Coney

Rating:
Summary: A Heartbreaking, Original Coney Island
Review: Being a born-n-raised Californian, I have no memories and preconceptions of Coney Island, so my experience may differ from a New Yorker or New Jersey resident's idea of Coney. I found this book to be very interesting, keeping be engaged through all 320 pages. Ducovny's characters are al slightly off center and keep you wondering what will happen next. The sadness of a young man who finds he is stradling between a boy who races steam ships on his bicycle and a young man who is figuring out his sexuality and own identity. many of the characters are people you would not want to know , but all have compelling lives.

I was not expecting the amount of sexuality in the book. I wasn't offended by the amount or type of sexual scenarios, but I found that the characters seemed to lack any real passion, abhorance or lasting interest in the sexual situations, which struck me as odd.

All in all I give it a 4-star rating for its sad stroy, unusual cast of characters and gutsy ending.

Rating:
Summary: Mundane "Coney" is tepid, dense and ultimately superficial
Review: I had looked forward with great anticipation to Amram Ducovny's debut novel, "Coney." The novel, which examines both Jewish immigrant life and the culture of midway freaks of Coney Island life in the days immediately before World War II, sadly wasa major disappointment. Overpopulated with stock characters, laden with "atmosphere" which tinly substitutes for a paucity of genuine insight, and caricaturing Jewish immigrant life instead of shedding light on its weaknesses and inconsistencies, the novel lacks the literary consistency and moral strength of Kevin Baker's "Dreamland," a work which treats many of the same themes Ducovny's work does not come close to presenting.

The numerous characters which flood the pages of "Coney" never have a chance to develop themselves. Even the most sympathetic of them, the tormented boarder-poet Aba and the drastically overweight Queen Fifi, always seem on the verge of becoming authentic characters, but Ducovny never permits them the time or consequence in the narrative to evolve. The central character, the youthful Harry Catzker, bounces between being a wise, nearly dispassionate observer and a sympathetic, frustrated teen-ager shackled by his immigrant parents and stunted by the poverty-induced decadence of Coney Island life in 1930s Brooklyn.

"Coney" is not without merit, and Ducovny certainly has a wonderful ear for dialogue. His insertion of periodic conversations between Harry (Hershele) and Aba ring with symbolic and literal truth. These brief "Cherry Tree" interludes are, to me, the best part of the novel. Ducovny also excels in revealing the tension between immigrant parents and their children; his portrait of the friction between Harry's embittered mother and his repressive maternal grandmother crackle with genuine anger and betrayal.

However, the novel never escapes its tendency towards romanticizing, even stereotyping, its characters. His compassionate portraits of the profound misery felt by Coney's sideshow freaks seem both predictable and staged; each "misfit" seems to possess a nobility born of underserved suffering. This "heart-of-gold" touch wears thin quickly. The nefarious gangsters have all the believability of bad guys from 1930s B movies. Even Ducovny's foreshadowing of of the horrors of the Holocaust seem to be literary cliches rather than engendering fear of the ominous signs of genocidal catastrophy.

Despite its good intentions, "Coney" never escapes its flaws. Readers who desire insight into Jewish-immigrant life in New York, the depressing life of side-show freaks or commentary on the seemingly endless nastiness of life in general would be better served by reading more competent treatments.

Rating:
Summary: Mundane "Coney" is tepid, dense and ultimately superficial
Review: I had looked forward with great anticipation to Amram Ducovny's debut novel, "Coney." The novel, which examines both Jewish immigrant life and the culture of midway freaks of Coney Island life in the days immediately before World War II, sadly wasa major disappointment. Overpopulated with stock characters, laden with "atmosphere" which tinly substitutes for a paucity of genuine insight, and caricaturing Jewish immigrant life instead of shedding light on its weaknesses and inconsistencies, the novel lacks the literary consistency and moral strength of Kevin Baker's "Dreamland," a work which treats many of the same themes Ducovny's work does not come close to presenting.

The numerous characters which flood the pages of "Coney" never have a chance to develop themselves. Even the most sympathetic of them, the tormented boarder-poet Aba and the drastically overweight Queen Fifi, always seem on the verge of becoming authentic characters, but Ducovny never permits them the time or consequence in the narrative to evolve. The central character, the youthful Harry Catzker, bounces between being a wise, nearly dispassionate observer and a sympathetic, frustrated teen-ager shackled by his immigrant parents and stunted by the poverty-induced decadence of Coney Island life in 1930s Brooklyn.

"Coney" is not without merit, and Ducovny certainly has a wonderful ear for dialogue. His insertion of periodic conversations between Harry (Hershele) and Aba ring with symbolic and literal truth. These brief "Cherry Tree" interludes are, to me, the best part of the novel. Ducovny also excels in revealing the tension between immigrant parents and their children; his portrait of the friction between Harry's embittered mother and his repressive maternal grandmother crackle with genuine anger and betrayal.

