Two Jewish fantasy novels, one set in an Eastern Europe of demons and death, the other a time travel romance in which a Tel Aviv hipster falls for a 13th-century Crusader. Read the full review at the Jewish Review of Books.
Lilith and the Knight
Category: fantasy
Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and the Tenets of Progressive Faith
A few nights after I saw Tenet, the new Christopher Nolan movie, the rioters in Portland attacked the Oregon Historical Society building, near where I live and work. They caused thousands of dollars of damage and also demolished nearby statues of Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. I’ve been thinking about this in connection with the … Continue reading Christopher Nolan’s Tenet and the Tenets of Progressive Faith
The Yale Fantasy of Leigh Bardugo
The setting for Leigh Bardugo's acclaimed new fantasy novel 'Ninth House' is Yale, and it's an unintentionally revealing look at the lies our elites tell themselves to maintain their power. Read the full review at The Federalist.
Zionavar
On the Jewish themes, characters, and subtexts of Guy Gavriel Kay. Read the essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
Simon Ings’s Brave Jew World
In the alternate history of The Smoke, Simon Ings maps sci-fi horror onto the Jews. Read the full review at Mosaic.
Watching Game of Thrones, Waiting for Shavuot
On binge-watching and worlds without tradition. Read the full essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
The Last Unicorn as Post-Holocaust Fable
For six decades and counting, Peter S. Beagle has written fantasy literature with a Jewish-American sensibility. An overview of his career on the occasion of his 80th birthday. Read the full essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
Harold Bloom’s Anxiety of C. S. Lewis
Forty years ago, Harold Bloom published his bad fantasy novel The Flight to Lucifer. He claimed it was a product of his obsession with David Lindsay's A Voyage to Arcturus, but it is better understood as a failed struggle against C. S. Lewis. Read the full essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
The 2,000-Year-Old Women
Two of the most highly praised novels of 2018, Dara Horn’s Eternal Life and Sarah Perry’s Melmoth, feature a Jewish woman born in ancient Judea who still walks the earth today. The trope is a feminine twist on the legend of the Wandering Jew. Read the essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
Of Were-Owls and Wandering Jews
My fantasy reading this month included Jewish shape-shifters and "Pharisees," Michael Moorcock and Rudyard Kipling, and a new Israeli novel for young readers. Read the essay at the Jewish Review of Books.
investigations and fantasies 