God's Grace (Twentieth Century Classics)

by Bernard Malamud and Malamud

Book Overview

God's Grace is an apocalyptic tale set in an imaginary time and place. It is an audacious story and probably the author's most controversial work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140184910
• ISBN13: 9780140184914
• Release Date: May 1995
• Publisher: Penguin Classics
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.8" x 0.5" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

God's Grace

Extraordinary in it's humor, and provoking thought about God's involvement in the world order and everyday matters.

Not Malamud's greatest, but visionary and ambitious

Bernard Malamud had a varied and interesting writing career. From Yakov Bok in the award winning "The Fixer" to the struggling artist Fidelman in "Pictures of Fidelman", to baseballer Roy Hobbs in "The Natural", he has painted portraits of a wide range of fascinating people, mostly Jewish men in middle age, faced with moral or ethical crises. Probably my favorite is Henry Lesser from "The Tenants", but Calvin Cohn in this novel comes in close. He is a pretty complex guy, in fact the last man left on earth after a thermonuclear holocaust wipes out the rest of civilization. Luckily for Cohn, he missed out on being killed by virtue of his being at the bottom of the ocean floor in scientific pursuits. He befriends a highly intelligent chimp, whom he names Buz, who for a time is his sole companion in this "new world", and they make for themselves something idyllic on a deserted island, living off the land and some remaining supplies from the ship that Cohn had sailed out on (all of whose inhabitants have perished, along with the eccentric, Christian German scientist who raised the chimp). Buz becomes gifted with speech, the ability to learn and debate, mostly on religious topics; this makes for some fantastical and interesting exchanges on Jewish and Christian themes. Once the reader gets past the implausibility of verbal communication and debates between humans and primates and sees the story as metaphorical, this makes for a fascinating novel. It is short and highly readable, carrying themes that get to the root of what life is, who God is or isn't, and what belief and power can do, for good and evil. Malamud throws in some typical self deprecating Jewish wit, with guilt about God competing with man's attempts at intimacy with the Almighty. Some of the developments are certainly uncomfortable (if you bristle at the thought of inter-species mating, as I and I am sure most of us do, you might have to suppress your imagination in parts). But the developments are necessary to the concepts that Malamud is putting forth. This was a rewarding story on many levels. Recommended to anyone who wants to be challenged to think about the meaning of life beyond mere convention.

Human nature on trial

Calvin Cohn, a Jewish paleontologist, son of a rabbi, is the only human survivor of a thermonuclear disaster. He has to content himself with the company of a few chimps and baboons. God is responsible for this second flood and He blames humans for destroying nature; Cohn has survived due to an error and he is let to live and make the best he can. In this scenario of desolation, Cohn becomes a god-like creature, he believes he can recreate the world, impose a new social order based on high moral and spiritual values, hard working, order, aiming to turn his fellow chimps into a better lot than humans. Amongst the chimps there is "Buz", a Christian who has been taught how to speak, sweet "Mary Madelyn" the only reproductive female of the group, "Esau" the nonconformist, a mysterious albino ape, and the cast-out gorilla "George" who is enchanted by the cantor's singing... This a novel heavy in meanings, in the use of parables, fables and allegories. Following Malamud's pessimistic outlook on human nature, Cohn is just one more of his characters standing in a long line of losers, an individual who fears his fate and becomes the object of ridicule and pity. In his disguised reincarnation of Adam, Moses, and finally Christ, Cohn symbolizes the necessity of gaining moral wisdom through suffering. In a metaphorical language and fantastic-like "Chagall" prose, Malamud creates a thought-disturbing novel, an account of human nature fragile standing, and a celebration to its strenghts as well as a lament to its weaknesses.

A truly beautiful, exceptionally moving book

There's a staggering range of emotion here: from apocalyptic doom, to fearful survival, to irascible and choleric comedy, to wrenching simplicity of striving towards good, and bringing about a cataclysm. Humanity or, better still, human history personified... God's Grace is like Swift's Gulliver's travels: simple enough to captivate a casual reader, deep enough to drown a philosopher. A moving masterpiece.

crazy stuff man

this book was some whacked out shite man... i can't believe my Catholic high school made me read this book... it was good but strange.. i recommend it if you're into apocalyptic and evolutionary stuff... or just basic sci-fi what if kinda junk