The Lawgiver

A Novel

By: Herman Wouk

Narrated by: Peter Riegert, Zosia Mamet

"A lighthearted and delightful tour de force" (The Washington Times).

A romantic and suspenseful epistolary novel about a group of people trying to make a movie about Moses in the present day, The Lawgiver is a story that emerges from letters, memos, e-mails, journals, news articles, Skype transcripts, and text messages.

At the center of The Lawgiver is Margo Solovei, a brilliant young writer-director who has rejected her rabbinical father’s strict Jewish upbringing to pursue a career in the arts. When an Australian multibillionaire promises to finance a movie about Moses, Margo does everything she can to land the job, including reunite with her estranged first love, an influential lawyer with whom she still has unfinished business. Two other key characters in the novel are Herman Wouk himself and his wife of more than sixty years, Betty Sarah, who, almost against their will, find themselves entangled in the movie.

As Wouk and his characters contend with Moses and marriage, the force of tradition, rebellion and reunion, The Lawgiver reflects the wisdom of a lifetime. Inspired by the great nineteenth-century novelists, one of America’s most beloved twentieth-century authors has now written a remarkable twenty-first-century work of fiction.

Narration ruins story

As mentioned male narrator is quite good, even sounds like Wouk but female narrator which is representing a character supposed to be a wunderkind with a Chassidic background sounds like a teenager talking to friends in a mall and steps on every Yiddish or Hebrew word in the script.

My favourite Author

Herman Wouk is my favourite author. Period. I enjoyed every single one of his books. He has enriched my life and I am grateful to him.
Now, at the age of 97 (!) he has done it again! The Lawgiver is a beautiful book, though certainly not as deep and monumental as for example "War and Rememberance". Nevertheless, Wouk writes with his legendary grace, wit and insight and this book was a pleasure to listen to.
I am particularly fascinated by this one because it reveals a certain familiarity with religion and scripture that I find facinating.

A very different type of story

What made the experience of listening to The Lawgiver the most enjoyable?

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.

Any additional comments?

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

Fantastic, fantastic, fantastic

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

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.

Any additional comments?

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.

Light Novel from Wouk, badly narrated

Is there anything you would change about this book?

The Narrators. See below.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I would have to say Margo Solovei, as she seemed to be the most fleshed out. Oddly, off-screen character and uber-douchebag Smallweed is a runner-up, as the whole situation with him struck me as morbidly funny. Wouk also did a very good job writing himself as a self-insert.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

There were two narrators, a man and a woman. The male one was fine, the female one was bad - Margo sounded like a teenager reciting her diary. Also, if my memory is correct neither of them gave separate voices to the characters unless they had to - every epistle written by a male character had the same male voice, and second voices were only if the epistle contained dialogue.

Did The Lawgiver inspire you to do anything?

Not really. The Lawgiver isn't a weighty story: some light humor, some light romance, some light discussion of religion. All in all, a nice little story, if you're not expecting anything deep.