Tevye the Milkman

By: Sholem Aleichem

Narrated by: Neville Jason

Length: 5 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's summary

Tevye the Milkman, a uniquely charming Jewish novel from Tsarist rural Russia, provided the principal character for Fiddler on the Roof. Here we have the full story, with all its Jewish humor, wisdom, and despair.

The central character, Tevye the milkman, goes around the community in the Russian countryside delivering milk and cheese, but also dispensing wisdom from the Talmud laced with his commonsense view of life. Funny, enriching, but also moving, this remarkable little Jewish classic will charm all who hear it, especially in the reading by veteran audiobook performer Neville Jason.

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©2009 Naxos Audiobooks (P)2009 Naxos Audiobooks

Tevye the Milkman

What a wonderful listen to the beautiful performance of Neville Jason. After many years of watching Fiddler on the Roof it was fabulous to hear the story in its original. Such a delight.

Mazel tov

Mazel tov, you have a good thing going here the reading is captivating

Loved Everything about it

The only bad thing is that it came to an end and there is no sequel!

A jewel

Tevie the milkman: One of the masterpieces of the Yiddish literature.
It is really a value.

Excellent narration of an emotional rollercoaster

I love Tevye the Milkman / Fiddler on the Roof. He has a wonderful sense of humor among amazingly difficult circumstances and misfortunes. His unceasing reliance on God in the midst of it all is infectious. As a family man myself, this story leaves me with much to ponder and reflect on. The narrator did a fantastic job. I would certainly recommend this title.

Narrator lacks insight

I sought out this book after having listened to Outwitting History: The Amazing Adventures of a Man Who Rescued a Million Yiddish Books, narrated by the great George Guidall. In it, the author, Aaron Lansky, says that of all the Yiddish books, the members of his organization agree that this book is probably the most deserving of a wide audience. As you may know, Fiddler on the Roof was based on these stories.

I found two version of this book on Audible. This one, narrated by Neville Jason, was the longer of the two, and the sound quality on the samples was a bit better than the other, narrated by Theodore Bikel, so I selected this first. Unfortunately, Jason plays Tevye as a continually self-mocking, mostly fatalistic schlmozzle, and lacks insight and subtlety in the reading. Almost all the text, with the exception of a few passages, is read in the way that Jackie Mason delivers a one-liner, with the rise in intonation at the end that says, "Can you believe it."

The stories are still so good, and so moving, that the book is not terrible, but they were also so good that I wanted better narration and so got the version narrated by Bikel (titled Tevye the Dairyman). The differences between the two works is vast. Bikel's Tevye is a complex, real person with deep passions, and he really communicates the sense of struggle of a 19th century Russian Jew. The two versions are simply not comparable, and Bikel's rendition is so far superior that it should be your choice.

One other things, the selection of stories presented, and the translations, are also different between the two, so if you love these stories you may want to listen to both, but be prepared to tire of this narration as it is far too sing-songy and uncoupled from character to be tolerated for long stretches.