Book Report

Old Men at Midnight is not one of Potok's masterworks. It was his last book before succumbing to brain cancer in 2002 and it feels a little like a last gasp. Rather than being one whole novel, it's three linked novellas. I don't mind that necessarily. I like separate but linked stories - it's a pleasure to see how they accumulate, how they relate. However, the linkages between The Ark Builder, The War Doctor, and The Trope Teacher are thin. The man at the center of each story meets Davida Dinn. She's a young, soon-to-be college student in the first, an ambitious grad student in the second, and an established, famous author in the third. The problem is, Davida serves only to allow these men to tell their stories. She doesn't really do anything. She's just the frame - and, as such, she's kind of superfluous. It's as though Potok had these three stories that were too short to publish on their own, too short to publish in a journal or magazine and said, "well, maybe if I connect them somehow..."

This is not to say it's a bad book. I enjoyed it and read through it quite quickly. "The War Doctor," in particular, is quite good. It's sort of like a slice of Doctor Zhivago as told from the side of the bad guys. All three stories borrow from some of Potok's earlier, more successful stories, particularly "The Ark Builder." That one centers on a young man who is a combination of Asher Lev and his Holocaust-survivor wife.

Seeing too much repetition from a writer in terms of subject matter is a little sad. I get the idea of wanting to explore a world, a set of characters, certain thematic concerns, etc. but, at the same time, I feel like - you've done it, you've been there. Move on. Orson Scott Card, the science fiction, did some really wonderful stuff in his career but, in the last several years, it's just seemed like all he can do is return to the same well over and over again. I'm sure these third and fourth generation stories that take place in the same universe as Ender's Game are okay but, after a while, who cares?

Anyway, Old Men At Midnight was worth reading but certainly isn't on par with Potok's earlier books.

P.S. But I still have a signed copy of it. Nyah nyah.