The Lawgiver: A Novel

Yes. The narrators are perfect, and the text is written as snippets of emails, letters, journal entries, and conversatios, so that the story really lends itself to the audio format with a male and female narrator.

Wouk is a genius at developing a female character (see Marjorie Morningstar and Natalie Jastrow), so any of his other novels stand up well with his latest.

Reigert makes one feel as if he is listening to Wouk himself, and Mamet does the women and each of them true justice. These are big female characters, and I had tears in my eyes after the epilogue. I'm a 64 year old man.

No movie. Please.

i have a neice who is a rabbi, and I can't wat for her to experience this book.

Absolutely. It's creative, one of a kind, and fast paced. About movie-making, the behind-the-scenes process. The Moses story, although alluded to, which is just enough but not too much for non-religious readers, yet compellingly told by an intelligent assortment of creative types, all represented in the book via the emails, faxes, voice mails, letters, and other various & sundry modes of modern-day communication. A 21st century novel of letters, about Moses et al.

The woman representing the screenwriter, her voice is much too young and, even more important, inexperienced in the ways of Hollywood, even to the extent as described by her character (which is not especially experienced). But there's an important tone that's missing from her voice, and it's about basic life experience. It's missing. For Moses' sake, let's give such a writer a Woman's voice, not a girl's, not even a grown up girl.

This book is written in a very different format that other Wouk masterpieces - and it may take a bit of time to adjust to the approach - but it is clearly worth it. Who would have thought that a book could be written as a collection of emails, meeting transcripts etc - but Wouk pulls it off in this short but engaging book.

Herman Wouk demonstrates that even in his 90's he's still an incredible story teller.

The first sentence of the description reads "For more than 50 years, legendary author Herman Wouk has dreamed of writing a novel about the life of Moses." THIS IS NOT THAT NOVEL. It is a novel about making a movie on the subject. The description goes on to explain that; however, it is easy to focus on the opening sentence of the paragraph. The novel is not what I expected, but it would be unfair to base a review on that, so this review is based upon the actual novel, not my expectation.

I've always enjoyed Wouk, especially Winds of War, War and Remembrance, and The Caine Mutiny. This is a very different style, and is a very short book in comparison to most other works. I moderately enjoyed the actual story, and the different style kept my attention. Was it worth my time in listening? Yes, as a short story. I don't think I could have handled a lengthy one in this style. It is short enough that its value (cost per listening hour) is questionable, but in retrospect I don't feel my credit was totally wasted (based upon the story itself).

As for the performance? The male narrator is very good. The female narrator, however, is atrocious. She sounds like a bored seventh-grader doing a mandatory reading in class. Her intonation is that of valley girl, with a touch of gargled gravel at the end of each sentence. She is painful to hear. The shortness of this novel was a blessing that made it marginally tolerable.

Overall, three stars. Check out the sample (I didn't, and don't know if her voice is sampled) and decide for yourself. Wouk fans will probably want to put a checkmark in the "read" box; for others, it's probably worth passing.