The Book of Paradise

Very powerful and moving. I myself have a similar ethnic and cultural background and was deeply touched and invested the entirety of the book. It felt as if an old friend was telling the tale and I love when the voice of the character shines through and you forget you’re reading.

A parodic Midrashic romp. Itzik Manger's "Book of Paradise" is the impish story of an angel, Samuel Abba, who is banished from Paradise and reborn in a human mother. Immediately after birth, he regales his new family with all the zany stories of his childhood in Paradise with his friend, Little Pisser—their pranks on pious teachers (gluing the wings), their naughty escapades in the Garden of Eden (where they observed Adam and Eve undressing), and street-kid shenanigans (stealing goats, spying on King David, tormenting the Behemoth). As it turns out, Paradise is not so different from the human world, with zoning regulations and segregation (there is an Jewish quarter of Paradise and a Gentile quarter), customs laws (the police are looking for smugglers of Turkish tobacco) and stratified inequality (Little Pisser's father is a down-and-out patchworker). There is escalating tension between the angels and the prophets, and all the while traveling circuses of Turkish conjurers disrupt the order of the city. Even in heaven, there is domestic violence, love lost and broken hearts. The boys skip school and spend their day provoking the biblical prophets and taunting them with mocking ditties.

I'm not very familiar with Yiddish literature or Midrashic spoofs of biblical stories. The novel reminded me a lot of the subversive, carnivalesque stories of Witold Gombrowicz (especially, Ferdydurke) and Fyodor Sologub (especially the "The Petty Demon") where authority is perverted, parents and teachers are lampooned, and delinquent children and sadistic adults run amok. I definitely recommend this as a fascinating novel, skewering the sanctimonious, an irreverent comedy of demonic angels, despotic patriarchs, alcoholic thugs and anti-Semitic hierarchs. It might have been called the "Book of Numbskulls" (or so Little Pisser suggests as a title to an alternative to the Book of Exodus).

This was outside of my usual reading preferences but I found the description so compelling that I wanted to try reading it and I'm so glad I did. I haven't read any Yiddish literature before but I found the take on Paradise incredibly interesting and I enjoyed the writing style. Will definitely be recommending this to friends!

I read this ostensibly because I'm unfamiliar with Yiddish literature in any way whatsoever.

The story of Samuel Abba certainly was fun. Samuel is a provisional angel who has been sent to earth to be born of as a human child. He should have no memory of his time in paradise but he and his angel friend, Little Pisser, have pulled a fast one and when his memories were supposed to be knocked out of him they were not.

So, on arriving on earth, not only is his mother delighted to have a beautiful boy but she is also smitten with his chatter even though he has just been born. His father is more skeptical, as are the elders so each night Samuel regales them with tales from paradise.

These tales are absolutely crazy and fun. They seem to describe a paradise which is just as corrupt as earth with behemoths being held against their will, various religious factions arguing and fighting over who is best, drinking, misbehaving, thievery etc.

If you, like me, knew nothing I'm sure you'll enjoy this. I understand from the translator that it was a difficult text to translate because the Yiddish idioms cannot bear direct translations and therefore the text itself has lost something of the feel of its original language. Its a problem you always encounter with any translation. However since I would never have been able to read it otherwise I am delighted the translation is available. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks to Netgalley for the advance review copy.

Very interesting and really moving book that I didn't expect to enjoy as much as I did. Opened up my eyes to things I had previously not considered.

This was an interesting one. I never read anything quite like it. It deals a lot with religion, Judaism in this case, but does so very tongue in cheek and truly was funny in places and very silly in others.

Because it is written from a Jewish point of view I was not too familiar with some of the elements in the story and I cannot comment on the representation of that culture. Even so, I quite enjoyed the tone and this world of various paradises (paradisae?) that the author was describing. It really was quite unique.

It did lose me a few times and maybe it was a tad too silly for me, but I still enjoyed it. I do think it’s quite a niche type of story and I don’t think it would have very broad appeal. But if you have a general interest in religion and don’t mind a bit of crazy, you may well enjoy this one.

On a side note, I thought the translator’s notes on this text were interesting to read as well.

The Book of Paradise is a strange, wonderful collection of tales (a la 1001 Nights) that feels like it should be literary cannon. These Yiddish tales of a Paradise filled with debauchery, zany hi-jinks, and earthly betises, puts any of these modern mythological retellings to shame. A silly, fun read full of warmth and that celebrated Eastern European Jewish humor, this is the satire we need in such strange times.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the digital advance copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

Itzik Manger was born in 1901 in Czernowitz, then in Romania, and was one of the most widely known Yiddish writers of his age, at one point even having more readers than the better known Sholem Aleichem. He was a poet, playwright and literary critic, but only produced one novel, The Book of Paradise. He moved to Warsaw in 1929 and the next 10 years were his most productive. He managed to escape to Paris, later to London and finally ended up in New York, where he sadly produced little. He died in Israel in 1969
The Book of Paradise is the story of an angel, Samuel Abba, who is banished from the Jewish Paradise where he has so far lived happily to be reborn to a human mother on earth. There’s a legend that before a Jewish baby is born an angel flicks his nose so that he will forget all about his time in Paradise but something goes awry when Samuel Abba is sent to earth and he can remember everything about his past. Immediately after his birth he begins to tell his new family and their acquaintances all the crazy adventures from his childhood, and it soon becomes apparent that life in heaven is not so different from life on earth. It’s all quite a romp with many amusing incidents, but not always light-hearted, as there are some darker passages, especially when Samuel Abba and his friend are sent on a mission to Gentile Paradise where they encounter a rabid anti-Semite who treats them in a way that foreshadows the experiences of many Jews during the war and its build up. I found this episode upsetting indeed. However, overall the book is a charming and clever depiction of life in Paradise, and even for those readers not so conversant with Jewish history and culture, there’s much to relate to here and I thoroughly enjoyed this unusual, inventive and original novel. Highly recommended.

Translated from the original Yiddish to English, The Book of Paradise was originally written by Manger at a turbulent time in his life, as noted at the beginning in both a prologue and a note from Manger himself. He had been stripped of his Romanian citizenship via growing antisemitism in the late 1930s, which led to him having to leave Poland, where he was living. Stateless, he went to Paris, writing an intro to this book which touches on all of this.

For all that, The Book of Paradise is a very playful book, with a provisional angel Samuel Abba tricking the angel who conveys him to earth to be born as a human - and forget his life in Paradise. Samual Abba is successful and is born with all of his knowledge of Paradise, amazing his new family. For days, the newborn tells the rabbi and other leaders of the town all about Paradise. And Paradise is not at all what any of them expected.

While I had some touchstones here, I’m sure there were jokes and references that went over my head. This is a very funny, silly book, full of scrapes and pettiness on the parts of the angels, including all of the important forefathers like King David, Abraham, Elijah, Noah, Jacob, and others. I enjoyed it immensely.

This is, my first time reading a comical novel and in terms of that it scored decent, it made me giggle quite a few times throughout the book. The plot itself is quite entertaining and unique, an angel reincarnating as a mortal baby with his memory intact, rather uncomfortable to fit in the new society since his days of paradise are ingrained in his mental space quite prevalently, it makes me think about whether the author created this illusion to portray his life incidents. As for other things we see that the mythical paradise is nothing like the religious scripture portrayed to be, the paradise is like a mortal world, There's classicism, sexism, xenophobia, scandalous affairs and perverted/tyrannical superiorer. Although most of the book of quite entertaining it fell flat after Samuel and Little Pisser's behemoth rescue mission.
Overall it was a nice read 3.5/5