Hell of a day. Finished A Mercy this morning, started this one this afternoon, read the dreary reports of the debt ceiling debacle and administration’s selling out of the Progressives and working class, watched the anything-but-inspirational Never Let Me Go, then returned to this crisp and fast-paced novella of one man’s brief abandonment of his true passion before his predictable, though necessary, return to his true nature and to nature truly. (Yes, a spoiler of sorts.) Hell of a day.
It is too easy to say of The Leviathan that it’s replete with early 20th-century Jewish stereotypes; better, perhaps, is to remember that stereotypes do not grow up in vacuums, though they usually outlast any utility.
In reconsidering this review-ette, the only change I might make is replacing “predictable, though necessary” with “inevitable.” Take your pick.