Finished
another Harry Kemelman yesterday: Monday the
Rabbi Took Off. It’s one I started
to re-read a while ago and didn’t get into at the time. It’s a big long-winded compared to the Tuesday book in the series, which I read
earlier in the month and enjoyed.
In Monday the Rabbi literally takes off to
Israel, leaving behind the usual group of disgruntled board members trying to decide
whether they want him back or not. We have
this subplot going on throughout, but the main story takes place in Israel with
a couple of bombings and two deaths and a lot of stuff about what it’s like to
be an Israeli in the homeland, and what it means to be religious there and so
on. The murder is solved a bit
perfunctorily right near the end, but the victim isn’t really a major character
and so you feel a bit disconnected from that part of the story. There are several other elements to it that
make it all a bit like too much story for one book. It’s still an interesting read, and gives insights into the
feelings of Jews in and out of Israel, and perhaps that’s what the book is more
about: Kemelman trying to 'write out' his own feelings about how he stands as a Jew in the time the book was written....
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