However, the novel never escapes its tendency towards romanticizing, even stereotyping, its characters. His compassionate portraits of the profound misery felt by Coney's sideshow freaks seem both predictable and staged; each "misfit" seems to possess a nobility born of underserved suffering. This "heart-of-gold" touch wears thin quickly. The nefarious gangsters have all the believability of bad guys from 1930s B movies. Even Ducovny's foreshadowing of of the horrors of the Holocaust seem to be literary cliches rather than engendering fear of the ominous signs of genocidal catastrophy.

Despite its good intentions, "Coney" never escapes its flaws. Readers who desire insight into Jewish-immigrant life in New York, the depressing life of side-show freaks or commentary on the seemingly endless nastiness of life in general would be better served by reading more competent treatments.

Rating:
Summary: Mundane "Coney" is tepid, dense and ultimately superficial
Review: I had looked forward with great anticipation to Amram Ducovny's debut novel, "Coney." The novel, which examines both Jewish immigrant life and the culture of midway freaks of Coney Island life in the days immediately before World War II, sadly wasa major disappointment. Overpopulated with stock characters, laden with "atmosphere" which tinly substitutes for a paucity of genuine insight, and caricaturing Jewish immigrant life instead of shedding light on its weaknesses and inconsistencies, the novel lacks the literary consistency and moral strength of Kevin Baker's "Dreamland," a work which treats many of the same themes Ducovny's work does not come close to presenting.

The numerous characters which flood the pages of "Coney" never have a chance to develop themselves. Even the most sympathetic of them, the tormented boarder-poet Aba and the drastically overweight Queen Fifi, always seem on the verge of becoming authentic characters, but Ducovny never permits them the time or consequence in the narrative to evolve. The central character, the youthful Harry Catzker, bounces between being a wise, nearly dispassionate observer and a sympathetic, frustrated teen-ager shackled by his immigrant parents and stunted by the poverty-induced decadence of Coney Island life in 1930s Brooklyn.

"Coney" is not without merit, and Ducovny certainly has a wonderful ear for dialogue. His insertion of periodic conversations between Harry (Hershele) and Aba ring with symbolic and literal truth. These brief "Cherry Tree" interludes are, to me, the best part of the novel. Ducovny also excels in revealing the tension between immigrant parents and their children; his portrait of the friction between Harry's embittered mother and his repressive maternal grandmother crackle with genuine anger and betrayal.

However, the novel never escapes its tendency towards romanticizing, even stereotyping, its characters. His compassionate portraits of the profound misery felt by Coney's sideshow freaks seem both predictable and staged; each "misfit" seems to possess a nobility born of underserved suffering. This "heart-of-gold" touch wears thin quickly. The nefarious gangsters have all the believability of bad guys from 1930s B movies. Even Ducovny's foreshadowing of of the horrors of the Holocaust seem to be literary cliches rather than engendering fear of the ominous signs of genocidal catastrophy.

Despite its good intentions, "Coney" never escapes its flaws. Readers who desire insight into Jewish-immigrant life in New York, the depressing life of side-show freaks or commentary on the seemingly endless nastiness of life in general would be better served by reading more competent treatments.

Rating:
Summary: NOT THE CONEY ISLAND OF "MY" YOUTH!!
Review: OK -- I bought this book because of its cover in my never-ending search to recapture some of the feelings I have of growing up in Brooklyn. This one takes place a little before my time (1939) but I have so many fond memories of visiting Coney Island as a child that I was anxious to nostalgically relive some of that joy. In retrospect, I should have stayed with my perceptions of Coney Island rather than replace them with those of the poverty and vulgarity as represented by Ducovny in this novel. I'm not saying that his visions are wrong -- they are probably so much more right than mine. Mine, however, are NICER!!

The main character, 13-year-old Harry Catzker, is the good natured type of boy any parent would be proud of yet he's saddled with a mother who doesn't want him and a father who spends his time talking to "Freud". He gets his affection from Aba, the Yiddish poet, who is also a boarder in his home and who converses with Harry on matters of philosophy and politics while under a cherry tree. I'm not sure if the parallel here is supposed to be Chekov or George Washington?? Ducovny paints a picture of Coney Island which is replete with freaks, wild dogs, gangsters, crooked cops and immigrants. The freaks, however, seem to have more backbone than the non-freaks, yet their depravity, on which the author seems to dwell, made for some less than desirable reading for me.

The story picks up when a plot is launched by the gangsters to make some real money but just when I was finally getting into the book, it abruptly ends. The story comes to a cataclysmic finale when one unforgettable night all the players in Harry's life are faced with some momentous decisions that will have far reaching effects on the central character. While I felt deeply for the Harry Catzker that Ducovny has created, the book was a little over the edge for me in terms of reading enjoyment and thus my two star rating.

