Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel

Auslander has one of the sickest senses of humor I have ever encountered. I first discovered him when listening to the Podcast the Moth where people tell 15 minute personal stories without any notes. Some of these stories are brilliant and Auslander's tale was one of those. He told a hilarious story entitled the "Death Camp Blues" about his experience visiting a death camp in Germany. I know that sounds offensive, and there are certainly many people that will be turned off by this type of material, but I and many others are apparently sick enough to enjoy it. This book is similar. The main character, Solomon Kugel, has just moved into a new house with his wife and young son and his annoying mother who the doctors have "promised" will die any time now. His mother is obsessed with the holocaust and continually tries to tell everybody how much she suffered (even though she was really in the states at the time). Kugel is himself fixated on death, in finding an attic to hide in when "they" come to get the Jews, and in finding the perfect last words to say before he dies. Some of the last words he quotes from historical figures are quite funny. I don't want to spoil anything but the major twist concerns him finding an extremely surprising person living in his attic.The book is often funny but I believe that Auslander tells the same handful of jokes too often. It's like a SNL skit that gets turned into a full length movie. This plot was reasonable but did exactly zip along. I noted that he also has a collection of short stories that might be worth trying. I recommend this book but with reservations. Here's two bits from the book that give you the idea:Why did the chicken cross the road? Professor Jove had asked him. I don't know, said Kugel. Why did the chicken cross the road? Because he was a schmuck, said Professor Jove. I don't get it, said Kugel. The chicken crossed the road, said Professor Jove, for the same reason we all cross roads--because he thought that there might be something better on the other side. Tell me, Mr. Chicken: there are no wars on the other side of the road? There is no suffering, no divorce, no failure? No hunger, no disease, no tears, no pain? They don't commit genocide on that side of the road, Mr. Chicken? On the other side of the road parents don't bury their children, sons and daughters always get the love they need, men and women don't grow old and bitter and die of regret?Two and a half thousand years later, it was becoming undeniably apparent that an unexamined life is the only one worth living. Examined lives tended to end hanging by the neck in the shower. Life examiners tended to go out sucking on the barrel of a shotgun.

There are definitely things to like about this book. The set-up is worthy of a great novel--Solomon Kugel moves his family to a rural New York town where he is not only a fish out of water but he also discovers Anne Frank living in his attic. Mr. Auslander clearly has skills as a comic writer and creates some very funny moments: Kugel's encounters with the Messerschmidts (who know about Anne in the attic) and Eve, the real estate broker, stand out, as well as Kugel's time in the workplace where he sells for EnviroSolutions, a recycling company. Kugel's search for what he wants to be his last words is a running theme through the novel that also generates some funny moments and a historical review of some famous last words.Unfortunately, Mr. Auslander's comic skills are not enough to save Hope: A Tragedy. There are numerous problems here but the biggest is that there is not a single really likeable character in the book. Anne Frank is a foul-mouthed terror, Kugel's mother labors under the fantasy of being a Holocaust survivor, the townspeople around Kugel are all liars, cheats, and/or arsonists. His wife is understandable, at least, but hard to sympathize with since Kugel is the center of the novel.As for Kugel himself, the reader cannot sympathize with him either. Auslander seems to want to make him sympathetic but his decision-making process is so ridiculous that he is unbelievable. Kugel wants to have hope for the future, for his family, which is admirable. His shrink, Jove (what's in a name?), constantly advises him to forget hope, forget happiness, and just get on with life. But why are having hope and getting on with life mutually exclusive? A few simple decisions--put his mother in a home, go to work on a regular basis, throw Anne out of the attic--and his problems would be under control. But he can't seem to do any of this for reasons that don't seem realistic. Auslander mines some good tragedio-comedy with Kugel putting food in his mother's garden and buying supplies for Anne, but it's not enough. If the comic effect or the ending (which is horrible) were worth the effort, it would be possible to suspend disbelief, but in a novel that has you pulling for Kugel, he ends up being a horrible disappointment.When it comes right down to it this novel is not a disaster but it, like so many others, is a chance wasted. It feels like too many attempts to force humor by pushing characters to extremes, rather than letting humor and true tragedy arise from strong, believable characters. Mr. Auslander is a writer of obvious talents, but they don't seem to be on best display here.

