene, especially at the beginning, when she'd just arrived in the past and was trying to adjust to a backwards culture.

What I enjoyed least was its predictability (the identity of the murderous ghost was pretty much given away at the beginning) and its easy-outs. Almost from the start, Selene learns how to return to her own time, so there is no conflict there. She is also sent back in time with her make-up kit (rather convienently, I might add), which provides the answers to everything.

There were also some characterization issues that bugged me a bit. Etienne seemed too mature for a 5-year old, unrealistically so. Also, there were some things that James did that bothered me immensely, including the scene with the prostitute. Unlike Selene, I was not turned on by this. Turned off, is more like it. Yuck.

Anyway, for all its faults, I still found the book entertaining and easy to read. I also enjoyed the descriptions of life in the Louisiana bayou, and enjoyed being taken back in time to a land of voodoo, mint juleps, and snarly alligators. It sure beats reading about the ton.

Oh, I also learned that there are two time-travel romances related to this one by Sandra Hill. SWEETER SAVAGE LOVE is about Etienne all grown-up and DESPERADO is about the mysterious couple that appears in Selene and James' epilogue.

Gone with the Wind, it ain't.......2006-01-15

I read this one over last summer, and I was very enthusiastic to do so. I wanted, so badly, to like this book. But it just wasn't to be.

The things that stuck out in my mind as things that highly annoyed me, was:

1. The heroine. Never have I read about any heroine crying anywhere nearly as much as she does. She is truly the 'watering pot' of the book! She'd have guts to get things done one minute,
then be sobbing wildly about something, some slight, the next!
Drove me bonkers!

2. The hero. Yuck! I never really felt he cared that much about her, really. I just felt like he took her for granted and
took advantage of her upon occassion. I had no really caring for this man at all. And to think, she wasted all those tears on this jerk!

Well, there you have it. Though the time travel aspect was interesting (the reason this book gets 2 stars & not 1), it just was not enough to save this stinker.

Superior time travels:

The Bushwacked Groom by Eugenia Riley (or any time travel by her)

A Perfect Love by Sandra Landry

Enchanted Time by Amy Elizabeth Saunders

I'm not sure what the wide appeal of Sandra Hill's books is suppossed to be, but if the others are anything like this one,
why bother?

1-10 scale: 3.0 find something worthwhile to do like watching the grass grow. It would be more productive!
Stars: Only 2, and that's only because it wasn't totally without merit, but mostly!

Best Yet !!.......2005-03-24

I loved this book and have read it over 3 times.. Sandra Hill knows how to add the right mixture of sassy sayings and fun in her books. I will never get tired of her books she is an Auto- buy for me.. I highly recommend this book to all who love a great time travel and alot of laughs..

GREAT!! FUNNY, WONDERFUL.......2003-12-30

I love Sandra Hill and this book is one of her best. I can not believe that some people did not love this story. The combination of the humor mixed with romance makes it one of the most enjoyable books I ever read. I did laugh out loud in parts, the characters are great and the story interesting. i highly recommend.

Frankly, My Dear...: Gone With the Wind Memorabilia (Motion Pictures)

Average customer rating:

A book to revel in

Frankly, My Dear...: Gone With the Wind Memorabilia (Motion Pictures)
Herb Bridges
Manufacturer: Mercer University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Customer Reviews:

A book to revel in.......1999-05-16

A wonderful book that brings all the magic of the movie to life. The picures are beautiful and it is good to see some that never appeared in the finished film. It is truly a book to be enjoyed by those who love this epic film. One can reread it and every time find fresh enjoyment.

Frankly, My Dear: Quips and Quotes from Hollywood

Average customer rating:

Hilarious descriptions and observations.

Frankly, My Dear: Quips and Quotes from Hollywood
Shelley Klein
Manufacturer: Barron's Educational Series
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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Great Hollywood Wit

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ASIN: 0764159577

Book Description

It’s a collection of the funniest, most acerbic, most insulting lines ever uttered by the wits of the film industry—as well as by equally witty outsiders whose opinions of Hollywood are usually less than flattering. Clint Eastwood once described the movie capital succinctly: “If I lived there, I’d move.” But many quotations say less about Hollywood than about the people who happened to be passing through. For instance, a brief conversation between Clark Gable and Nobel-prize-winning novelist William Faulkner went as follows: “Do you write, Mr. Faulkner?” “Yes, Mr. Gable. What do you do?” And Bette Davis, in one of her bitchier moments is known to have said: “I always admire Katharine Hepburn’s cheekbones. More than her films.” With sound bites overheard from the earliest Hollywood celebrities, and extending to Woody Allen, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many others on today’s scene, Frankly, My Dear documents filmdom’s declarations of envy, greed, talent, pomposity—and most of all, humor. Or as George Burns once said, “The most important thing in acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you’ve got it made.” Includes 12 pages of black-and-white photos from famous films that include Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, On the Waterfront, The Wizard of Oz, The Terminator, A Few Good Men, and others.

