The Education of Arnold Hitler by Marc Estrin
Trade Paperback Original
ISBN: 1-932961-03-8
6 x 9 / 336 Pages / $15.95 / April 2005
Summary | Praise | Excerpt | Widgets | Reading Guide | Bio | Events
Summary
Marc Estrin's second novel is the story of a young man who stumbles through the second half of the 20th century bearing a most unfortunate name.
At once a chess master, a linguist, an athlete and an innocent in love, Arnold passes through the racial tensions of Mansfield, Texas (home of the author of Black Like Me) in the 1950s, the anti-war movement at Harvard, and both the Upper East Side and the Bowery, meeting Noam Chomsky, Al Gore, and Leonard Bernstein in the process, and finally learning the meaning of meaning.
Praise
"In this smart, dense, cartoonish second novel from the author of "Insect Dreams," a young Texan with a poisoned name comes of age on a countercultural tour of American, from sputnik to Watergate, with stops at a cross-burning, Harvard and the grassy knoll. Young Arnold meets Chomsky, gets French kissed by Leonard Bernstein and finally marries his own Eva Braun beneath the Bruckner Expressway….Estrin is consistently learned and funny…." —The New York Times Book Review
"Estrin combines the black comedy of Don DeLillo with a bit of Tom Robbins's intellectual adventurousness to concoct a wildly provocative tale of a young man who must learn to define himself. Highly recommended." —Library Journal
"A brilliant meditation on the power of words….a richly multilayered coming-of-age story in which the hero struggles with the power of language and naming, the ambiguities of religious identity, the meaning of meaning and the nature of alienation. Part Huck Finn, part Eugene Gant (”Look Homeward, Angel”), part Oskar Matzerath (”The Tin Drum”), part Holden Caulfield and part Herman Melville’s Billy Budd, little Arnold Hitler makes his way from innocence to experience as he moves from the security of his small Texas town to the uncertain and often anxious world of Harvard during the Vietnam War protests and finally to the hustling world of the Bowery….[an] ingenious novel of ideas." —The Atlanta Journal Constitution
"A lively, entertaining read with several scenes that could win O. Henrys on their own." —The San Francisco Chronicle
"It is the sheer quirkiness and chutzpah of the approach that lifts [Estrin's] novels out of the ordinary. Estrin is reaching for the stars, striving to get his arms around nothing less than the essence of 20th century America—race relations, class issues, politics and economics, poverty, war. He also provides an ostentatiously literary and intellectual frame for the whole effort.…The result is bright and interesting…impressive." —The Times Argus
"Marc Estrin's all-American Bildungsroman, with its winning New World hero with the worst of all possible Old World names, conjures the recent history of these United States with the gusto of a wild West wind. The Education of Arnold Hitler is a picaresque novel of comic sweep and intellectuals depth, an inspired complement to the equally inspired Insect Dreams." —Peter Glassgold, author of The Angel Max
"A lively, sure-footed tale…. the novel's ruminations on linguistic expression are perhaps best served by Estrin's deft touch of magic realism: Arnold communicates with his maternal grandfather in Italy by speaking to him through his left knee, like a sort of two-way radio. Their connection, at once telepathic and corporeal, offers the integrity of a shared heritage to counter the rhetorical sway of Arnold's unfortunate last name. When the path of Arnold's education leads him to determine not only what he will be called but who he will be, it is the words that come from within him that prove most decisive." —Bookforum
"Sharp and enticing...The Education of Arnold Hitler is not just a book for the mind, but for the soul, the heart and pleasure." —Seven Days
"As if the name Arnold Hitler wasn't baggage enough, the protagonist of this sweet, playful coming-of-age story carries a bit of Forrest Gump in him, too. Though the timbre of Arnold's intellect is richer than Forrest's, they're equally earnest. And as Arnold strikes out from small-town Texas to Harvard and New York City in the 1960s and early '70s, he keeps encountering historic figures. . . this clever narrative package also makes plenty of room for literate explorations of Jewishness, anti-Semitism, and serious games of "What's in a name?" —Booklist
"This is more like what Forrest Gump could have been, had it been written with more skill, style and a gimlet eye toward satire." —Ruminator Magazine
"As brilliant as Pynchon and as funny as the best of Robbins and Vonnegut, this is a generous gift to the idea-starved fiction reader. Heart, head, hilarity, and history all rolled passionately into one. Don't miss this!" —BookSense
"A colossal book of characters and events that inspires tears of laughter and sadness in its rich blend of clever metaphor and unsettlling facts, [Insect Dreams] promises to become a pivotal literary landmark." —Library Journal
"I've waited and waited for Marc Estrin's Insect Dreams to become a cult classic on college campuses..." —Ron Charles, book editor for the Christian Science Monitor and a board member of the National Book Critics Circle
Bio
Marc Estrin is a writer, cellist, and activist living in Burlington, Vermont.
