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Inspired by the Talmud, Benjamin Zucker
has created a novel that can be experienced in
a variety of visual, spiritual, cultural and
psychological ways.

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Enjoy Our Specialties...

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Forever 'Blue'

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his family relationships and the pre-
cious Venetian Jewish wedding ring —
in the shape of a house, with its per-
fect blue roof — that he has inherited.
The novel ends in Israel, with a new
generation of Tals, the children and
grandchildren of Abraham's brother.
Throughout the text are biblical
references and cadences, and each
chapter begins with a mention of the
color blue.
The commentators create a timeless
discourse; among them are Tars parents,
his girlfriend, James Joyce, Elie Wiesel,

t first glance, Blue by
Benjamin Zucker
(Overlook; $40) looks more
like a coffee-table book
than a novel, with its oversize format
and beautiful, full-color printing.
Opening its pages, it's clear that this is
a very different kind of novel, with lit-
erary play between fiction, artwork
and a chorus of commentators.
This may be the first novel present-
ed in a Talmud-like
format, with the cen-
tral text surrounded
by commentators —
in this case, ranging
from Rashi to Franz
Kafka to Bob Dylan
— remarking on cer-
tain words and lines
in the text and telling
their own stories.
Each two-page
spread includes a
photograph or repro-
duction of a painting
on the left-hand page,
and a page of text and
commentaries on the
right. Reading Blue is
an experience unlike
reading other novels,
Benjamin Zucker: "I definitely thought that
for the reader can
blue would _pursue me if I didn't pursue it.''
alternate between text
and art and commen-
Joan Baez, Isaac Luria, Claude Monet,
taries, or follow the main text singly.
Albert Einstein, Maimonides, Simha
One has the sense of the author, a
Bunam of Pshiskhe, Chief Crazy Horse,
Harvard-trained lawyer who works on
F. Scott Fitzgerald, Alexis de Tocqueville
Manhattan's 47th Street as a gem mer-
and
Marcel Proust, among others.
chant, holding up a precious stone to
The
artwork includes paintings by
—
light,
noting
how
different
it
the
Modigliani, Monet and Van Gogh;
and the world it reflects — looks from
Indian miniatures; photographs of
every direction.
Kafka at different stages in his life and
Mystically infused, Blue is the story
of Dylan and Baez; gems and jewelry;
of Abraham Tal, a gem dealer who runs
ancient manuscripts; and scenes by
an advice shop in Greenwich Village
Roman Vishniac.
and tells his customers, "For one dollar
In an interview, Zucker, 59, reflects
give
you
advice
that
will
change
I can
on
how his novel mirrors life, and how
life.
For
two
dollars
I
can
give
you
your
the mind works. "There are all these
advice that will change it back again."
conversations going in a person's mind
He advises a young woman on her
— grandparents voices, other voices,
courtship, all the while thinking about
all the books we've ever read, the semi-
his own missed opportunities in love,