Dump This Book While You Still Can!

Marcel Benabou's "Jacob, Menahem, and Mimoun" (Nebraska 1998) won the National Jewish Book Award for autobiography.

Written by one of the most intriguing contemporary writers in French literature, this book lets readers become party to the dilemma of 'challenging' literature in a singularly involving and amusing fashion. It presents an ironic perspective on the power of reading to produce meaning.In one of the most thought-provoking and wry books by one of the most intriguing contemporary writers in French literature, readers become party to the dilemma of "challenging" literature in a singularly involving and amusing fashion. Opening a book that has mysteriously appeared amid the clutter of his desk, the narrator finds himself exhorted not to read further, to throw the book away! Instead (but of course) he tries different strategies for approaching the book, none of which work. The narrator's tempestuous, increasingly obsessive relationship with the book he is determined to read, interwoven with the story of a real (but no less enigmatic) love affair, is, in its own challenging way, a charmed and charming, deeply provocative meditation upon reading and writing, and their inevitable discontents. Dump This Book offers a new angle on the work of this original writer and an ironic perspective on the power of reading to produce meaning.