The Last Jew

Rating:
Summary: Due to contraditory reader reviews on this book...
Review: ...I bought it hesitantly. I liked very much The Physician, so I decided to give this book a try. And... I loved it. The story in the first chapter is fast paced, almost a Yonah's life summary. His first sexual relationship is almost described in a short sentence! But that's only in the beggining. Quickly the book takes the narrative form we all liked in Noah's previous books. It's a book that will pull your feelings out, one that your interest is always building up. If there is anyone hesitant about buying this book... Then hesitate no more. Go buy it!

Just a thought: I think the main characters of this book and The Physician are very similar... 1. Both are (a lot)taller and stronger than average 2. Both will become physicians 3. One is pretending to be a Jew, the other pretends to be a christian 4. Both have broken noses! 5. And some more I won't tell, may be spoilers...

As a last note: I would rate this book 4.5 stars if possible, because its a great book, but I think The physician was a bit better. But I'm sure there are people who think the opposite.

Rating:
Summary: Historical novels can be THE best!
Review: A Jewish youth of 1492 Spain who loses his family in the midst of Queen Isabella's Expulsion Decree: what better way to enter the world of the Inquisition and the Jews and the conversos (Marranos). I have always felt that history should be taught through historical fiction, and here you get a chance to "live" in the period of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella (without a single mention of Columbus!). The book is peopled by many characters of the time who cross the path of Yonah Toledano (our Jewish youth); men of the Church, relic stealers, silversmiths, sailors, silk merchants, workers of armour, and physicians of the time. In perhaps a bit too tidy a manner, Yonah apprentices himself to almost everybody he meets and manages to do well at everything. The novel, however, does give us a chance to move around in this world and to experience the loss of all that is important to Yonah. How Yonah retains the spirit of his Jewishness and strives toward the fulfillment of his own life are the questions that this novel chooses to answer.

Rating:
Summary: Survival story
Review: Although I know very little about the Inquisition and do not have a strong historical background, I found this book interesting and thought-provoking. This is basically a survival story. Yonah learns to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually against huge odds. At times, I felt he was a bit "over the top" with his ability to adapt so easily and become a master metalsmith and then a physician, but undoubtedly, there are individuals who do succeed in many diverse areas. Yonah was smart and talented. Equally important, his family background provided him with a sense, not of entitlement, but one of obligation to do his best, taking care of himself and those around him. As interesting as he is as a main character, the individuals around him are also remarkable in that they are so human and are formed and reformed by the circumstances they find themselves in.

Overall, this is a good read. I would highly recommend it to any lover of historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Survival story
Review: Although I know very little about the Inquisition and do not have a strong historical background, I found this book interesting and thought-provoking. This is basically a survival story. Yonah learns to survive physically, mentally, and spiritually against huge odds. At times, I felt he was a bit "over the top" with his ability to adapt so easily and become a master metalsmith and then a physician, but undoubtedly, there are individuals who do succeed in many diverse areas. Yonah was smart and talented. Equally important, his family background provided him with a sense, not of entitlement, but one of obligation to do his best, taking care of himself and those around him. As interesting as he is as a main character, the individuals around him are also remarkable in that they are so human and are formed and reformed by the circumstances they find themselves in.

Overall, this is a good read. I would highly recommend it to any lover of historical fiction.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining but not a good piece of historical fiction
Review: As I am from Spain, I am drawn to books with a Spanish theme. The Last Jew is the story of Yonah Toledano, who truly seems to be the last Jew in Spain after the expulsion in 1492. The book starts with Yonah being only 13 years old. His brother is killed, soon his father is too, and Yonah wanders throughout the country, first escaping, then trying to make a living. The book ends when he is 33 years old, after many, many adventures. This was an entertaining book, although at times a bit unnerving.

For example, there were many mistakes in the spelling of Spanish names. Maybe I should offer my services as an editor, because really, consistency is not that difficult. Yonah himself gets his name spelled Jonah on the jacket! Bernardo becomes Bernado, Ana Montalbán becomes Montelban, Isabel turns into Isobel, etc... It is bad already if you mangle the names of your characters, but even in the acknowledgments there are a couple of people who may be thinking that this Noah Gordon is a careless dork.