There are many comparisons made to Hitler and the Holocaust and what was going on in Europe during the same time period. Ducovny depicts the same things happening in Coney Island on a much smaller scale, where the weak are overtaken by the strong and the good people are ruled by the bad. There was obviously a subterranean luridness about this area of which I was unaware either intentionally or naively -- another coincidence to the Holocaust.

Rating:
Summary: Read It Now!
Review: The characters that inhabit Ducovny's CONEY grab your attention and don't let go. They're the winter residents of Coney Island in 1939 and range from Jewish immigrants to sideshow freaks to gangsters and even wild dogs. Seen mostly through the eyes of teenager Harry, the events of CONEY parallel impending horrors in Europe as the strong in Coney Island plan to prey upon the weak. In spite of such bleakness, the best moments in the novel to me are conversations between Harry and an elderly Jewish man that through understated humor attempt to describe an insane world. By the time I was halfway through the book, I couldn't put it down.

PS I first noticed the book because I liked the cover. The exception to the rule, I presume.

Rating:
Summary: Read It Now!
Review: The characters that inhabit Ducovny's CONEY grab your attention and don't let go. They're the winter residents of Coney Island in 1939 and range from Jewish immigrants to sideshow freaks to gangsters and even wild dogs. Seen mostly through the eyes of teenager Harry, the events of CONEY parallel impending horrors in Europe as the strong in Coney Island plan to prey upon the weak. In spite of such bleakness, the best moments in the novel to me are conversations between Harry and an elderly Jewish man that through understated humor attempt to describe an insane world. By the time I was halfway through the book, I couldn't put it down.

PS I first noticed the book because I liked the cover. The exception to the rule, I presume.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging main character in a familiar story.
Review: While much of the drama was obvious, typical of many other books dealing with the Jewish experience in America, the inner life of the main character most certainly was not. I enjoyed being inside Harry Catzkers head. His honesty and imagination make him highly sympathetic and his conversations with Aba in the cherry tree are utterly profound. This book reminded me very much of the writing of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Chaim Potok. I felt so comfortable in this world that i was sorry when it had to end.

Rating:
Summary: An engaging main character in a familiar story.
Review: While much of the drama was obvious, typical of many other books dealing with the Jewish experience in America, the inner life of the main character most certainly was not. I enjoyed being inside Harry Catzkers head. His honesty and imagination make him highly sympathetic and his conversations with Aba in the cherry tree are utterly profound. This book reminded me very much of the writing of Isaac Bashevis Singer and Chaim Potok. I felt so comfortable in this world that i was sorry when it had to end.

Rating:
Summary: Thought provoking and original
Review: Young Harry Catzker is coming of age in a topsy turvy world, which starts when he falls off his bike and smashes it to pieces, setting in motion a series of other events, but that is the least of his worries. Coney has been described (see flyleaf) as a dark comic novel and that is what it is. I had perhaps unfairly expected a little "schmaltz", but Ducovney doesn't give an inch in that department, except perhaps at the Café Royal. Harry's mother keeps repeating to her husband "always with the jokes." She finds terror underneath the joking. The reader is on her wavelength. Harry will suffer in this world, but he will turn out all right. He seems to have an instinct for survival. By the time the novel finishes, however, no one else will be spared.

Set in 1939 in Coney Island, New York, the story presages and parallels the coming Holocaust. As Harry's father (serial novelist for a Yiddish newspaper) tells Harry, in Poland there is no freedom and the law is on the side of the "Pogromchiks", in America the law is on your side, but you may not be able to exercise it. The three main adults are all immigrants, and as it becomes clearer and clearer, they are not safe in America either. Aba, poet and family boarder, wonders how many Jewish lives will have to be given before there can be a State of Israel. Unfortunately, he is eerily prescient. The reader desperately wants justice or a happy solution and the lesson is that there is none.

This gritty book assaults the senses. It is difficult and at times even disgusting to read some of the passages, page after page of grime and cruelty, tempered occasionally by kindness - the love of his father, Aba's life lessons, and by visits to Fifi, the fat lady. From the opening chapter where a pack of dogs are tearing each other apart, the reader is in for a dizzying descent into hell. There are gangsters, circus freaks, and adults whose lives are confused, in tatters and beyond their control. At first it looks like a good guys versus the bad guys and an attempt to shock. Even the landscape is bleak, the glory days of Coney Island when it had Luna Park and Dreamland, is past, and most of the novel takes place in the off season when the summer people have gone. Yet, as the novel builds momentum, the parallels to Hitler's rising power in Europe inform the book more and more and give it coherence.

Often the language is awkward and convoluted. Harry, his father, Aba, and his mother go into reveries and fantasies in ways which confuse the reader, although the concept is good. Moise, the father, speaks out loud to Freud and then turns and speaks to real people, for example. However, there is a lot of good imagery. Coney will get under your skin much as the particles of sand under the boardwalk and provoke you into confronting the biggest issues of our existence.