Customer Reviews:

Hilarious descriptions and observations........2006-04-20

Fans of Hollywood will relish FRANKLY, MY DEAR: QUIPS AND QUOTES FROM HOLLYWOOD. It's a light-hearted look at the Hollywood language which has steeped past the screen and into everyday life. Reflections by George Burns, Ingrid Bergman, Michael Caine and more involved in Hollywood productions make for a fun gathering of some of the most insulting, scathing and hilarious descriptions and observations on screen. Quotes from all eras and all walks of Hollywood life, from actors to directors and observers, make for a lively collection.

Average customer rating:

A Fun Book
Frankliy my Dear

Frankly My Dear
Greene , and Richard Greene
Manufacturer: Fireside
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0684800659

Customer Reviews:

A Fun Book.......2004-01-21

I found this book quite amusing, it is full of interesting stories and quotes, but it got slightly boring as it neared the end. All in all a good purchase.

Frankliy my Dear.......2000-04-11

This book was a surprising book. I use the combacks to people that are rude to me. I use the insults for anyone. It is a pretty good book and I'd recomend it to anyone who has trouble standing up to bullies. This book also made me laugh all over. Read it today!

Civil War Fashions / Not a Gettysburg, A Myth Unmade / Frankly My Dear... (Civil War Times Illustrated, Volume 24, Number 3)

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Civil War Fashions / Not a Gettysburg, A Myth Unmade / Frankly My Dear... (Civil War Times Illustrated, Volume 24, Number 3)
Mark Grimsley
Manufacturer: Historical Times Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000VLCDIK

Frankly My Dear... Great Lines From the Movies

Average customer rating:

Fantastic!!!

Frankly My Dear... Great Lines From the Movies
Scott Gatrell , and Brent McPhie
Manufacturer: BS Publishing, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0970047908

Book Description

Who said that? What movie is that from? Wow isn't that the truth!? This book is full of funny, clever and thought- provoking quotes.

Customer Reviews:

Fantastic!!!.......2003-09-24

It has been a long time since I read such an enjoyable book. Instead of just familiar lines that don't stand on their own, the book is, as the authors say, full of funny or thought provoking quips. This book covers a wide range of movies, ie. the 30s to the present day. For its low price, there is no better gift for family and friends. I highly recommend this book. Buy it and have fun!!

Frankly, My Dear: More Than 650 of the Funniest, Smartest, Gutsiest, Nastiest, Sexiest, and Simply Greatest Quotes in Celebration of Women in the Mo (Film Books)

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Frankly, My Dear: More Than 650 of the Funniest, Smartest, Gutsiest, Nastiest, Sexiest, and Simply Greatest Quotes in Celebration of Women in the Mo (Film Books)

Manufacturer: Carol Publishing Corporation
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0806514469

Amazon.com

Jeff Bloch writes in the introduction to this tome that "Frankly, My Dear is a celebration of women in their best moments in the movies--their brilliance, their wit, their guts and passion, their sadness, even their tragedy." Though this book of quotations was compiled by a man and sports a title line of Clark Gable's, readers will find plenty of zingers here delivered by women. No volume of this kind would be complete without Helen Broderick's "the only difference in men is the color of their neckties" (Top Hat, 1935), Kathleen Turner's "you're not too smart, are you? I like that in a man" (Body Heat, 1981) or Madeline Kahn's "is that a ten-gallon hat--or are you just enjoying the show?" (Blazing Saddles, 1974). But that's just for starters. Readers can expand their repertoire to include some of the hundreds of queries, ripostes, jabs, and jests that promise to spice up any occasion, as well as some pretty stiff ammunition for those still-all-too-frequent times when the, er, fairer sex needs defending. --Raphael Shargel

Rogue...light? Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, my dear, it's no Clark Gable; Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, ... An article from: Winnipeg Free Press

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Rogue...light? Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, my dear, it's no Clark Gable; Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, ... An article from: Winnipeg Free Press
Gale Reference Team
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000VUD6LO
Release Date: 2007-09-07

