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Title details for Disobedience by Naomi Alderman - Available

Disobedience

A Novel

by Naomi Alderman
Roe Kendall
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
Borrow Listen to a sample Listen to a sample
1 of 1 copy available

For Ronit Krushka, thirty-two and single and living on Manhattan's Upper West Side, Orthodox Judaism is a suffocating culture she fled long ago. But when she learns of the death of her estranged father, the pre-eminent rabbi of the London Orthodox Jewish community in which she was raised, she leaves behind her Friday-night takeout, her troublesome romance, and her boisterous circle of friends to return home.Her dual mission there is to mourn her father and to collect a single heirloom of her mother's. But as she reconnects with old acquaintances and the traditional ebb and flow of the community, Ronit becomes more than a stranger in her old home—she becomes a threat. Set at the crossroads of tradition and modernity, Disobedience explores a devout and closed world to discover the importance of moving on and what we lose when we do.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 1, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781481582193
      • File size: 264385 KB
      • Duration: 09:10:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Alderman's first novel, set in the world of British Orthodox Jewry, offers detailed insights into a tradition that can usually only be glimpsed and guessed at--the ritual baths, the rush to prepare the Sabbath, the behind-the-scenes back-biting and manipulations of congregants. Prefacing segments with quotes from the Torah and Talmud, Alderman does an excellent job of capturing how individuals and community justify themselves. The story itself, however, is far less interesting, veering between the obvious and the incredible, with the result that listeners aren't able to identify or sympathize. Roe Kendall's narration is adequate but uninspired, and the voices of the two women protagonists are often difficult to differentiate. R.R. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      July 17, 2006
      Alderman draws on her Orthodox Jewish upbringing and current life in Hendon, England, for her entertaining debut, which won the Orange Prize for New Writers after it was published in the U.K. in March. In writing about the inhabitants of this small, gossipy society, Alderman cleverly uses a slightly sinister, omniscient "we" to represent a community that speaks with one voice, and her descriptions of Orthodox customs are richly embroidered. Alternating with this perspective is the first-person narrative of Ronit Krushka, a woman who has left the community and is now a financial analyst in New York. After the death of her estranged father, a powerful rabbi, Ronit returns to England to mourn her father and to confront her past, including a female lover. But Ronit's shock that an Orthodox lesbian would marry a man rings false, as does her casually condescending attitude toward the community. By the time of the theatrical, unrealistic climax, Ronit's struggle between religious and secular imperatives gets reduced to cliché ("all we have, in the end, are the choices we make"), but Ronit works well as a vehicle for the opinion that even the most alienated New York Judaism is preferable to the English version, where "the Jewish fear of being noticed and the natural British reticence interact."

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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