The Education of Arnold Hitler - Softcover

Estrin, Marc

  • 3.45 out of 5 stars
    40 ratings by Goodreads
 
9781932961034: The Education of Arnold Hitler
Softcover
ISBN 10: 1932961038 ISBN 13: 9781932961034
Publisher: Unbridled Books, 2005

Synopsis

At once a chess master, a linguist, an athlete and an innocent in love, Arnold passes through the racial tensions of Mansfield, Texas (home of the author of Black Like Me) in the 1950s, the anti-war movement at Harvard, and both the Upper East Side and the Bowery, meeting Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, and Leonard Bernstein in the process, and finally learning the meaning of meaning.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

About the Author

Marc Estrin is a writer, cellist, and activist living in Burlington, Vermont, and the author of Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa.

From the Back Cover

Marc Estrin's illustrious debut, Insect Dreams -- The Half-Life of Gregor Samsa, traced a most improbable and unfortunate innocent through the first half of the 20th Century from pre-Nazi Austria to the explosion of the first nuclear bomb. With the same galloping humor, the same fear and loathing, and a touch of the Dickensian, The Education of Arnold Hitler introduces Gregor's human successor, a baby-boomer unfortunately named, who must navigate an absurd world of activists, academics, warriors, and their meaningless words. Like the greatest works of Don Delillo, Richard Powers, and Jonathan Franzen, Arnold Hitler turns a powerful humor and a compassionate and cutting satire on the darkest issues of the age: the persistence of war and racism, the intractable force of history and culture, and the lies that words conceal.

From the Inside Flap

Marc Estrin s illustrious debut, Insect Dreams The Half-Life of Gregor Samsa, traced a most improbable and unfortunate innocent through the first half of the 20th Century from pre-Nazi Austria to the explosion of the first nuclear bomb. With the same galloping humor, the same fear and loathing, and a touch of the Dickensian, The Education of Arnold Hitler introduces Gregor s human successor, a baby-boomer unfortunately named, who must navigate an absurd world of activists, academics, warriors, and their meaningless words. Like the greatest works of Don Delillo, Richard Powers, and Jonathan Franzen, Arnold Hitler turns a powerful humor and a compassionate and cutting satire on the darkest issues of the age: the persistence of war and racism, the intractable force of history and culture, and the lies that words conceal.

Reviews

As if the name Arnold Hitler wasn't baggage enough, the protagonist of this sweet, playful story carries a bit of Forrest Gump in him, too. Though the timbre of Arnold's intellect is richer than Forrest's, they're equally earnest. And as Arnold strikes out from small-town Texas to Harvard and New York City in the 1960s and early '70s, he keeps encountering historic figures. On a school trip to Dallas, young Arnold stands between the second gunman and the motorcade as JFK meets his destiny. Later, this soul-searching Hitler asks Noam Chomsky why Harvard students have such problems with his name when it caused nary a Lone Star stir. And soon after a protofascist descendant of Cotton Mather begins bedeviling Arnold, this fine specimen of a scholar-athlete is taken under Leonard ("call me Lenny") Bernstein's brilliant wing. All the while, Arnold's grandfather Jacobo mentors him from Italy by placing long-distance calls to his knee. Emulating an energetic dorm bull session among overeducated undergrads, this clever narrative package also makes plenty of room for literate explorations of Jewishness, anti-Semitism, and serious games of "What's in a name?" Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.

Publisher
Unbridled Books
Publication date
2005
Language
English
ISBN 10 
1932961038
ISBN 13 
9781932961034
Binding
Paperback
Edition number
1
Number of pages
336
Rating
  • 3.45 out of 5 stars
    40 ratings by Goodreads