It Still Holds Up, But Is SO Of Its Time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    "Exodus," along with "The Good Earth" and "Gone With The Wind," marked my transition from Juvenile to Adult Fiction.  I first read them in seventh grade, and just completed my third reading of "Exodus" recently.

                                      Back in the Fifties, if you did not have a Leon Uris book in your house, you were nothing.  I remember, growing up, we had "Battle Cry," though I still have not read it.  When "Exodus" was first published, in 1958, if you were Jewish, you HAD to read it, much in the same way every Southerner HAD to read "Gone With The Wind."

                                      I had some Southern, rather than Jewish, roots, but I did read "Exodus" back then, and was swept away by the romance.  Then I read it again, within the last twenty years, and was impressed by its historic scope.  On my third reading, I realized that the style of writing that characterizes this book is gone; it has now become to this age what Victorian literature was to twentieth century readers.

                                      Which is to say, they don't write them like this, anymore!  The descriptions, which give such panoramic descriptions of the land, so central to the core of this work.  The details--characterization, dialogue, the costumes--a cocktail dress, for God's sake!!!!!  Where do you see this anymore in serious fiction?  Only in chick lit!  Today's serious fiction pares everything down to the minimal; we have entered an age of Minimalist Writing, and Minimalist Novels.  Not necessarily a bad thing, but when I return, as I occasionally do, to a work like "Exodus," how I long for the return of this kind of writing.  Which is why I am the first one to snap up Frances Parkinson Keyes or Taylor Caldwell books in a used store, if I find any.

                                      What they used to say about Levi's applies here--you don't have to be Jewish, to read "Exodus."  II am telling you, for me, a non-Jew, it is like reading Chaim Potok--by the time I finish, I am ready to convert!  I should at least learn some Hebrew!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                        Yes, at this age, one could say some of the romantic stuff is schlocky, though still compelling, and I remembered how Karen is tragically killed, but, my God, in the last three pages of the book?  Wasn't that a little contrived, Leon??????????

                                           But, like I said, this book was of its time, and if one enjoys this kind of fiction, as I do, one must go with those time's conventions.

                                            Something else about "Exodus."  After adolescence, it is impossible to read it, without Ernest Gold's majestic movie title theme going through one's head.  So, I will end this post, with it.  Here it is!