Meyer Levin (1905–1981)

This period piece is set in the "modern times" of the 1920s and '30s. It's a decade-long bildungsroman detailing the adolescence and young adulthood of a dozen or so young Jews as they come of age in depression-era Chicago. Some go east, some go west, all struggle with self-doubt, loss of identity, loss of livelihood, loss of life. Some marry, some divorce, some just sleep around. Some find what they're looking for, others don't.

The book is refreshingly sharp for its time and pulls no show more punches. I have to admit that the first few hundred pages dragged a bit (it's about 970 pages long), but the next few hundred made up for the poor pace of the opening chapters. By page 600 I'd come to appreciate that Levin had considerable skill in characterization: though his characters were slow to take shape, they aged subtly and suitably, and by the time I'd spent several hundred pages with them, they all made sense.

In fact, I was at the top of page 565 in the edition I've now read when I mused about how wonderful it was I'd come to know well all of the novel's characters, how their lives, once fully fictitious, now seemed very real. I thought about how it is that our own friends and family develop like the characters in the novel: a new friendship is rarely made overnight, but instead takes shape over the course of years. New friends tell stories, share secrets, reveal themselves to one another in fits and starts, and after several years have passed the new friends have become old friends.

Of the "old bunch" I identified most closely with Joe Freedman (the wanderlust-stricken artist) and Sam Eisen (the idealist attorney). These two characters seemed to me the most real; in their searches for self I sense a sort of universal searching, a truly human enterprise.

For instance, Joe travels the world over in trying to find his muse. More than once he finds his inspiration, only to let it go again each time. At the novel's end one senses he's no closer to his goal than where he began. His struggle through the novel's nearly thousand pages could stand for that of anyone who's ever felt lost, betrayed, confused, at sea.

Levin writes well. He lacks Potok's style and Singer's simply incomparable knack for storytelling, but his characterizations are deft and strong, and his plot is engaging. show less

These are not Mulla Nasruddin type stories…these stories tell parables which require thought and insight in order to pierce the veil hiding their spiritual messages. The stories are troubling, often a bit too subtle, confusing and yet intriguing. And, in the end, difficult. But then, they're not for the masses. They also read pretty quickly (not counting the time required for 'thought'); and sometimes seem lighter than they are. It's also notable that the messages get a bit clearer as you show more progress through the book and begin to learn the symbolism within the messages that Lewin is recounting.

And, after all that, it's intriguing to consider the differences among the darkness of this sample of Hassidic mysticism, the drunken ribaldry of Sufi mysticism and the mesmerizing beauty of Christian mysticism. It's obvious that the three traditions (yes, and Zen and Hindu and Mayan) describe the same cosmic truths. And yet I can't help but feel that esoteric Judaism carries some baggage that Christianity and Sufism don't. show less

Two eighteen year-old boys, Judd Steiner and Artie Strauss, are both brilliant, having graduated from the University of Chicago already. They are the sons of millionaires and live a life of luxury as neighbors in a wealthy section of Chicago. Artie is one of the most popular boys on campus and has a reputation with the girls. Many see his relationship with Judd as one of pity for the small, weird boy who no one else likes.
When the young son of another neighbor, also a millionaire, is found show more stuffed in a drainage pipe, Artie can't stop himself from taking part in the investigation. He leads newspaper reporters to the clues, even blurts out how he would have done it. He knows everything because he and Judd committed the murder. The arrest and trial of the two boys reveals their bizarre relationship and the fact that they murdered for no other reason than to have the experience and get away with it.

This is an account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1920's, when two wealthy boys murdered another local boy. They were defended by Clarence Darrow, represented here as the character of Jonathan Wilk. There is much delving into the sick minds of the murderers, a lot of psychology, philosophy and some surprisingly graphic language and images, considering this book was written in 1956. I like that Levin wrote from the perspective of Sid Silver, a classmate of the killers and cub reporter to one of the major newspapers. The book has a tone of both sympathy for the waste of three lives while giving the honest facts of the callousness of the behavior of the murderers. show less

"This was a crime for its own sake. It was a crime in a vacuum, a crime in a perfectly frozen nothingness where the atmosphere of motive was totally absent."

This is a fictionalized account of the Leopold and Loeb kidnapping and murder case from the 1920's. The author was a cub reporter for a Chicago newspaper at the time and covered the case. He was also a fraternity brother and slight acquaintance of one of the perpetrators, and so had an interest in and some inside knowledge of the case. show more This book was written in the 1950's and is considered a worthy predecessor of In Cold Blood and other "nonfiction novels."

The point of view in the novel alternates between the Leopold and Loeb characters (in the book Judd and Artie) and that of Sid, the reporter persona. We follow Leopold and Loeb's obsessive friendship, their planning of what they consider to be the perfect crime (due to their self-perceived super-intelligence), and then the execution of the crime. Then the media frenzy began, and all the clues they left behind despite their superior intelligence, soon led to their capture. The novel continues with a detailed description of their trial and their ultimate conviction.

At the time of the trial, Freudian theory was just beginning to gain popular acceptance, and a great number of psychiatric theories were expounded at the trial to try to explain the crime. The book went on at great length about some of the theories, and I sometimes tired of them. (I note that when the book was written in the1950's Freudian analysis was perhaps approaching the height of its popularity.)

Although perhaps slightly dated, the book is well-written, and a complete picture of this so-called "crime of the century." Recommended.

3 stars show less