Speaking of names, it was a good idea to name the evil villain Inquisitor Bonestruca. Sounds like what he did for a living.

I loved the part about the Jocs Florals, where the second and third prizes are a gold rose and a silver violet, but the first prize is a real rose, because "nothing made by humans could surpass a flower made by God". In this very competitive society we live in, wouldn't that be a terrific lesson to teach our children? Can you imagine a school competition, where the kids area actually rooting to get second place?

This book is also home to one of the most ill-written sentences I've ever encountered: "Her thick-lipped pudenda was a small animal with a wild brown pelt".

I liked the map of Spain listing the travels he made. But the map is incomplete, and what's with the dotted lines? As much as I've thought about it, I cannot figure out their significance.

This book is quite engaging, but slightly simplistic in its approach to historical fiction, and in the same way that the names are sometimes misspelled, the facts are muddled at times. For example, the book says that "Henry IV of Castilla had no sons [...] but he had a daughter, Juana, believed to have been the illegitimate child of Henry's mistress, Beltrán de la Cueva". No, no, no. For starters, Beltrán de la Cueva was a man. Henry's wife, Juana, is said to have had a daughter, also named Juana, with Beltrán de la Cueva. This is why in Spanish history the younger Juana is known as La Beltraneja. Henry wanted to name her his heir, but noblemen didn't like that, and supported Henry's youngest brother Alfonso, who one day appeared dead. Eventually, Isabel La Católica (what you Americans know as Isabella, even though she was not Italian), who was Henry's sister, became Queen of Castilla. This is all very simple stuff, that you learn in the third grade or so.

If this is a genre you enjoy, then you must read Arturo Pérez-Reverte. He is a master writer, who understands history and brings the context alive with rich and complex characters.


Rating:
Summary: Familiar rhythms
Review: Fans of Noah Gordon will find much comfort in this book. He returns to familiar themes and rhythms in The Last Jew. Stylistically he borrows much from both master works The Physician and Shaman. While the themes and rhythms of the book are familiar Gordon brings forth a compelling new story that entertains from beginning to end. Perhaps Gordon is somewhat of a nomad, for it is the wanderings of his characters that they take form.

The Last Jew paints a vivid picture of one of Christianity's darker moments, yet in the end shows how the goodness of a person can triumph over even the greatest obstacles. Yonah Toledano discovers the cruelty of Christianity as an institution bent to serve other purposes. He discovers the true Christianity in the hearts of those who take him into their lives. The irony of the book lies in the affirmation of all faiths, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam through the instrument of the Spanish Inquisition.

The book is about the triumph of the soul, about keeping faith and promises and about never forgetting whom you are. Shorter by a great deal than The Physician and Shaman, it would be an excellent primer for the new Gordon reader before tackling the more complex but equaling compelling trilogy.

Thank you Mr. Gordon.

Rating:
Summary: The ¿Last¿ Jew is definitely a ¿Lost¿ Opportunity.
Review: Fifteenth century Spain, the Inquisition at its height, persecution of the Jews and a murder with a hint of perversion. All this should have resulted in a ripping tale but Noah Gordon's "The Last Jew" is as aimless as the journey of it's central character, Yonah.

The story never really gets going and is marred by the author's use of short sentences and disjointed style. Much detail is irrelevant or even worse, "padding", which renders little opportunity to engage the imagination. For a murder mystery there is no inducement to speculate on "who dun it" and consequently excitement never builds. Much of the characters' behaviour and the background narration is trite and suggests that, with less salacious subject matter, the book might well be pitched at an adolescent audience.

Also annoying, but perhaps more the publisher's fault, is the over-use of italics for Spanish vocabulary. Rather than allowing the context to convey meaning this unceasing use of italics is a constant irritation.

