Sacrifice of Isaac

by Neil Gordon

Book Overview

The best kind of literary debut, The Sacrifice of Isaac is a sharply-written novel of suspense and psychological depth. Following the death of his world-renowned father, a great Israeli statesman, a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0142001856
• ISBN13: 9780142001851
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

Thoughtful thriller

Gordon has mixed the history of art, Europe and Zionism to craft an excellent mystery thriller. While the pace is deliberate, the time Gordon spends explaining details of paintings, Nazi bureaucracy, the founding of Israel, and the cities of Paris and Florence is well spent, as the conclusion requires these details on physical and philosophical levels. Details make for complicated decisions. Right or wrong is simple. Life is complicated. On a side note, Gordon often quotes dialogue in French, Italian, Yiddish and Hebrew, but you do not need these languages to read the book as the dialogue's content becomes quickly appararent usually on the same page.

The Title Doesn't Begin to Describe What's Inside

I picked up this book after loving "The Company You Keep," and wasn't all that excited about something that looked a bit too Chaim Potok-ish. But boy, was I happy to find a story that took the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis by he horns, and tackled the very complicated issues surrounding the creation & maintenance of a Zionist state. I almost couldn't believe this book ever got published. To some of my friends who only date "the right kind of Jews," these ideas would be grounds for treason! The book did an excellent job of helping me to understand how I could feel so conflicted about my grandparents' dedicated involvement in selling Israeli bonds, given the viciousness of what's happening in Israel now. The moral dilemmmas posed were way beyond the typical mainstream mass media fodder, and I felt as though parts of my brain were being activated that hadn't seen any use since watching "Before Night Falls."

Powerful Tale!

I'm not alone as an American observer of what has been happening in Israel the last three years in feeling uncomfortable with the treatment of Palestinians by Israelis. I hadn't fully appreciated when I opened this book, how directly the author would address this issue as he tells the story of two disaffected sons and their relationship with a father who played a role in the founding of Israel. The discomfort of the sons with how the dream of Israel had turned into something less than noble, matches my own. Since so much of the novel explores the interior world of those who contribute to the unfolding of the story, one ultimately of betrayal, this book demands a certain care on the part of the reader both for the characters and for the larger issues being discussed. Personally, I was mesmerized by the story and the conflicted morality represented. Mr. Gordon weaves together the voices of the characters with grace, even as he richly evokes the circumstances in which they find themselves. The light, the rain, the shadows, the smells came alive for me as I dropped into the world he creates. This is fine writing that draws one into the mystery of what happened and why.As a footnote, I'll observe that it seems unhelpful to have reviews of different media lumped together. Comparing the experience of listening to an audio version of a book with the experience of turning the pages is, in my estimation impossible. That one review dislikes the inflection of a voice rendering dialogue means absolutely nothing in assessing the quality of this book.

A Favorite!

Neil Gordon's "Sacrifice of Isaac" is a compelling story which had me bound to the text until I finished it. In fact I had taken Gordon's novel along with me on the train to read while traveling to the Indiana Dunes from Chicago and once there found myself sitting on my grandmother's headstone in the Furnessville Cemetery inorder to finish reading a riveting chapter. A suspenseful narration that on occassion might make a reader stop to think about the world as we too often see it or have been taught how to preceive our own cultural environments juxtaposed to so many others.The book discussion group of Temple Israel in Miller Beach (Gary, Indiana) also chose Gordon's first novel as their summer reading selection, and I've sent copies of "The Sacrifice of Isaac" now available in paperback to friends, and they have all become fans of Neil Gordon's writing too.

Not just another thriller, but so much more.

Running thru the Vegas airport to catch the last plane home. Quick stop at the bookstore looking for something to keep me interested during the wee hours when everyone else's reading light goes out and I just cannot sleep. It looks like a decent Middle East thriller, and someone on cover says reminds them of LeCarre. First few pages totally taken in --- fathers and sons and the the thick confused politics of Israel, which is usually enough to keep me reading...but then plunging on into Paris and a mystically binding love story...and further in, to the mystery of the Holocaust. What had been just a quick thriller becomes a close lyrical study of the moral and personal complexities of growing up in Israel, to serve in an army that feels as though it is doing what the army your fathers fought against did in WWII. Moral passion, thick ambiguities, little resolved but all the questions of history and personal politics properly asked and unanswered.