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Winnipeg Free Press, published by Thomson Gale on September 7, 2007. The length of the article is 867 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Rogue...light? Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, my dear, it's no Clark Gable; Oddly named crossover capable, attractive, but frankly, my dear, it's no Clark Gable.(Autos - Reviews)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication: Winnipeg Free Press (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 7, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Page: e1

Distributed by Thomson Gale

14 - SANDRA HILL - DESPERADO - THE TARNISHED LADY - THE OUTLAW VIKING - SWEETER SAVAGE LOVE - FRANKLY MY DEAR

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14 - SANDRA HILL - DESPERADO - THE TARNISHED LADY - THE OUTLAW VIKING - SWEETER SAVAGE LOVE - FRANKLY MY DEAR
SANDRA HILL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UV971W

Product Description

12 PAPERBACKS - 2 HARDBACKS.

14 - SANDRA HILL - SWETTER SAVAGE LOVE - THE VERY VIRILE VIKING - THE BLUE VIKING - FRANKLY MY DEAR - THE LAST VIKING - THE TARNISHED LADY - THE BEWITCHED VIKING - DESPERADO - A TALE OF TWO VIKINGS - WET & WILD - HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS +++

Average customer rating:

14 - SANDRA HILL - SWETTER SAVAGE LOVE - THE VERY VIRILE VIKING - THE BLUE VIKING - FRANKLY MY DEAR - THE LAST VIKING - THE TARNISHED LADY - THE BEWITCHED VIKING - DESPERADO - A TALE OF TWO VIKINGS - WET & WILD - HERE COMES SANTA CLAUS +++
SANDRA HILL
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000TLBAM2

Amazon.com

If you like challenging science fiction, then Jeff Noon is the author for you. Vurt, winner of the 1994 Arthur C. Clarke award, is a cyberpunk novel with a difference, a rollicking, dark, yet humorous examination of a future in which the boundaries between reality and virtual reality are as tenuous as the brush of a feather.

But no review can do Noon's writing justice: it's a phantasmagoric combination of the more imaginative science fiction masters, such as Phillip K. Dick, genres such as cyberpunk and pulp fiction, and drug culture.

If this tickles your fancy, you should definitely consider the sequel to Vurt, Pollen, or Noon's lighter and more accessible Automated Alice, a modern recasting of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland.

Book Description

Vurt is a feather--a drug, a dimension, a dream state, a virtual reality. It comes in many colors: legal Blues for lullaby dreams. Blacks, filled with tenderness and pain, just beyond the law. Pink Pornovurts, doorways to bliss. Silver feathers for techies who know how to remix colors and open new dimensions. And Yellows--the feathers from which there is no escape. The beautiful young Desdemona is trapped in Curious Yellow, the ultimate Metavurt, a feather few have ever seen and fewer still have dared ingest. Her brother Scribble will risk everything to rescue his beloved sister. Helped by his gang, the Stash Riders, hindered by shadowcops, robos, rock and roll dogmen, and his own dread, Scribble searches along the edges of civilization for a feather that, if it exists at all, must be bought with the one thing no sane person would willingly give.

Customer Reviews:

Not Free SF Reader.......2007-09-25

Vurt is just not very good. When you look at what William Gibson, Pat Cadigan, Walter Jon Williams and others have done with this sort of thing, or even going back further, this is very disappointing.

Alternate reality via drugs and all is perhaps missing the point at little, at this point. Plenty of other cyberpunk tales to read before you need to waste your time with this one.

Life is too short for bad books........2007-08-17

If you really love bad sci fi, you might be able to get through this. It is definitely not as rewarding as Gibson or Stephenson. So why bother? Well, if you're fifteen and this kind of book is what you love to read, maybe. The rest of us should just put it down and move on.

Vurtual feathers.......2007-08-12

Vurt is an odd beast. I found it hard to start with, but soon the world had sucked me in. In futuristic Manchester those looking for hallucinogenic experiences suck on feathers to enter virtual worlds, Vurts. Stash Riders, a bunch of miscellaneous losers, hunt for interesting feathers and try to find Desdemona, who got stuck in a bad Vurt.

Noon has cooked up a futuristic and surrealistic world. The language is colourful and takes some getting used to. The world isn't explained thoroughly; some readers will certainly find Vurt too strange a feather to swallow. However, if you can accept that the world doesn't always make sense, the story moves on with a good pace and the plot is interesting.

Vurt isn't the easiest and most accessible book, but it's worth the effort. If you like it, there's more: Noon has written several books set in the same vurtual world.

Vurt is it?.......2007-07-21

The book jacket for Jeff Noon's Vurt is full of hyperboles.

