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Tarfumes.com - Foreskin's Lament: A Memoir
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List Price: $24.95
Our Price: $6.49
Your Save: $ 18.46 ( 74% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Riverhead Hardcover
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Riverhead Hardcover
Manufacturer: Riverhead Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2007-10-04
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Studio: Riverhead Hardcover
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Editorial Reviews:
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Shalom Auslander was raised with a terrified respect for God. Even as he grew up and was estranged from his community, his religion and its traditions, he could not find his way to a life where he didn't struggle against God daily.
Foreskin's Lament reveals Auslander's youth in a strict, socially isolated Orthodox community, and recounts his rebellion and efforts to make a new life apart from it. Auslander remembers his youthful attempt to win the "blessing bee" (the Orthodox version of a spelling bee), his exile to an Orthodox-style reform school in Israel after he's caught shoplifting Union Bay jeans from the mall, and his fourteen mile hike to watch the New York Rangers play in Madison Square Garden without violating the Sabbath. Throughout, Auslander struggles to understand God and His complicated, often contradictory laws. He tries to negotiate with God and His representatives-a day of sin-free living for a day of indulgence, a blessing for each profanity. But ultimately, Shalom settles for a peaceful cease-fire, a standoff with God, and accepts the very slim remaining hope that his newborn son might live free of guilt, doubt, and struggle.
Auslander's combination of unrelenting humor and anger--one that draws comparisons to memoirists David Sedaris and Dave Eggers--renders a rich and fascinating portrait of a man grappling with his faith, family, and community.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: If the shoe fits, wear it.
Comment: As if !, To me this is another one of those books were the subject matter really does not matter. What is important to me is the authors willingness to leak out some of his pent up frustrations in this very incomplete and unbalanced book. Guilty pleasure in so much as getting off on his anger and passion, yes , does it inspire me to want to read more of his work, no (Same with T. Sowell and T. Wise). The one thing that keep popping into my thoughts while reading this book, was whether the defining of oneself is voluntary or involuntary. In conclusion, read this for the pleasure of reading, not much else.
Customer Rating:
Summary: MORE A LONG ARTICLE THAN A BOOK
Comment: Yes, this book was mildly amusing. But I bought it expecting much more. I expected an insightful look into the ultra-Orthodox community and into the author and his family. What I got was no more than a long newspaper article with a few laughs. Or maybe an outline for a longer, truer look into the author's life. So many questions were left unanswered. Why did the author's father "hate them all." What was his relationship with his brother and sister (who remain nameless)? Why, really, did he suddenly become religious in Israel? I could go on and on. In short, I was amused but disappoined. Next time I'd like a real look into Mr. Auslander's life and soul. Unless this is the way he chooses to to present himself, it's much more like an idea for a book than a real one.
Customer Rating:
Summary: interesting
Comment: I found this book very interesting. I think the questions the author asks are important--especially in regard to the unquestioned fantasies so many people hold of a tyrannical father-god. I'm sorry to read other reviews in which the author is so severely castigated, simply for expressing his own experience and view.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Foreskins Lament, or The yeshiva bucher who strayed
Comment: you know those moments in life that are frustratingly awful but then you can laugh when you look back on them? This is Foreskins Lament. Auslander has the ability to look back and see the humour and how great to share it with us.
The curcumcision Dillema is at the beginging and end of this book, and I feel it is more of a construct to make the book into a package and not the heart and story of the book.
I do not know how it is interpreted by those who are far from this story in real life. For me, having gone to a yeshiva, I really sympathized and related and laughed out loud.
I would love to see or hear Ausalnder on a panel togheter with the author of Living the Bible. What a panel that would be!
Customer Rating:
Summary: As his wife says, they really did a number on him.
Comment: I wanted to like this book. I heard an interview in which Auslander read the first page or so, and thought it sounded really funny. As someone that grew up in what was, at times, an overbearing religious environment and a semi-dysfunctional home, I was sure I could understand, and laugh along with him.
But my, oh my, Auslander is angry. Very, very angry. And more so than the humor, this is what permeated this book for me. In many places, it completely washed out the humor.
Don't get me wrong, he's a funny man and knows how to turn a phrase for comic effect. There were moments I really, really enjoyed, and even one or two that made me laugh out loud. (Who names their kid peace?)
But I guess I was expecting something more like David Sedaris -- a man who really knows how to make the most of a screwed up and depressing situation.
Foreskin's Lament just left me uncomfortable, and possibly worried about Shalom's blood pressure. You just can't hang on to anger like that, can you?
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