Dinner at the Center of the Earth (Englander) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
Nathan Englander's many-splendored new novel, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, is a guilty pleasure — guilty because you wonder throughout if a book highlighting the endless cycles of trespass and vengeance that define the modern state of Israel should be quite so much fun.… Don't be alarmed, the flights are strategic: Just when you think you've been swept into a political thriller  … you're back among the real and present depredations of history. Such radical shifts in mood and tone allow him the latitude to do what he's always done best, in story after indelible story: depict individuals in their quixotic attempts to hang onto conscience, identity and hope while history tries to pry loose their tenuous grasp.
Steve Stern - New York Times Book Review


A kaleidoscopic fairy tale of Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.… One of the exhilarating aspects of Dinner at the Center of the Earth is its expansive sense of space and time.… The effect is to heighten events, to transcend history in favor of a more allegorical realm.… Englander has built a complex structure, by which his narrative reveals itself in pieces, and the less we know in advance, the more vividly we feel its turns… with this novel he frames history as both an act and a failure of the imagination, which is to say, in inherently, and inescapably, human terms.
Los Angeles Times


Glorious…devastating…a beautiful masterpiece.
NPR


With chapters that toggle back and forth in time and in location, the narrative begins on the Israeli side of the Gaza border in 2014, before jumping to Paris and Berlin in 2002…. Englander is a wise observer with an empathetic heart.
Publishers Weekly


Englander articulates Israeli-Palestinian strife and Israel's current moral conundrums without sounding didactic. If anything, the discussion feels sketchy, and the cross-cutting among the disparate parts of the story can be disorienting.… VERDICT Smart and intriguing but not always satisfying. —Barbara Hoffert
Library Journal


Equal parts political thriller and tender lamentation … in swirling, nonlinear fashion, Israeli-Palestinian tensions and moral conflicts.… Ultimately, Englander suggests that shared humanity and fleeting moments of kindness …hold the potential for hope, even peace.
Booklist


Englander fails to fully weave [the chapters].… [S]ometimes he strains toward humor, sometimes toward drama, without quite reaching either one.… An uneasy blend of political intrigue, absurdity, and romance struggles to establish a steady, never mind believable, tone.
Kirkus Reviews