From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Those looking for successors to Isaac Bashevis Singer (whose short stories were published by the Library of America this summer) should read Abraham's novel about contemporary Chasids. The broad narrative goes like this: Joel Jakob, a yeshiva student of the Berditchev Chasidim, dies young in a flash flood; his nephew, JakobJoel, who breaks with Chasid tradition and goes to MIT, is vaguely haunted by the uncle he never met. As a teenager, Joel reads the Book of Tales by Nachman, the historically real founder of the rival Bratislav Chasid, to the distress of his father, R. Moshele, the son of the "Berditchever" and founder of the Monsey, N.Y., yeshiva. R. Moshele's worries increase as Joel becomes subject to seizures, takes an unauthorized journey to Nachman's grave in Uman, Ukraine, and is quietly expelled from the yeshiva. Unbeknownst to his father or to his sister, Ada, with whom Joel is otherwise close, he is trying to create a female by manipulating letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as the legendary Kabbalists were supposed to have done. This concern with creating artificial life is given a twist in the life of JakobJoel, whose student work at MIT centers on "Cog," a female robot in the AI lab. Abraham (The Romance Reader, etc.) stitches many subplots and themes revelatory of Chasid life into her story, including the tale of an unfunny wedding jester (badkhn), Yankel Yankevitch; the often bitter rivalries between Chasid sects; and Ada's unlikely commercial success as a fashion designer for Chasid women. In one of Nachman's tales, which lends its name to this novel, a wise beggar says, "[E]verything has a heart. The world taken as a whole has a heart." Abraham's novel has both heart and brain, penetrating the separateness of Chasid life while respecting its mysteries. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Book Description
Set in the Chasidic world of Monsey, New York, a brilliantly original, provocative novel about storytelling and the limits of creation.
The Seventh Beggar begins with a contemporary young man's obsession with the legendary nineteenth-century Chasidic master, Nachman of Bratslav-kabbalist, storyteller, and charismatic whose cult following persists to this day. The legends and life of Nachman inform the novel, in particular Nachman's famously unfinished "Tales of the Seven Beggars," which serves as the inspiration for Pearl Abraham's own bold and probing story about the glories and pitfalls of originality. A translation of Nachman's tales from the original Yiddish is included in full in the novel itself.
Abraham staked her literary claim in the groundbreaking novel The Romance Reader, which took readers for the first time into the Chasidic world through the eyes of a woman. Now she returns to that world, with an even more ambitious work that upends the conventions of storytelling, thwarts expectations, and yet all the while compels us with its lovable characters, its narrative momentum, and its creation of a familiar yet dreamlike landscape, in which imagination simultaneously triumphs and destroys.
About the Author
Pearl Abraham is the author of The Romance Reader and Giving Up America.
The Seventh Beggar FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Pearl Abraham's novel is centered on the writings of Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the legendary nineteenth-century Chasidic leader, kabbalist, storyteller, and charismatic." A novel about the possibilities - and perils - of storytelling and creation, The Seventh Beggar takes us from the contemporary life of a Chasidic teenager to Nachman's past world of lost writings and courtly ritual, from a religious community in upstate New York to the scientific halls of MIT, from New York to Palestine to the Ukraine, all the while breaking literary conventions and boundaries. Nachman's famously unfinished Tale of the Seven Beggars serves as the inspiration for Pearl Abraham's own story about the glories and pitfalls of originality, and is included in full within her novel, in a translation from the Yiddish and Hebrew by Arthur Band.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Those looking for successors to Isaac Bashevis Singer (whose short stories were published by the Library of America this summer) should read Abraham's novel about contemporary Chasids. The broad narrative goes like this: Joel Jakob, a yeshiva student of the Berditchev Chasidim, dies young in a flash flood; his nephew, JakobJoel, who breaks with Chasid tradition and goes to MIT, is vaguely haunted by the uncle he never met. As a teenager, Joel reads the Book of Tales by Nachman, the historically real founder of the rival Bratislav Chasid, to the distress of his father, R. Moshele, the son of the "Berditchever" and founder of the Monsey, N.Y., yeshiva. R. Moshele's worries increase as Joel becomes subject to seizures, takes an unauthorized journey to Nachman's grave in Uman, Ukraine, and is quietly expelled from the yeshiva. Unbeknownst to his father or to his sister, Ada, with whom Joel is otherwise close, he is trying to create a female by manipulating letters of the Hebrew alphabet, as the legendary Kabbalists were supposed to have done. This concern with creating artificial life is given a twist in the life of JakobJoel, whose student work at MIT centers on "Cog," a female robot in the AI lab. Abraham (The Romance Reader, etc.) stitches many subplots and themes revelatory of Chasid life into her story, including the tale of an unfunny wedding jester (badkhn), Yankel Yankevitch; the often bitter rivalries between Chasid sects; and Ada's unlikely commercial success as a fashion designer for Chasid women. In one of Nachman's tales, which lends its name to this novel, a wise beggar says, "[E]verything has a heart. The world taken as a whole has a heart." Abraham's novel has both heart and brain, penetrating the separateness of Chasid life while respecting its mysteries. (Feb.) Forecast: This is definitely Jewish book fair material, but its potential audience is much broader. Readers of Cynthia Ozick will be delighted to discover another writer with a passionate, erudite take on Jewish life. Copyright 2005 Reed Business Information.
Library Journal
In her third outing, Abraham once again visits the world of the Hasidim, as a Hasidic teenager in upstate New York becomes fascinated with Nachman of Bratslav's forbidden Tales of the Seven Beggars. The seventh beggar cannot be known until the Messiah comes. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.
Kirkus Reviews
An unrelentingly recondite tale about a young Yeshiva scholar who comes to grief by delving too deeply into the stories of a Hasidic mystic. Joel Jakob lives in the Hasidic community of Monsey, a small town in upstate New York. A renowned young scholar, Joel is the grandson of a rabbi and the son of a schoolmaster. His sister Ada is a fashion designer of sorts who retrofits Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren creations according to Hasidic dress codes. At his father's yeshiva, Joel follows the prescribed course of studies with great success, but he also develops an interest in the writings of Nachman of Bratslav, an 18th-century Ukrainian Hasid famous for his unfinished Tales of the Seventh Beggar. A Kabbalist as well as storyteller, Nachman dabbled in black magic, hinted that he was the Messiah, and is, as a result, regarded with great suspicion by modern Hasidim. But even today there's a secret cult of Nachman devotees, and Joel finds himself drawn deeper and deeper into their ranks as he studies Nachman's work. Sure enough, things begin to get very strange in short order. Joel suffers odd fainting spells and hallucinations, especially after he travels to Ukraine in order to pray at Nachman's grave on Yom Kippur. There, he encounters a ghostly woman, a Lilith, who seduces him in his sleep and pursues him afterward like a Harpy. Back home, he becomes embroiled in Hasidic controversy and is attacked by members of a rival gang. Eventually, he comes to a bad end, kind of. A fascinating and scary tale that collapses under the weight of its own esoterica. Abraham (The Romance Reader, 1995, etc.) rambles maddeningly, and her account may be incomprehensible to any not well-versed in the arcana ofHasidic folklore and theology.
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