CompleteMartialArts.com - The Rabbi's Cat
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List Price: $16.95
Our Price: $11.53
Your Save: $ 5.42 ( 32% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Pantheon
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5944
EAN: 9780375714641
ISBN: 0375714642
Label: Pantheon
Manufacturer: Pantheon
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 152
Publication Date: 2007-05-22
Publisher: Pantheon
Release Date: 2007-05-22
Studio: Pantheon
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Editorial Reviews:
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The preeminent work by one of France’s most celebrated young comics artists, The Rabbi’s Cat tells the wholly unique story of a rabbi, his daughter, and their talking cat–a philosopher brimming with scathing humor and surprising tenderness.
In Algeria in the 1930s, a cat belonging to a widowed rabbi and his beautiful daughter, Zlabya, eats the family parrot and gains the ability to speak. To his master’s consternation, the cat immediately begins to tell lies (the first being that he didn’t eat the parrot). The rabbi vows to educate him in the ways of the Torah, while the cat insists on studying the kabbalah and having a Bar Mitzvah. They consult the rabbi’s rabbi, who maintains that a cat can’t be Jewish–but the cat, as always, knows better.
Zlabya falls in love with a dashing young rabbi from Paris, and soon master and cat, having overcome their shared self-pity and jealousy, are accompanying the newlyweds to France to meet Zlabya’s cosmopolitan in-laws. Full of drama and adventure, their trip invites countless opportunities for the rabbi and his cat to grapple with all the important–and trivial–details of life.
Rich with the colors, textures, and flavors of Algeria’s Jewish community, The Rabbi’s Cat brings a lost world vibrantly to life–a time and place where Jews and Arabs coexisted–and peoples it with endearing and thoroughly human characters, and one truly unforgettable cat.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Sharp, engrossing & delightful
Comment: I started going to the comic book store with my husband who's a life-long die-hard fan of all things related to comics, graphic novels, whatever you prefer to call them. Perusing on my own, I found The Rabbi's Cat, and lured by the art and a short preview, I bought both volumes. I ended up completely engrossed and read through them both in three nights.
These books are for grown-ups, not children, although I understand Mr. Sfar also creates books for young readers. I love his drawings and panels. They're loose, energetic, rich in texture and color, and impart the feel of the settings and the life-force of the characters. The dialogue is lively and smart. There's a lot going on in these stories connected by the presence of The Cat. The story and environments change; sometimes the characters are excited and welcoming of the changes and sometimes not. I hated to see one story line end, but then the next one would pick up and I would be carried along by it engrossed and curious to see what happened next. It's a very human story set in a complex place and time. The characters struggle to keep their faith and balance in the midst of it all. They succeed, fail, learn, and are forged.
And the cat is very, very true: smart, self-possessed, jealously devoted to his "masters," and on equal or better intellectual footing compared to the human characters.
Customer Rating:
Summary: The Rabbi's Cat
Comment: This is the most beautifully illustrated graphic novel I've ever seen,
The story is intriguing and magical. From now on I'll buy any book
illustrated by Joann Sfar. He is an amazing artist.
Edward Sorel
Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and Entertaining
Comment: The artwork here was fantastic and original. At the back of the book there is a photograph of the author and his cat and you can clearly see where he gets his inspiration.
Please be aware, though, that this book is not for children.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Short and Sweet
Comment: Many others have reviewed this material, better than I could. Suffice it to say, Sfar's work is consistently enjoyable, often provocative, and always entertaining. It may not be everybody's fruit (there is nudity, profanity, challenging topics... like life itself), but this is certainly among the best in graphic story-telling. Read and enjoy!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Sfar's Best!
Comment: A delightfully funny story! A wonderful graphic novel that gives us a cat's-eye view of the Sephardic Jewish community in Algeria and then the Algerian community in Paris in the early 20th Century. It's a love story. Very funny and endearing. And the hero is a cat! This is a must for Joann Sfar fans.
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