- Paperback: 448 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (31 Aug 1989)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 014018175X
- ISBN-13: 978-0140181753
- Product Dimensions: 19.3 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 590,515 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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First Sentence
STANDING before the kitchen sink and regarding the bright brass faucets that gleamed so far away, each with a bead of water at its nose, slowly swelling, falling, David again became aware that this world had been created without thought of him. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
STANDING before the kitchen sink and regarding the bright brass faucets that gleamed so far away, each with a bead of water at its nose, slowly swelling, falling, David again became aware that this world had been created without thought of him. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I've never written an Amazon review before, but after seeing the poor single star given to one of my favourite books ever I felt almost obliged to do it. I read "Call it sleep" quite a while ago, at University, and I simply found it magic. The protagonist, his childhood in New York, his fears, his moment of revealing epiphany... It's everything still in my heart, even though, of course, the plot is fading in my mind. I read the book and I strongly recommended it to my close friends, the ones I knew could appreciate the intimate poetry of it.
Format:Paperback
It's 1907. David and his mother arrive in NYC from Austria, and receive an unfriendly welcome from his father. The story reveals, largely through David's eyes, the difficulties that a Yiddish speaking boy has settling into New York life. Gradually, the reader learns the reason for his father's anger and lack of love for David. Reading this beautiful book is made difficult and challenging by the author's amazing attempt to transcribe the way that immigrants mispronounced the English language. He uses many interesting literary techniques to convey David's thoughts and fears. A good read, and a fascinating insight into the lives of poor immigrants in pre-1914 New York.
Read also: ALIWAL
Read also: ALIWAL
Format:Paperback
An unusual novel - a great start with the description of immigrants to the US, wonderfully vivid recall of life as a young immigrant, and sensitive portrayal of an "anxiously attached" young child - hesitant in facing the world and clingy. Not a new theme in literature - see the opening of Proust in which a young child tries to put off bedtime, or the first novel of William Maxwell, in the literature of the US. Proust probably shades it, but this is very good! (Though the central character can sometimes overdo his fear of the world - in that we can find this a bit tiresome as his nearest and dearest also do! - and we don't QUITE learn what parental behaviours have caused this response to the world on his part.) That's the main theme of the first part and returns as a theme of the fourth: in between there is deciperhing the back story of his mother, and the introduction to cheder (rather less than gripping for the reader who does not relate to the theme of becoming a Jew). Throughout: colloquial dialogue, heavily accented.
Overall: well worth reading!
Overall: well worth reading!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
call it sleep
I came across this book when I became frustrated finding new books and scanned the list of best 100 books according to Time magazine.. Read more
Published 23 months ago by daphne
The American 'Ulysses'?
Henry Roth's novel of American immigrant life shares features with Joyce's groundbreaking work, yet takes the same preoccupations into a new space, surroundings and ethnic... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Modgonne
Call It Sleep
Just about as dull a book as you can get. I read the first 20 pages, gave the author a chance and skimmed to page 100 then could take it no more.
Published on 29 Aug 2009 by Mr. Moshe Elias
the portrait of a child as a young man
An interesting and brilliant novel about a child's coming to consciousness. The hostile world and the reality are always described from his point of view. Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2009 by De Lullo Agnese
Synopsis
In the slum jungles of the city, an immigrant boy, David Schearl grows up. From foul, rat-infested cellars, up dark stairways to the airy freedom of New York tenement roofs, he... Read more
Published on 21 Sep 2008 by Javaslublu Books
Not My Kind of Novel
In a sense, it's sort of silly to try and write anything useful about a book so completely hyped by critics and carefully studied (cf. Read more
Published on 11 Dec 2005 by A. Ross
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