Coming Down The Home Stretch On Books For The Year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        I came to "Forest Dark," the newest novel by Nicole Krauss, with hesitation, having heard from others, it was difficult to either get in to, or finish.

                                        I had no trouble with either.  Nicole is a writer who knows how to use language, and the interweaving of Judaic cultural and scholarly references, not to mention other linguistic uses, is what I found most stimulating about the novel.

                                         The problem I had with is she wants to tell three stories--one involving a known female writer, who is clearly a stand in for herself--but, for my satisfaction, she never fuses them together.

                                           Better she had stuck with one story, which is that of the writer and her investigative journey to Tel Aviv, which I found the most interesting part of the book.  "Forest Dark" is, indeed a novel, it is too well fused, structurally, to be thought of as a string of short stories, yet the reader never gets the connective pay-off they deserve.  Nicole herself undercuts her book's impact.

                                            I had hopes this would be a book to get listed.  That, like her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer, whose "Here I Am" is, by far, his best book, this would be Nicole's.  I have to confess there were a number of moments, some humorous, where I thought she was getting there.  Alas, no.

                                              Which is the only disappointing thing about the book, and is not a reason not to read it.  The good news is that eventually Nicole will produce a book that is, undoubtedly, her best.

                                                But not this one, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!