It is always a disappointment to select a book and commence with high expectations only give up because the flaws far outweigh any merit. The Last Jew could have been a great book but the author's story concept was far better than his ability to sustain an engaging novel.

Rating:
Summary: Plodding
Review: Gordon's books sell jillions of copies for the same reason that Michener's or Grishner's do. Not because they are great writers who create interesting, complex characters within compelling plots, but because they write linear, page-turning pop novels that neither require the reader to remember what was in the pages she read last night nor to think deeply about what is in the pages before her.

"The Last Jew" is Yonah Toledano, a [Jewish man] in fifteenth century Spain, a time of Inquisition and expulsion by Queen Isabella. After the murders of his father and brother, Yonah avoids the expulsion, wandering the Spanish countryside until he marries, solves the crime and, um, meets a lot of people. That's pretty much it. Gordon has at least been to Spain and done some rudimentary research, but his grasp of the history of the society is neither deep nor nuanced. He sets a story in a fascinating historical period, yet fails to capture any of its essence, fails to use the amazing color around his characters. His prose is plodding with occasional clunks. The handful of characters are sincerely drawn without being complicated. Gordon is a technician. He writes pedestrian novels. If you're scheduled for a long flight or a long wait at the supermarket checkout, this would be a good book to kill the time. If you don't like it, don't worry, you won't remember a thing about it tomorrow.

Rating:
Summary: Absorbing, well-crafted tale of the Spanish Inquisition
Review: Historical novels must succeed on two levels. First, they must succeed as novels, offering the reader interesting characters, a plotline that keeps the reader turning the pages, and sufficient descriptive information to create an imagined environment to be inhabited jointly by the reader's mind and by the text. Secondly, they must be credible evocations of the historical circumstances they seek to portray.

Noah Gordon's novel succeeds on both these levels. He tells the totally absorbing story of a young Jew from Toledo, Spain, named Yonah Toledano. When the order arrives for the expulsion of Spain's Jews in 1492, the young man finds himself suddenly on his own, bereft of family and community. He wanders the length and breadth of Spain, hiding from the Inquisition and trying not just to earn a living but also to retain whatever he can of the fact which is at the core of his being: he is a Jew, no matter what outward trappings of forced Catholicism he might put on to hide from the authorities. And here is how the novel meets the second test of historical fiction, in that it offers a wonderful insight not merely into the terrors of the Inquisition (real as those were) but more importantly into the spirits of those Jews from Spain who even though they maintained the outward trappings of Catholicism (at pain of death), inwardly remained Jews, and practised in secret, over centuries, customs which were Jewish.

The end result is an inspiring story of how a person manages to maintain his faith despite the most overwhelmingly oppressive circumstances. That is an insight which can be shared by both Jewish and non-Jewish readers. And as for Jewish readers, it can be said that this excellent novel offers wonderful insights for a Jew today here in comortable, tolerant America of what it really means to be a Jew.

Rating:
Summary: Noah does it again
Review: I have read most of Noah Gordon's books, and enjoyed all I have read. I have my favorites...The Physician is one I re-read about once a year. This latest book is similar to the Physician, but lacks something that the other book had. My reaction to this, in the most part, was horror. The Inquisition is a terrible stain on the history of Spain and the Catholic church. The orders for the Jews to leave Spain, and the horrific ways they were treated and cheated are appalling. What is most horrifying is that this could all happen again. I have to admit that my reaction to the first part, dealing with the destruction of Yonah's family and community, was visceral, not rational. It was as if I was reading my own history, or worse yet, future. I have only one quarrel with the historicity of the book, and that involves the delicious revenge wreaked on that terrible monk, the disease called the POX! I think that particular disease (syphilis) came back from the new world with Columbus, so there would not have been time for physicians to become familiar with the advanced stages of the disease. It was a wonderful thing to have happen to a dreadful excuse for a human being. Sad for his illegitmate family, but considering what he had done to Jewish families, poetic there as well. I would recommend this book to anyone. It is a wonderful way to learn about what happened to Jews in the past, and how ordinary people managed to survive horrible times.