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God's Grace (Twentieth Century Classics) by Bernard Malamud (1995)
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God's Grace
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God's Grace (1982), Bernard Malamud's last novel, is a modern-day dystopian fantasy, set in a time after a thermonuclear war prompts a second flood -- a radical departure from Malamud's previous fiction.
The novel's protagonist is paleolosist Calvin Cohn, who had been attending to his work at the bottom of the ocean when the Devastation struck, and who alone survived. This rabbi's son -- a "marginal error" -- finds himself shipwrecked with an experimental chimpanzee capable of speech, to whom he gives the name Buz. Soon other creatures appear on their island-baboons, chimps, five apes, and a lone gorilla. Cohn works hard to make it possible for God to love His creation again, and his hopes increase as he encounters the unknown and the unforeseen in this strange new world.
With God's Grace , Malamud took a great risk, and it paid off. The novel's fresh and pervasive humor, narrative ingenuity, and tragic sense of the human condition make it one of Malamud's most extraordinary books.
"Is he an American Master? Of course. He not only wrote in the American language, he augmented it with fresh plasticity, he shaped our English into startling new configurations." --Cynthia Ozick
The novel's protagonist is paleolosist Calvin Cohn, who had been attending to his work at the bottom of the ocean when the Devastation struck, and who alone survived. This rabbi's son -- a "marginal error" -- finds himself shipwrecked with an experimental chimpanzee capable of speech, to whom he gives the name Buz. Soon other creatures appear on their island-baboons, chimps, five apes, and a lone gorilla. Cohn works hard to make it possible for God to love His creation again, and his hopes increase as he encounters the unknown and the unforeseen in this strange new world.
With God's Grace , Malamud took a great risk, and it paid off. The novel's fresh and pervasive humor, narrative ingenuity, and tragic sense of the human condition make it one of Malamud's most extraordinary books.
"Is he an American Master? Of course. He not only wrote in the American language, he augmented it with fresh plasticity, he shaped our English into startling new configurations." --Cynthia Ozick
240 pages, Paperback
First published January 1,1982
This edition
- Format
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240 pages, Paperback
- Published
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April 15, 2005 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- ISBN
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9780374529673
- ASIN
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0374529671
- Language
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English
About the author
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Bernard Malamud was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish authors of the 20th century. His baseball novel, The Natural, was adapted into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford. His 1966 novel The Fixer (also filmed), about antisemitism in the Russian Empire, won both the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize.
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Rating(4 / 5.0, 65 votes)
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65 reviews All reviews
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A strange book about a scientist who survives a Second Flood. Although he hears God threaten to destroy him, too, he finds an island and eventually discovers a group of chimps that he (and his companion, a chimp named Buz) teach to speak and try to orgnize into a civilization. Eventually, much as in Lord of the Flies, it all falls apart. I'm sure I missed many of the subtelties. I did have the feeling, though, that the main character, Colin, was somehow in the wrong in his civilizing efforts, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
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One of the weirdest and most disturbing books I've ever read.
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A good read overall, from both religious and evolutionary standpoints - Malamud interestingly reconciles the two while questioning God's will. His style is very minimalistic, which in the first chapter of the Day of Devestation (or so Cohn, the protagonist, refers to the Flood with which man destroys himself) is engaging. The contrast of such a simple style with the havoc around Cohn allows the imagination to expand and fill in the gaps, the loneliness and isolation, more than any words ever could. However, the minimalist style soon becomes weary and it's hard to get through some parts of the story because of it - the reader really needs to rely on himself.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but I can't say I would recommend it to most people unless they were unusually interested in the God vs evolution question or Judaism in literature.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but I can't say I would recommend it to most people unless they were unusually interested in the God vs evolution question or Judaism in literature.
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Not as good as his others but still classic malamud. The talking animals kind of hokey and biblical allegories not familiar to me but still glad I read it and confirms to me how under rated he is.
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Never read a Malamud novel before (not sure why, but then again, there's a shamefully long list of authors I have yet to read). Picked this up on advice from a guy named Moffett, whose taste tends to run congruently with my own and who described this book as "crazy" and "insane." Which it was. A sort of Robinson Crusoe meets Lord of the Rings meets Planet of the Apes. Cohn, a scientist at the bottom of the ocean during a nuclear catastrophe, emerges to find the world flooded and desolate--he, apparently, is the sole survivor; that is, he and a chimp who'd been locked in a room on a boat. Eventually Cohn and Buz--he names the monkey "Buz"--discover an island, where they eventually meet other survivors and the story, which begins with a sort of carefree Gilligan's Island vibe, eventually swerves into Cormac McCarthy territory. I can't say any more about the plot without spoiling it, so I won't. Cohn himself is--from my perspective anyway--one of those characters you end up really liking and caring and worrying about, in part because he attempts to stay rational and kind no matter how absurd or threatening the situations get. A good book to escape into, especially if you enjoy compelling portrayals of apocalyptic stuff peopled by characters who question the nature of existence in a world where God's mysteries remain maddeningly unsolvable.
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most unique story I've ever read
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I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13885598
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/13885598
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