{"id":899,"date":"2017-11-16T15:00:34","date_gmt":"2017-11-16T22:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=899"},"modified":"2017-11-12T13:01:14","modified_gmt":"2017-11-12T20:01:14","slug":"book-forest-dark-2017","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/11\/16\/book-forest-dark-2017\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: Forest Dark (2017)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><u><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/images.gr-assets.com\/books\/1490293616l\/33544874.jpg\" alt=\"Forest Dark\" width=\"317\" height=\"475\" \/>Forest Dark<\/u><\/strong><br \/>\nYear: 2017<br \/>\nAuthor: Nicole Krauss<br \/>\nLength: 290 pages<\/p>\n<p>***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY***<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve read a lot of books this year, but very few of them I would consider \u201cliterature.\u201d <em>Forest Dark<\/em> is the rare exception. The flowery language and high-concept imagery invoked in this book would certainly make it a prime candidate for some art-house film. Author Nicole Krauss doesn\u2019t just tell a story (or two) in this book; she crafts them out of the very essence of the human condition with expertly chosen words. There\u2019s little to no \u201cfluff\u201d in this book, which somewhat explains it somewhat shorter length, especially considering it\u2019s two stories in one.<\/p>\n<p>While I am not Jewish, the two, intertwining narratives in <em>Forest Dark<\/em> pull out the cultural identity from two very different characters. From an aging man who wants to make a legacy without relying too much on his heritage to a woman who has been given an opportunity to use her skills as a writer to further expound the life of one of the greats of Jewish literature, both characters interact with Israel in a way that ties them both together, even if they don\u2019t actually meet until the end (or at least, that\u2019s what I assume happened).<\/p>\n<p>Regarding pacing and distribution of these two stories throughout the book, there was never a point where I felt the plot was beleaguered. Each section advanced the plot of the two individual characters in such a way as to explore not only their motivations but how their cultural heritage either tied them down or influenced them to continue. While this whole book was well written, because it is a little more on the \u201cartistic\u201d side, there were many scenes, especially near the end, that didn\u2019t seem to make sense other than as a neat \u201cimage\u201d for the reader. At the very least, I know more about Kafka now than I did before reading this book.<\/p>\n<p>A great piece of Jewish-themed modern literature, I give <em>Forest Dark<\/em> 4.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/>\u00a0<\/strong><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-647\" src=\"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/255px-Five-pointed_star_svg-150x150.png\" alt=\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/strong><strong>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forest Dark Year: 2017 Author: Nicole Krauss Length: 290 pages ***THIS BOOK WAS RECEIVED FROM A GOODREADS GIVEAWAY*** I\u2019ve read a lot of books this year, but very few of them I would consider \u201cliterature.\u201d Forest Dark is the rare exception. The flowery language and high-concept imagery invoked in this book would certainly make it [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,54],"tags":[349,55,993,97,339,308,995,994,997,996,8],"class_list":["post-899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-4-0-stars","category-book","tag-349","tag-book","tag-forest-dark","tag-giveaway","tag-goodreads","tag-goodreads-giveaway","tag-israel","tag-judaism","tag-literature","tag-nicole-krauss","tag-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":901,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/899\/revisions\/901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}