A review by ljrinaldi
A Bintel Brief: Love and Longing in Old New York by Liana Finck
3.0
I picked this book up because I like sequential art (graphic novels), and it was about something I had no knowledge, a jewish (yiddish) advice column written at the turn of the last century.
Will Eisner, famous for The Spirit, also wrote several books about New York at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. If you have read those, or The Pushcart Wars, or Cheaper by the Dozen, you know a little about that time period, of the immigrants coming from the old country, and trying to make and find their place in America. New York held worlds of people, the Italians, the Germans, the Jews, all with their little community, and their own newspaper, and their own lives.
Apparently one such paper was called The Forward, and there was an advice column called the Bintel Brief. This was like any advice column, but the letters are unlike any you might find in the papers today. These told of old world and new world trying to mix together. Apparently there is a whole book translating these letters. This is not that book.
What this book is is the adoption of some of the letters, illustrated, and wrapped around with a narrative of how the ghost of the original editor comes back to read the letters to the cartoonist, and remark on how things have changed in New York. Unfortunately, this wrapping was the weakest part of the book.
So, that is the reason that this only gets three stars. It is a cool concept, and I enjoyed reading the letters, but found the in-between story not quite as interesting. Pick it up for that, enjoy these stories, and perhaps seek out the original volume A Bintel Brief edited by Isaac Metzker, of which I believe, there are two volumes.
Will Eisner, famous for The Spirit, also wrote several books about New York at the turn of the 19th to 20th century. If you have read those, or The Pushcart Wars, or Cheaper by the Dozen, you know a little about that time period, of the immigrants coming from the old country, and trying to make and find their place in America. New York held worlds of people, the Italians, the Germans, the Jews, all with their little community, and their own newspaper, and their own lives.
Apparently one such paper was called The Forward, and there was an advice column called the Bintel Brief. This was like any advice column, but the letters are unlike any you might find in the papers today. These told of old world and new world trying to mix together. Apparently there is a whole book translating these letters. This is not that book.
What this book is is the adoption of some of the letters, illustrated, and wrapped around with a narrative of how the ghost of the original editor comes back to read the letters to the cartoonist, and remark on how things have changed in New York. Unfortunately, this wrapping was the weakest part of the book.
So, that is the reason that this only gets three stars. It is a cool concept, and I enjoyed reading the letters, but found the in-between story not quite as interesting. Pick it up for that, enjoy these stories, and perhaps seek out the original volume A Bintel Brief edited by Isaac Metzker, of which I believe, there are two volumes.