The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

#513
Title: The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life
Author: Tom Reiss
Publisher: Random House
Year: 2005
476 pages

Rather than thinking of this as a biography, it may be more accurate to consider it a story of a man and his life in their historical context. I know that may not be a salient distinction for some, but I've read a good number of reviews that complain about the story being overly inclusive, padded, or wordy. It may be better to treat it as a text in which Lev Nussimbaum is an interesting and emblematic exemplar of the tensions and identity strains of the region in this era. Taking Nussimbaum's story as the point of depature and return, Reiss interweaves the story of a man--both Jewish and Muslim, Asian and European, Nussimbaum and Kurban Said and Essad Bey--with the events that shaped modern Euro-Asian history and the Jewish experience in the Old World. Reiss does this with only occasional repetitions and digressions that are too lengthy. I was least held by the end of the book, where Nussimbaum's story seemed to be wrapped up with an excess of brevity and alacrity. A good reflective and summative end note would have managed this problem.