Shadows on the Hudson

"Shadows on the Hudson" is an excellent novel, even better than Singer's similiar but more compact "Enemies, a Love Story". Few writers have ever been able to involve the reader in the inner lives of fictional characters the way Singer could, and fewer still would have been able to make their stories so fascinating when they're all so cynical and often downtrodden, bemoaning God's silence and the corruption of modern man. Singer had a singular talent for exploring the chasm between expectations and reality, how we're almost always let down (and the post-WW2 Jews moreso than practically anyone in history), and how, for some totally inexplicable reason, we keep going. He made the absurd palpable for the modern reader, far better than even Camus and Sartre did, because he was an entertaining storyteller first, and THEN he was a philosopher. This long, convoluted story of the lives of a half-dozen Jewish intellectuals and businesspeople in New York immediately after the second world war must be Singer's masterpiece. He often explored the same ideas in his novels---the point of existence and the role of the Jew in modern society---and in fact he often used philandering husbands and bitter wives and mistresses as primary characters, but he pulled it all together here into a riveting, beautiful story of obsession, regret, pain, and penitence that you simply don't want to end. That these people, and their endless torturous questions, aren't really important in the long run is precisely the final point of Singer's big novel: we make a tiny, swift ripple in the river and then we're gone, possibly forever; but it is how we grapple with the desires of the body and the needs of the mind and heart that gives our lives substance and form. Without this questioning and searching, without this rending of our spirit by apparently random or viscious events in our lives...without all of it, we would never turn to God. And then our small lives ARE meaningless. At least, that's what I think Singer is trying to say. In the end, he was a fantastic writer who drew you into the story and kept you guessing until the end. Just like life itself...

This is a long, deep novel that deals with some of the fundamental problems of human existence. More than any other writer, Singer (at least in this book) reminds me of Dostoyevsky, whose characters were constantly in existentialist turmoil over questions such as good vs. evil and whether or not there is a God (and if there is, is He good, evil or indifferent?) Of course, while Dostoyevsky was a Christian, all of the characters in Shadows on the Hudson are Jewish holocaust survivors who have recently emigrated to New York from Europe shortly after World War ll. This is something that none of them can forget, even for a day, as many barely escaped while their loved ones perished. Beyond this confrontation with evil and death, the novel is largely about the philosophical war between religious orthodoxy and hedonistic modern life. Contemporary readers who do not come from a strongly religious background may have some difficulty appreciating this dilemma. The mass culture that Singer found vulgar and amoral in the 50s has now all but taken over in America, leaving many people no frame of reference for any other type of existence. While there is much philosophizing, Singer succeeds in creating flesh and blood characters whose moral anguish is not simply abstract, but put to the test in daily life. The character we spend the most time with is Hertz Grein, a middle-aged man whose religious yearnings are in stark contrast to his lifestyle. He is a married man who has had a long affair with another woman. As the novel opens, he is preparing to run off with yet another woman. Grein's behavior through most of this book is both irrational and indefensible. He lies to all three women, and makes all his decisions on the whim of the moment. At the same time, he is hardly without a conscience. On the contrary, he is deeply ashamed of the pain he causes others and desperately wants to redeem himself. Reading Shadows on the Hudson, I got the feeling that Singer himself, as he wrote the book, was struggling with the very issues faced by Grein and his other, equally fascinating and conflicted characters. The central problem posed by the book is the paradox of faith. On the one hand, there is no evidence that God exists. Indeed, the prevalence of suffering and evil suggests an indifferent universe. On the other hand, life without faith is unbearable and leads to a world without meaning or values. Does this mean that we should, even in the absence of evidence, embrace a strict moral code? Although the conclusion of Shadows on the Hudson is somewhat ambiguous, Singer seems to answer this question tentatively in the affirmative. Whether or not you agree (I actually don't), the question is an extremely important one and this book gets to the core of it.

I'm confused by the reviews complaining about this book's length, its subject matter, pace, characterization, etc. This narrative by Singer probes what people do each second of the day: think, consider, act, evaluate. If this does not hit home, you're not in the market for literature; you're merely in the market to be cheaply entertained.Although Shadows on the Hudson is an examination of a small circle of individuals distinct in their culture, religion, beliefs and actions it is everybody's story. The constant wrestle between your best and worst self, the constant questions of: Why am I not a better person? Why don't I behave in accordance with my beliefs, with what I know? Why do I love those whom I love? Why do I hate those whom I hate? What is the ramification of my own personal evil and goodness? What is the ramification of another's personal evil and goodness? Is there a God? What is God like? Why is earth life the way it is, replete with sorrow, suffering, happiness, joy, shame, anger?And after the characters have examined their questions and wrestled their own answers, the bottle points to you: What are your questions? How will you answer them? What will you use your time on earth for? To grow, to consider, to try, to experience and come to terms with your questions, or to ignore those possibilities and instead read books and watch television and movies that only placate you and leave you just as, or worse off, than you were when you began?Singer has done us all a service with this piece; I have rarely been so moved or stimulated intellectually and spiritually as I have been reading this Nobel prize winning masterpiece. Amazing, amazing work.

Many have speculated why Singer left this novel untranslated into English for almost 40 years. Once you are into it, you will know why: this is the darkest thing he ever wrote. "Satan in Goray" or the art of Goya look postively cheerful next to this. Singer tracks a group of European refugees in New York who have escaped Hitler by the skin of their teeth. They cannot even consider faith, or God--one says, "if God exists, he must be a Nazi." But Singer concludes that it is impossible to live like this; madness, suicide, self-destruction are the results. The novel is an argument, which is worse: a world with God and Hitler, or a world without God but still Hitler?

Shadows on the Hudson is one of the best novels I've ever read. The people are real--and thank god, they're deeply sexual and deeply intelligent. Some readers are irked by the one, some by the other characteristic; by me a novel flops if the people are too dumb, or too free from the driving burdens and blessings of relentless sexuality. This more or less simultaneous wrestling with sex, faith and its lack, and the problem of theodicy (why God permits evil) is Singer's forte. Only Tolstoy does it better, but there is more real flesh in Singer, while the religious issues are at least as alive as those of Tolstoy's stellar episode toward the end of Anna Karenina, in which Levin successfully struggles toward theism. Singer's characters know what Tolstoy's don't: that 6 million Jews and 20 million Russians are gone who should not be gone. This novel is art, and monumental art; not another pleasure cruise for the beach umbrella.