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[quote]
fendrock wrote:</p>
<p>I also read The Lost. . . .</p>
<p>It . . . includes long passages of biblical exegesis, plus just plain long sentences.</p>
<p>An interesting book, but not light or easy reading by any means.
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<p>I agree that Mendelsohn often uses long sentences. (In part this seems to be a stylistic debt to Proust.) That said, I think that these sentences are long for a reason: because he has many different images or ideas that he wants to juxtapose before coming to a full stop with a period. And I found him to be an extremely graceful writer, so his prose never seemed (to me, anyway) swampy.</p>
<p>As for "long passages of biblical exegesis," at the risk of sounding a bit like Bill Clinton, I guess this depends on what you mean by "long." It is true that stories from the Hebrew Bible (specifically, as I recall, the Torah) are one of the strands that Mendelsohn uses in weaving together his story. But for me these sections worked well and I don't think that any of them are longer than, say, five pages. (And while I don't think that this is necessarily too relevant here, when I say that these sections "worked well" for me, I do so as someone who is not Jewish, nor even much of a believer at all - more on the Buddhist/agnostic part of the spectrum, if anywhere.)</p>
<p>As for its not being "light" reading - yeah, I agree with that (but then that sort of goes with the territory - the Holocaust, that is). </p>
<p>As for its not being "easy," well, for me the "easiest" reading is that which yields the greatest pleasure - and I found this book deeply pleasurable.</p>