He is the author of three other novels,
Insect Dreams: The Half Life of Gregor Samsa,
Golem Song, and The Lamentations of Julius Marantz.
Marc Estrin 's Website
Unbridled Aloud featuring Marc Estrin
Birnbaum Interview with Marc Estrin
Trabulsy Interview with Marc Estrin on YouTube
Excerpt
The sixties began quite promptly for Arnold. On "Mayday" of 1960, Stella Rawson, her husband, Edward, their daughter Edna, and nine-and-a-half-year-old Arnold Hitler stood on the southeast corner of Broad and Main from ten to noon and one to three, a Lilliputian demonstration for the churched and unchurched concerning fair play for Cuba. She and her husband had been to pre-revolutionary Havana on their honeymoon and were simultaneously entranced by the beauty of the beach on which Edna was likely conceived, and sickened by the juxtaposed poverty and glitz. They had since tried to keep up on the tumultuous island events and the fate of the brave and bearded liberators come down from the mountains. Fidel made them feel alive again, alive in a world that was not hopeless.
For a few days, most of America had been in love with Fidel, as the media proudly proclaimed the overthrow of a system so corrupt that even Cuban elitists were deserting. El Jefe seemed to be a George Washington-sized revoutionary out of the mythic past. But within a mnth it became apparent that his was a declaration of independence not just from domestic slime, but from the United States of America! When they realized that Castro was serious about Cuba choosing its own path, that "greater general prosperity" might mean nationalization of U.S.-dominated industries, that "diversification of agriculture" meant less money for Texas rice, the prominent citizens who thought the new hero was merely making noble noises turned on him with the speed and fury of spurned lovers—as did the media. And so, therefore, did the people. The Senate invoked "the spectacle of a bearded monster stalking through Cuba," and by February 1959, Congress had been filled with warnings of "a Kremin-inspired plot to destroy free enterprise," with calls for American intervention "to save Cuba from chaos."
Little did George and Anna suspect Arnold's reason for wanting to do this vigil. During the four hours he stood in the Sunday Texas sun, only one thing was going through his head, the TV jingle for Castro Convertible Sofas:
With a Castro convertible sofa
You get comfort and beauty and style
So convert to a Castro Convertible
And you'll have a living room smile
So you need a sofa, so good, so you need a sofa, so Castro!
Over and over. He loved the commercial, the little kid in Dr. Dentons who takes command of the huge sofa, throws off its pillows, pulls on the bar, and transforms the object as if opening some huge, mechanical flower: "So easy even a child can do it." The triumph of the small over the large, and the end result, a comfy bed to snuggle in—what could be a greater prize? Arnold wanted a Castro Convertible sofa, and so the name "Castro" became associated with one of his heart's chief fantasies. He would have been an admirer of Fidel had he been the only child of Fulgencio Batista. Besides—"Fidel." A Texas child interested in words, Arnold knew enough Spanish to know fidel had something to do with being faithful. Imagine having a leader whose name was "Faithful" and not "Ike." He was for that.