Vurt is sui generis in form but filled with the shadows of classics--from the Orpheus and Faust myths to A Clockwork Orange and Blade Runner. With relentless pacing, exuberant originality, and prodigious wit, Jeff Noon has created a language, a world, and a love story destined to take its place among the classics.

I beg to differ.

What is (the) Vurt? Nobody knows. And one of the problems with Vurt is that Noon never bothers to explain what the Vurt is. The closest to an explanation that I found is that the Vurt is collective dreaming, some sort of disembodied virtual-reality consciousness that can be accessed by stroking a feather in one's mouth. Different colored feathers give access to different parts of the Vurt. The most powerful color is yellow; while a user can jerk out of most Vurts, yellow feathers open the door to Vurts that you can't escape, unless you survive. Desdemona, the sister of Vurt protagonist Scribble, took one such yellow feather. And now Scribble is trying to get her back.

The Vurt is a fascinating idea. Too bad Noon didn't feel the need to explain it more fully--or, indeed, at all. Instead, the Vurt ends up being a vague nothing in the plot, an area where no rules apply and therefore very little of excitement can actually happen.

But that shouldn't be fatal to the book: after all, plenty of science fiction novels introduce bizarre ideas with very little explanation. (Cf. Michael Marshall Smith.) Sadly, Noon lacks the werewithal to pull off his audacious creation with panache. Throughout Vurt, he attempts to maintain a writing style that oozes hip and cool; the only problem is that he's trying too hard, and it shows. The resulting jerky sentences and fast-spun slang sound forced and, ultimately, annoying; rather than jazz, it's the voice of a bad rapper trying to fit in with the gang. Even worse, the plot of Vurt is as limp and dull as the language. Scribble scatters thither and yon in search of his sister, hooking up with various characters whose lives hardly matter to the reader, only to succeed (or fail?) in his quest in a bizarre conclusion that saps whatever life was left of the novel in the last few pages.

Vurt is only partially redeemed by the fact that Noon does have quite an imagination, and his ideas, taken by themselves, are interesting. Too bad you have to sit through the rest of the book to capture all of the noteworthy nuggets from his mind.

A wad of neural bubblegum; tough to swallow.......2007-06-12

Take away the superficial stylistic jazziness and this is a very conventional story about a guy on a hazardous journey to bring his lover back from Virtual Hell. You know, like Orpheus. Here, though, Noon sets the archetypal drama in a world where drugs come in the form of feathers that open onto a kaleidoscopic variety of different realities...

Well, this whole feather-drug connection is just one of the many largely unnecessary complications Noon employs to make an old story seem fresh and original. At best, *Vurt* can be seen as William S. Burroughs for pre-teens. Maybe I would have found something like *Vurt* profound when I was twelve. But it's hard for me to believe that even a relatively sophisticated adult reader would get much out of this novel but a few hours of mindless entertainment. Cardboard characters, emotional clichés, a plotline driven largely by coincidence, chance, and the seemingly arbitrary switch of allegiances wherever convenient, *Vurt* has a lot in common with your basic Hollywood sci-fi thriller--a sequence of action scenes and `surprise' twists that come at you so rapidly you don't have time to realize that none of it really adds up. Except that in a novel you *do* have the time--and in *Vurt* the plot is laid down like a guy running away from a fire.

A great deal of this novel simply reads like a confused mess through which Noon affected an escape wherever necessary by making the language and plot even more messy and confusing. It's the sort of novel where whenever the author runs himself into an impasse he simply has the main character jump to a different drug/feather induced `reality' or reveal a character's `secret' identity or change of allegiance. Problem solved, right? Not really. You have to be extremely deft to play as fast and loose with story the way Noon is trying to do in *Vurt,* you have to really have something to say, and *Vurt* is filled with nothing more than pseudo profundities.

There are a few well-done passages here and there, some isolated images that momentarily arrest one's attention, and even times when you think there's going to be something to *Vurt,* after all--but, for me, this was a largely empty and disappointing read, very much over-hyped and over-rated, and pretty well forgettable, just like yesterday's bubblegum. Not total dreck, but only one star away from it.

Average customer rating:

Khranitel' klyuchej
D. Vurts
Manufacturer: EKSMO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: 5699085645

Average customer rating:

Korabli Meriora
D. Vurts
Manufacturer: EKSMO
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 5699160604

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Vurt
Jeff Noon
Manufacturer: Ringpull Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000LABSUU

Product Description

Ringpull produced two printings of this book. The first states "First published by Ringpull Press in 1993"; the second, "First published by Ringpull Press in 1993, 1994".

