A Blessing on the Moon

Rating:
Summary: Wildly inventive, haunting and magical...
Review: After his murder by the Nazis, Chaim Skibelski finds himself giddy and ecstatic, despite lying dead in a pit with all of his neighbours. He begins a fantastic quest, searching to be reunited with his family and community, and to find the peace of the World To Come. But in the meantime, he wanders "the earth like an audience at intermission waiting for the concert to resume , unaware that the musicians have long since departed for home ?". In this imaginative work, Joesph Skibell succeeds magnificently in conveying the tragic scope of the Holocaust. But he never succumbs to the sentimentality or self-righteousness of other holocaust memoirs. With humor, a fine ear for dialogue, and a piercing wit he weaves his allegory. Truly, I laughed and I cried - but never felt manipulated. This is a an important work in its own right and a major step forward in the breadth of artistic expression that the Holocaust has inspired.

A great book and a gripping page-turner, this novel will appeal to many who would not otherwise pick up anything from the Holocaust genre.

Rating:
Summary: As a fable on the Holocaust, the book reaches many levels of
Review: As a fable on the Holocaust, the book reaches many levels of meaning. The living murdered Jews in the book, and the main character Chaim Skibelsky are testimony to the fact that we can die many deaths. Their wandering in the forest, frequently a symbol of confusion, their one night rescue in a fantasy hotel, and their ultimate redemption are powerful reminders that reality is not the only sense of life.

With the return of the lost moon, the sacred cycles of life for Jews can resume.

The details of the murder are devastating, and the life of the dead are told with great humor. For any one familiar with Hasidic tales, A Blessing on the Moon will be a contemporary masterful addition to that literature. For those uninitiated to its magic realism, you are in for a treat.

I recommend reading The Far Euphrates in conjunction with this book.

Rating:
Summary: A blast and mostly satisfying
Review: I thought this book was very engaging and superb at the emotional play. There's a scene where, after encountering the horrors of his fellow Jews beginning to rot, Chaim meets a soldier (now beheaded and carrying his head around) and in a fury starts kicking the head down the hill. And yet later, he carries the soldier's head for him. To me, that combination (horror, hilarity and unowed kindness) somehow characterizes the experience of the Jewish people in an intimate, gut-level way that is hard to capture.

Though other readers may be disconcerted by a certain lack of connection between the pieces, I enjoyed it quite thoroughly.

Rating:
Summary: Magical!
Review: It is nothing short of magic to be swept inside a book. `A Blessing on the Moon' captured both my heart and my imagination. Starting from the point where most stories of the holocaust end, Skibell takes the reader into a spiritual world mixed with realism and fable, warm humor and the ugliness of hatred and ignorance. Within the first few lines of the book, the main character is killed. But Skibell does not end the character's life there. That is where the story is just beginning. Skibell takes the character and the reader on a journey of the soul. It's an exploration into compassion and grief, love and the depth of hate. I didn't want to put the book down and when I did, I found myself thinking about and worrying about the characters. They seemlessly worked their way inside me. Brilliant and insightful writing. Thank God for a book that is imaginative, intelligent and that offers hope in the worst of despair.

Rating:
Summary: A masterpiece!
Review: Joseph Skibell has written that rare book that I couldn't put down. Telling the story from the viewpoint of a Jew shot to death in the Holocaust who must roam the earth dead before going to the World-to-Come, "A Blessing on the Moon", while a story of the agony of the Jews in the Holocaust, is at times funny, sardonic, tender, horror-filled--there just aren't enough adjectives. This Christian found it to be more revealing to me of the Jewish mind, religion, and the atrocities committed against the Jews than any other book I've ever read. The only thing that made me sorry was my lack of understanding of some of the Yiddish words and expressions. However, I will read this book again and again, and recommend it to anybody who appreciates well-crafted writing.

Rating:
Summary: The Truth Was Disturbing Enough
Review: Magical Fiction about the Holocaust, how will this instruct us when the truth was more unsettling than anything that can be imagined? This novel was well-written, yes, disturbing and painful to read, as any fiction with such subject matter must be, but I found myself wondering why I went on this journey and what the young American author felt he could tell me that survivor fiction and non-fiction had not already. I felt the Holocaust exploited and regretted having read this book. I'm going back to my Primo Levi, my Paul Celan.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Turn Off
Review: Of the many Holocaust related books I have read, this is truly one of the most unique. Skibell requires that we use our imagination to enter a world beyond our earthly reach. Put yourself in my soul, imagine with me. Die needlessly, lose all your loved ones due to hate and prejudice and watch others greedily take over all you had. Scream silently. What would we do?

Skibell uses warm humor to depict the ugiliness and ignorance. We imagine, pain, yearn, cry out with him. How dear and wise is the Rebbe. How vulnerable is Chaim, even in death. Is this mystical or are our own dreams and nightmares close? Who would or could even dream anything as horrifying as the Holocaust? Who could imagine visualizing the aftermath? Skibell found a way to take us through it in a captivating, imaginary, witty, compassionate soulful way. In this, his first novel, he reaches deep to reveal such honesty and surrealism through 60 year old Chaim. Skibell's piece of imagination captures, grips, pulls, tugs, at the heart strings. The photographs, the reunion, the tenderness, the compassion, and mother's chicken soup.....all mixed in with blood, horrow, guns, graves, hatred and grief. Such is life!!! There is the magical and the morbid. We don't escape it. There was the Holocaust and we should never NEVER forget it!!! Not in life or in death. Through a good soul's spiritual journey and quest to find rest, and a lost moon...which too is helped to find it's home of rest in the sky...we learn. There are correlations between both. Through it all, we are to bless what we have learned and teach others. We are never to forget. May the blessed moon which shines down ever so brightly from the heavens remind us that Jews will not be smothered, as the moon will not remain lost or lose it's shine. You may bury the moon and bury people, but the glow will be restored and emerge shining. We can't kill spirits, only bodies. The moon shines. The soul moves on. A Blessing on the Moon is captivating and mystical with so much brilliant and shining symbolism.

Thank you Joseph Skibell for not being silent. Thank you Chaim and Rebbe who will live on in our imaginations long long after this book is read and into many lives.

Rating:
Summary: Reminded me of a book you had to read for school
Review: You know I felt like I was reading a book back in highschool. Lots of things that must have been meaningful but I sure didn't get the symbolisms. I felt like if I went into class tomorrow my wise professor would tell me that black crows always symbolize death, or something to that effect. I do think there were some very creative aspects to this book. It reminded me of a giant dream sequence, at last it was the way my dreams seem to go, people appearing suddenly and things not always being logical but that's the way dreams are. I've studied a lot of the Holocaust, this was an interesting twist, but left me kind of empty toward the end. It was interesting early on but I wasn't on the edge of my seat waiting for the ending. Probably would make a good book for a reading club or a Torah study group.