- Paperback: 240 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC; New edition edition (2 Jan 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747556407
- ISBN-13: 978-0747556404
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.8 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 36,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'Superb ... Pilgermann is history, metaphysics, a tangle of mysteries, profound and simple' Guardian 'A strange and beautiful work, whose mysteries are worth contemplation. Pilgermann is that rare thing - a novel that can be read with profit more than once' Evening Standard
Product Description
He climbs a ladder to reach another man's wife and gives himself up to her beauty, but then Pilgermann descends into a mob of peasants inspired by the Pope to shed the blood of Jews. Alone on the cobblestones, mutilated and unmanned, he cries out to Israel, to the Lord his God, to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He is answered instead by Jesus Christ: 'I'm the one you talk to from now on.' Every day is the Day of Reckoning and the judgement Christ brings is the start of straight action. Pilgermann hears a voice from within and becomes a pilgrim. Through time and war and Death itself, he makes his way along the road to Jerusalem, struggling to find God in the horror that surrounds him.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My favourite book,
By
This review is from: Pilgermann (Paperback)
I was first turned on to Russell Hoban by Riddley Walker, which was a set text for a university course I took called "Philosophy and the novel". It was an incredible read, and instantly became my favourite book. And then I read Pilgermann, and Riddley Walker was no longer my favourite book!Pilgermann is a surrealist road trip that fuses some wildly disparate themes into a dark free-form narrative, mixing religion, philosophy, science, history and, umm, maths like a mad man's alternative school curriculum. The language and imagery are endlessly creative, and the characters both mythic and ridiculous. I've never read anything quite like the book, and can happily read it over and over again without any diminishment of the thrill.
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Difficult book with historical-mystic theme,
By Durnovaria (England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Pilgermann (Paperback)
I normally like Hoban's work a great deal- "Riddley Walker", "The Medusa Frequency", "The Mouse and his Child" - with his characteristic mix of reality and fantasy. I'm afraid, however, that this one lost me entirely. Pilgermann is a mediaeval Jew who is castrated by a Christian mob but inexplicably saved from death by the mob's leader, and then embarks on some kind of quest ... but then the story gets into a tangle of Judaeo-Christian-Muslim mysticism that I couldn't fathom. It is beautifully written, but (at least to me) fairly impenetrable.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
5.0 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Nearly as good as Riddley Walker,
By camoon@binary.net - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pilgermann (Paperback)
Hoban's adult work (which consists are far too few books) is among some of the most brilliant literature I have read, and Riddley Walker and Pilgermann are my favorites. Perhaps less comprehensible then RW, Pilgermann is a narrative of the perpetual quest for that which is unattainable (and this is far too simplistic an explanation for an author who clearly burns through Jung for pleasure reading). The story beings centuries after the main character has died (but continues to exist in one form or another) and recounts his attempts at making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. I am leaving out far too much because the story is filled with a dark and unexplainable nature that sometimes comes out as terribly violent, cruel, or simply boggling. The narrator of course is sidetracked in his quest, sold into slavery (he is made a eunich too incidentally), but at last comes to a certain acceptance of the moment, despite his own wish to continue along on his journey. The story becomes caught up in the construction of 'hidden lion', a massive tile design which becomes a sacred object to the community. From here, Hoban analyses one of his most haunting themes--that of the sacred entering into the common place, it's dilution, and finally it's inevitable desicration. It would be a spoiler to say that much more of the plot itself, but in style the books reads very much as some apocryphal Christian work. There is much citing from the Quran and the book includes a 'reference' page of biblical and other religious references. Ultimately though, Pilergmann is the strangest religiously grounded work I have ever read, making Gnostic works which freaked out Philip K. Dick so much seem comparitively normal. At it's best, Pilgermann captures the hopes and fears of the all-too-small human animal who has only mistakenly assumed that he has the world under his control.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Questions on a grand scale, asked by a little man,
By Charles G. Fry "cgfry" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Pilgermann (Hardcover)
Pilgermann is a complex and somewhat (purposefully) confused portrayal of death and theology. The story involves the final year (maybe two) in the life of a Jewish doctor--he names himself Pilgermann--during the early years of the First Crusade. Pilgermann's story involves sin, punishment (not for the sin of adultery, but for "the" Jewish sin of Christ's crucifixion), pilgrimage, near-death experiences, a significant theological/artistic undertaking, and final life-and-death encounters. Hoban delves deep into all three Abrahamic religions to provide the foundation for this book. His prose is dense and hard to read, but regularly shows brilliance and provides astonishing insights. The book is truly amazing in its depth of knowledge--I regularly stopped to read other material for sources--and in its base humanity. It resonates with anger for the injustices of life, and is blunt in the extreme in its portrayal of death. And yet, I found the story compelling and positive in its whole.
Pilgermann is a small character in spirit and accomplishment, a lonely man that seems to have no real past or future. Is he representative of humanity in general, or simply the more cynical and defeated among us? When he is not just passing unanimated through life, he is captured by the present. He is often overwhelmed by the huge universe about him. His only real interest in life seems to be a single encounter with a woman at the beginning of the book. As his story unfolds, it seems that Pilgermann comes to no significant clarity in his life, but is regularly filled with amazing insights and depth of knowledge. This is a book that asks very serious questions, and forces the reader to provide answers. Pilgermann has very little in common with Hoban's Riddley Walker, a book that I have treasured since my youth. The English here is clear, but the story much more complex. Hoban has once again provided a very serious and signficant gem, but on a completely different plane of existence. |
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