Average customer rating:

Jeff Noon Omnibus: Vurt, Pollen
Noon Jeff
Manufacturer: Pan Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Average customer rating:

Vurt
Jeff Noon
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Griffin
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OTENVY

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Vurt

Manufacturer: Crown Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000HKFEKE

Further Up And Further in: Understanding C. S. Lewis's the Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe
Average customer rating:

Outstanding!

A Walkthrough to the Wardrobe

Very Good book on Narnia

Further Up And Further in: Understanding C. S. Lewis's the Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe
Bruce Edwards
Manufacturer: B&H Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Not-a-Tame Lion: Unveil Narnia Through the Eyes of Lucy, Peter, and other Characters Created by C. S. Lewis

The Keys to the Chronicles: Unlocking the Symbols of C. S. Lewis's Narnia

Into the Wardrobe: C. S. Lewis and the Narnia Chronicles

The Way Into Narnia: A Reader's Guide

Inside Narnia: A Guide to Exploring The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

ASIN: 0805440704

Book Description

This new popular-level book from renowned C. S. Lewis scholar Bruce Edwards will enable C. S. Lewis buffs, new and old, to gain immense access and understanding into the mind of the author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and the creator of the world of Narnia. Further Up and Further In examines the message and theme of the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia. This book is a perfect companion for those who intend to see the forthcoming movie based on this story and wish to know about what Lewis was trying to communicate to his readers.

Customer Reviews:

Outstanding!.......2005-10-22

All C.S. Lewis fans are excited about the forthcoming movie soon to be released based on the work by C.S. Lewis, "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." Understanding the symbols and hidden meanings in this writing enhances the read and certainly will enhance the enjoyment of movie viewing. This book is your key to both.
In this work by Bruce Edwards you will find an extremely in-depth overall of the different messages and their meaning. He takes his time, carefully going over the work in chapters, giving much insight and helping the reader to connect with the inward working of this read. I found it extremely interesting and entertaining at the same time, easy to digest and enjoyable.
He gives study questions that will cause you to rethink much of what you have mentally stored and cause some thought provoking questions within you as you realize that you didn't understand as much as you thought you did. I really enjoyed reading this book; it was insightful, informative and enlightening. I recommend it and encourage you to pick up your copy and keep it handy for continual reference or just pure reading enjoyment.
Shirley Johnson
Senior Reviewer
MidWest Book Review

A Walkthrough to the Wardrobe.......2005-10-21

"An unliterary man may be defined as one who reads books once only." Said C.S. Lewis in his essay, "On Stories." Not every book is worth reading more than once, and some aren't worth even the first read. But when it comes to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, one of those classics is found that begs us to return on many occasions. How is it possible to read the same story countless times and not grow weary of it? One way is to broaden our understanding of it by approaching it from different perspectives.

In Further Up & Further In, Bruce Edwards gives a walkthrough to this enchanting story. He begins by introducing the reader to C.S. Lewis raising the question, "Who was Clive Staples Lewis that we should be mindful of him?" (2)

The bulk of this short book is dedicated to the story in which many have fallen in love with the great lion, Aslan. The seventeen chapters of Lewis' tale are grouped into 5 chapters in Dr. Edwards's book. First, the story is narrated with attention drawn to the emotions of the characters and reader as it progresses. After the story as been explained some background information is offered on various subjects relevant to the material covered, such as "The Wardrobe," "The Beavers," and "Deep Magic." At the end of the book are a series of study questions for each chapter and a suggested bibliography for going even further up and further in.

The greatest strength of Bruce Edwards's book is that he never lectures the reader. He is more of a guide, or a fellow reader, pointing things out as the story progresses. Rather than analyze isolated aspects of the story, he takes us into the story itself with witty and whimsical comments along the way.

There are always things of which more could be said in any book, but at times it felt like more should have been said. And so, the greatest weakness is the book's brevity. The best example is on the final page of the book where points are made of the story in light of Grace, Redemption, Resurrection, and Restoration. Only two to five sentences were written under each heading, though this would have made for a powerful conclusion had it been expanded upon.

Aside from its brevity, the book is a welcome companion to reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; whether it's for the first time or the tenth time. Bruce Edwards succeeds in showing us another way to view the story, to find our selves in it, and leave us wanting more.

Very Good book on Narnia.......2005-10-12

Thoroughly enjoyed this book.

My only complaint is the retelling of the story in each chapter. In some cases it was insightful but most of the time it felt overbearing to reread the basic storyline when I already knew it.

It isn't the best book on Narnia that I have read but it is definetly worth your time.

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