Call It Sleep: A Novel

A great book about life on New York's Lower East Side as seen through the eyes of David, a young Jewish boy trying to fit in a world that is Jewish on one hand, yet becoming more american on the other. As a native Nyer who spends a lot of time on the LES I'm always willing to read anything about that area showing it as the immigrants saw it in the late 1800s through the early 1900s.Its a hard book to read, not only because the Yiddish is not familiar but because it deals with one hardship, one heartbreak, one disturbing incident after another. David's family struggles to make it in NY after coming from the pastoral setting of Austria. In their homeland his father took care of cattle, here he is a milkman breaking his back for $16 a week. David is not the strongest boy in the neighborhood, either emotionally or physically, and this causes him grief to no end. He is a momma's boy in a world you have to be tough to survive in. His father is a sadistic person, taking his depression out on his family, co workers, and those he believes have wronged him. In some ways they have but his overreaction shows his dispair.A great book by an author who disappeared pretty much after it was published in 1934. Highly recommended for anyone interested in NY history.

My husband is an avid reader and loved it

I got halfway through before abandoning this book. Everything is magnified through a child's eyes. The child is not a scrappy survivor, but an intense sufferer, and we suffer with him. I bought the book because it was recommended by a "critic," but the writing isn't strong enough to suffer through a plotless memoir.

When people discuss the great American novel, I speak up for Call It Sleep. Eight year-old David Schearl and his gentle mother are each other's refuge from a father's hardened bitterness. David is starting to probe the bigger world in its treacherous vastness and glory: dirty games, and also moments of startling beauty and mystery. A book of childhood, but not of childish things, Call It Sleep does honor to the dawn of awareness in a child's mind. Maybe yours.David Schearl's immediate world is the sizzling tumult of immigrant life in downscale Brownsville, a world evoked with sensual devotion. Part of the dialogue is written in an attempt to transcribe New York's varied street dialects, and this makes reading a bit slower. Fortunately there is a superb audiobook edition (on Audible and a few other outlets) which is even better than the printed page. It lifts you right into the Babel-Eden of immigrant speech. (Kudos to the reader, George Guidall.) If you like thinking about language as such, look out for the pages about how David gets more and more "losted' as Brooklynites of various dialects (Irish, elite Anglo) variously interpret David's Yiddishy plea for help getting back to his mom on "Boddeh Stritt."Call It Sleep puts you frighteningly close to David's fear of his father and his vulnerability as a mama's boy, yet it is a narrative of the child as hero. David's unfolding consciousness includes a revelatory component. It is prefigured by thoughts of the divine as his mind wanders from Hebrew school, but in the event it is the street, in the form of the streetcar's electric third rail, and not the scripture, that triggers David's visionary initiation. Though one might call it a realist novel, Call It Sleep goes light years beyond the street-novel genre's harping on mere strength to arrive at humane grandeur.

Henry Roth's book "Call It Sleep" truly describes with great depth, feeling and emotion, the American Immigrant experience. Roth chose to use a 7 year old boy to narrate his story, thus making it more visceral and intense. Roth takes advantage of a 7 year old's state of mind and innocence, to portray the mid-childhood experience in a NY City East Side tenement ghetto.Though Roth happened to choose a Jewish part of the ghetto to portray in his story, the true beauty and excellence of the book, is that the story could have taken place in any one of the ghettos of New York City. It can easily be generalized to the Irish immigrant experience, or the Chinese immigrant experience, or the Italian immigrant experience or virtually any other immigrant experience at that time. All of those immigrants experienced this cultural mixing and its attendant discriminations as immigrants in New York City in the 1920's and 1930's.Roth published his book in the midst of the depression in 1934. But it came to real prominence when printed in paperback in 1964. The books true appeal is that it is universal to all Americans, except Native American Indians. All of the rest of Americans immigrated somewhere in their past. And thus, whether one be an immigrant today, or a 1st generation American or 2nd or 3rd, even if our ancestors came over on the Mayflower, we are all immigrants somewhere in our past.Even if one's ancestors were Pilgrims, parts of Roth's book would ring true for them as well. Through the use of intricate analysis of the thoughts of Roth's main character, he portrays those innate emotions that we have all experienced, and from time to time, continue to experience.The book is highly informative, highly emotional and highly entertaining. It reads very quickly, and is written impeccably. "Call It Sleep" is truly one book that all Americans should have in their collection.

It is among the greatest American novels. Told through the consciousness of a young boy, the characters are first generation immigrants, European Jews who speak only Yiddish on arrival, but learning New York street patois and rubbing shoulders with the other immigrant nationalities are spiritually in the melting pot of American culture. It is strong stuff which will make you cry, and occasionally laugh. Much of the dialogue is cleverly done in English language which sounds foreign, like Yiddish or in dense street patois, which is occasionally impenetrable.

Though I had too really push to read it over two weeks due to some lengthy passages (I'm a very slow reader but prefer to read things all in one go!), a lot of the writing, especially descriptions of the city, really clicked with my brain - I felt transported. I thought it was a wonderful narrative from the perspective of a child (not quite sure I liked it when Roth then decided to zoom out the narrative doing a Wasteland-esque set of speakers towards the end!). So, I wasn't sure about the ending. But overall I would recommend it, and leave the interpretation of the ending up to others...

Roth's riveting novel of growing up in a tenement on New York City's lower east side in the beginning of the 20th century has an authenticity and a nuanced understanding of a child's universe. It deals with issues that are as current today as they would have been when Roth wrote the novel in the 1930s -- poverty, discrimination, domestic violence, sexual assault. It is, in fact, difficult to believe that this novel was written in that period, as it transcends other literature of that time. The book was out of print for 30 years and then rediscovered, luckily for us.

Read this great book first time many years ago in paperback. Now am going to read it again. It is that good!Some books need to be read at least twice, a good example is, ' Blood Meridian,' and some of Earl Thompson's novels, with their hints of autobiographical material. Who can't read some of John D. MacDonald's works again. The list goes on. Favourite books from the past, well worth a second look.But this book I've been wanting for some time. His other works, more obscure, I look forward to.It's long, but a lovely book of immigrant history, through the eyes of a young Jewish boy

Bewegendes Zeitzeugnis eines verstörten Jungen, der sich auf Grund der aggressiven Ablehnung seines Vaters ödipal extrem auf die Mutter fixiert und seine gesamte Umgebung bedrohlich und düster wahrnimmt. Kein Stoff für sensible Gemüter