This book was chosen for discussion at a book group I belong to. I look forward to our discussion.When I think back to the experience of reading this book, I recall basically enjoying it and being very amused by its rather mordant humour. It concerns Kugal, a Jewish man who moves with his wife and small son and his ailing mother into a farmhouse in an obscure American town/village where nothing has ever happened ever. He has a paying lodger but discovers that the house has a long term squatter in the attic, who says that she is Anne Frank.I have read Anne Frank's diary and know that in some middle East countries that it is banned, mainly because it humanises Holocaust victims rather than letting them be seen as anonymous victims. Holocaust Deniers are keen to try and prove that the diary is a forgery, I imagine, for similar reasons. The Anne frank in this book is very old and smelly. She smells like a toilets where other toilets go to the toilet. She is also very bad tempered and sweary. Her time is spent writing a book in the attic.Initially, Kugel keeps the news of this to himself but gradually reveals this incredible story to the person who sold him the house, to the estate agent and finally to his family. His mother's reaction is the funniest. Despite the fact that she has had a safe life in the USA, he identification with Jewish suffering in Nazi occupied Europe leads her to claim that she too is a Holocaust survivor.For Kugel, the experience leads to great reflection with his therapist of the nature of hope, hence the book's title.It is a very funny book but one that also gets the reader thinking.

I found "Hope: A Tragedy" unexpectedly ridiculous, very fast-paced, full of punch-you-in-the-face humour, but I am sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. I had no idea what the book was about before I picked it, and this was the best part - I was blown away by the absurdity of it. It's ridiculous (or is it?), it's offensive (or is it?) , it's darkly comic.What to expect: present day, a New York state countryside where Solomon Kugel buys an old farm house and moves in his family including his lovely wife, 3 year old son and cranky old mother (the Holocaust survivor, or is she?). If I could I would not reveal who, as Kugel discovers, is responsible for the horrid smell in his new old house. But I guess it is impossible with all the other reviews. Another survivor is living in his attic, tap-tap-tapping away at her new novel, to match (if not to outsell) her debut (which sold over 30 million copies worldwide).Original and well written, but too many repetitions, too much swearing and I did not laugh out loud once (despite finding it all pretty amusing). Three and a half stars. Actually, four stars, I am feeling generous.

Solomon Kugel moves to a small town with his wife and son, hoping for a fresh start. He is a man plagued by worries, insecurities and desperate to discover those 'last words' which he should leave for the world whenever he departs it. His fresh start is hampered by the arrival of his mother - who claims she is a holocaust survivor, although she isn't - and a disgruntled tenant. Also, there is the small matter of Anne Frank, now elderly and wonderfully cantankerous, alive and well and living in his attic.This novel could be terrible - in some ways, it almost should be terrible. However, it is, in fact, wickedly funny and very moving. Solomon Kugel is just a terrific character, trying to appease his wife, tolerate his mother and her odd ways and decide what to do about Anne Frank. Can he throw an "elderly, half-mad Holocaust survivor out of his house?" Add in the fact that an arsonist is torching lovely farmhouses in the area where he has just brought, you guessed it, a farmhouse, and you have a funny and thought provoking read.

The beauty of e-books are that you are spared the obnoxious cover pages captions: "Laugh out loud".."Hilarious funny". If I would have seen them before reading (I always have a look at the cover at the end) I would not have chosen it.Did I laugh out loud? Nope. But I grinned occasionally like mad.This is not a "funny" book, its a tragedy but like all life`s tragedies there is humour in it. You are in for a bumpy right about different approaches to life, suffering, guilt, history, happiness, forgetting and coping. Prof Jove vs Pinkus, Eva vs Sol, Bree vs Mother.Yet it is light, not gloomy and full of interesting sentences.

The book was disappointing because it is extremely repetitive coming back again and again to the main theme which is not believable from the outset.