Satan in Goray (Isaac Bashevis Singer: Classic Editions)

Each chapter would make a great movie... I loved it...

This book uses a very different writing style that took me a while to get used to, but when I did I really ended up enjoying this book. If you're looking to read "outside the box" then pick up a copy of Satan in Goray.Many kudos to my world literature teacher, Prof. Dudenhoeffer, who assigned this book to us!

this book presents a story dating back to the 17th century in Poland.....yet change the dates and names and it is eerily reminiscent of modern times and the religious conflicts surrounding the Messiah....a good read for anyone interested in the messiah from a different point of view and written in the first person concept....it was recommended to me from someone in my weekly bible studies class....I have enjoyed the story....

Singer may be the only winner of the Nobel Prize to write in a language considered dead. Nonetheless, his crisp prose and enticing style make it a worthwhile read to anyone who is interested in the subject or just in exploring a great novel.In the 17th Century, European Jewish civilization almost collapsed. Social norms fell apart as people abandoned their homes and their farms in something that can only be described as a mass psychosis. Satan in Goray tells the story from the perspective of one town.Singer begins to explore a life long interest in the issues of what makes society good and what is evil in this first novel. If you want to get a flavor for his genius, this is an excellent place to start.

I have read all of his works prior to my conversion to Christianity. Now I simply cannot read them any longer for his vocabulary is really rough. One cannot blame him of course after the holocaust, but I cannot abide his language now that I am a believer. I am grateful I read all of his works prior to becoming a Christian for they really do let us know what people have done to God's Chosen. God said the first would be last so no Christian has the right to persecute His chosen ones. Indeed, I am so grateful I had read all of his works before becoming a believer for they are a real lesson in man's cruelty to God's Chosen. Beware, all Christians who elect to persecute Jews, for God will deal harshly to any who touch his Chosen ones. Do not forget that Jesus said that the first shall be last, not left behind.

Singer is a great writer and this story is one of his best.

This was an enlightening and interesting read. I wanted to dive right in and learn all I could right away. However, I needed to take little breaks throughout in order to process what I was taking in.

Poetic writing, everything Singer did (both Singers actually) was wonderful, but this is not a favorite of mine. Very dark view of a religious community in Poland in the 1600's.

This novel is the only one of Singer's where he did not supervise the translation. Singer softened the translations of his other novels to spare the sensibilities of his English-speaking readers. Here is Singer without the charming Jewish folklore. He wrote for Polish Jewish readers of the 1930s who had lived through a series of pogroms. He provides a parable of the ascendancy of evil written in a Jewish literary tradition mostly lost on modern readers. This translation suggests that behind Singer's other great novels in English are even greater ones in Yiddish.

In 1648, the Chmielnicki Uprising in Poland, ravaged civilisations and lives of people leading to an-end-of-the-world situation. Singer has captured this apocalypse and life- preceding and following it- in this stellar novel with his crisp and astute writing. In 190 pages, the author has gone back in time, to tell the story of a village named Goray coming back to life after hopelessness and dread spread like wildfire among the survivors in the event of the Cossack-Polish war. Here, we find a Jewish community coming to terms with finding hope, an anchor, some kind of opportunity for them to reinstate their faith and to continue living. Religion, here, becomes an important institution to rekindle hope, foster the sense of collective solidarity and a path leading to self fulfilment. Throughout the novel, I was reminded of Emile Durkheim’s (a French Sociologist) ideas on religion. The power of religion to engender a collective consciousness and thereby allow co-existence was brilliantly explored in Singer’s imagination of the Jewish society in Goray following the 1648 pogrom. The element of horror infused within the story skilfully brings out the essence of trauma and its manifestation that people suffer following such apocalyptic life events. I was touched by Singer’s beautiful prose. Through raw images, minimal descriptions, it rightly culled out the dystopia, the madness and hysteria religion and faith can give life to in a community. The novel was an introspection on religion, the importance we give to it; both as individuals and as a group. It was a question on who we become as the ‘faithful’ and an answer to what can become of us as the ‘faithless’.

Book arrived in new condition

Very atmospheric. Holds up well over the decades.

A classic