Darkly comedic
4 stars
I picked up The Ministry Of Special Cases in a charity bookshop because I liked the idea of reading a novel set in Argentina. As it turns out, there isn't a strong Argentine flavour to the book, but it is still an interesting read.
We meet Kaddish Poznan, a Jewish man living in Buenos Aires with his wife, Lillian, and their adult son, Pato. The son of a prostitute, Kaddish is effectively excluded from the Jewish community for refusing to 'forget' his mother. He makes his living by discreetly chiselling names off gravestones in the dead of night for other Jews who are more successfully leaving their pasts behind. Englander manages to wring darkly comedic moments from this absurd situation and his novel's first half is considerably lighter than the second half. The main themes of family, ancestry and identity are explored initially through the interactions of an averagely dysfunctional …
I picked up The Ministry Of Special Cases in a charity bookshop because I liked the idea of reading a novel set in Argentina. As it turns out, there isn't a strong Argentine flavour to the book, but it is still an interesting read.
We meet Kaddish Poznan, a Jewish man living in Buenos Aires with his wife, Lillian, and their adult son, Pato. The son of a prostitute, Kaddish is effectively excluded from the Jewish community for refusing to 'forget' his mother. He makes his living by discreetly chiselling names off gravestones in the dead of night for other Jews who are more successfully leaving their pasts behind. Englander manages to wring darkly comedic moments from this absurd situation and his novel's first half is considerably lighter than the second half. The main themes of family, ancestry and identity are explored initially through the interactions of an averagely dysfunctional family. Then the son, Pato, is disappeared leaving his parents to cope as best they can, each in their own way, as the world they thought they understood crashes around them.
The portrayal of Lillian's increasingly desperate search for her son and her failure to accept the inevitable truth is particularly poignant and I thought that this was the real strength of the book. Kaddish is a buffoonish character, forever guilty about his inability to provide for and protect his family, and I didn't think he grew much, if at all. His madcap schemes and certain world view were set, as it were, in stone. Cameo characters are well-drawn and add depth to the tale. I liked the bureaucrat lunching in the corridor, Doctor Mazursky, the General's wife and the girl who found the caramels.
The Ministry Of Special Cases is a very Jewish novel. I was reminded of Bernard Malamud's The Assistant amongst others. Its humour is of the wry, self-deprecating kind and I just knew early on that these people weren't going to end up in a happy sunset. Their story kept me reading and interested throughout though and Englander has a great descriptive turn of phrase. His understanding of human nature keeps his characters believable and helps to shed a little light on this shocking time.