World Famous Comics: The Education of Robert Nifkin
The Education of Robert Nifkin
By: Daniel Manus Pinkwater Publisher: Graphia Average Rating: Binding: Paperback Label: Graphia Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 192 Publication Date: May 30, 2005 Reading Level: Young Adult
Product Description: The Education of Robert Nifkin is the education of a beatnik. Set in 1950s Chicago and conveyed in the form of a college essay, Robert Nifkin details his journey from a mind-numbing high school that smells to the curriculum-free carnival of a private school ruled by bohemians, beatniks, and freaks.
Amazon.com Review: The Education of Robert Nifkin is clearly the work of a disturbed mind. But then, if you've read Daniel Pinkwater's 5 Novels, or any of his other excellent titles, you already know that. This book, set in the 1950s, is filled with a typically Pinkwaterian cast of unique and hysterically funny characters. Robert Nifkin's dad, for example ("My father is a son-of-a-bitch from Eastern Europe"), is full of advice for his young son, like "What doesn't kill you makes you strong--or it kills you." And his teachers! His high school, Riverview, is populated by a collection of anticommunists such as his homeroom teacher, Mrs. Kukla, who warns him on his first day, "I can smell a Bolshevik a mile away--and I'm smelling one now." To avoid taking gym, the overweight Robert joins the ROTC, where he meets the only noncommunist of the bunch, the Marxist-theory-spouting Sergeant Gunter.
Robert isn't engaged by the primary method of instruction at Riverview (which is copying from the blackboard), so he stops attending, is threatened with expulsion for truancy, and convinces his parents to send him to the private Wheaton School. At Wheaton, instruction includes many trips to the library, the movies, and late-night sessions at Maxie's Bookshop, crowded with "loonies, lonelys, speakers, listeners, debaters, radicals, beatniks, artists, insomniacs, and chess players." Here, Robert's favorite teacher, Mr. Gerkowitz, asks about his postgraduation plans: "You, Nifkin, while slightly repellent, do not actually present yourself as a borderline case, so it is possible that some college will actually take you. Is this your desire?" Fortunately for us, it is--the book, set forth as Robert's college application essay, is the result. Pinkwater is surely today's funniest writer of books for young people, and readers seeking off-the-wall, irreverent humor won't be disappointed by this bevy of sardonic wit. (Ages 12 to 15) --Neil Roseman
Just... good Every child should have to read this book at least once. Every adult should read it twice.
Alternative Education Daniel Pinkwater is perhaps the funniest writer of young adult fiction alive, but also not very well-known. His books are hard to find in bookstores, but prove to be a treasure and a laugh-out-loud treat when found. "The Education of Robert Nifkin" is no different.
The novel is written as a response to the following college application essay: "Characterize, in essay form, your high-school experience." Set in 1950s Chicago, the novel follows the title character through his first days at Riverview High School, a setting he soon comes to abhor. No one, teachers or students, seem to care about the missing education, the teachers indoctrinate the students against communists and Jews, and Robert finds himself destined to be a nerd. He soon stops going, and must face being kicked out and sent to an alternative school, where he has much more freedom, and truly begins to learn for the first time.
"The Education of Robert Nifkin" is a quick, funny read. Anyone familiar with Pinkwater's other writings will find familiar territory (and characters), and anyone familiar with Chicago will enjoy the references to landmarks and neighborhoods. The novel reads a little too much like a crazy quilt of stories, not necessarily focused or related, but enjoyable nevertheless.
Pinkwater Remix The Education of Robert Nifkin reprises people, places, and themes from Pinkwater's other works. The Clark theater, Bughouse square, William Lloyd Floyd, a larger-than-life Eastern European father, Chicago, and Wallace Nussbaum (to name a few) all make return appearances from The Snarkout Boys, Alan Mendelsohn, etc. These are things obviously dear to Mr. Pinkwater's heart, and he crafts this new/old story well, just as he did in his early books. Reading it is a lot like going to your favorite restaurant and ordering the usual. No real surprises, nothing really new, but satisfying nonetheless. It did leave me yearning to see some of these familiar themes recast with new plots or people - more of a variation on a theme rather than a remix. Perhaps we'll learn more about the education of Robert Nifkin as he heads to St Leon's for college - Portrait of the Artist as a Young Shmendrik, perhaps?
very strong deja vu I, too, have read Pinkwater's essays and some of his fiction. From what he tells the reader elsewhere, one can't help but wonder if this is his own (very thinly veiled) autobiography. If so, it's pretty dishonest to simply change the names and call it fiction. Writing fiction ought to take a bit more creativity and spark than that but sadly often doesn't. Revisiting the same old territory again and again (fat kid with wacky Jewish family hates school, but finds people and ideas he can relate to outside of it) may result in faithful readers buying anything you publish, but it doesn't do much to let you grow as a writer.
WHAT I REALLY WANTED WAS A NEW COLLECTION OF PINKWATER'S NPR columns, particularly the ones when he was looking at being a person-of-size in America, but since no new ones have come out, I picked this up as one of his most recent young adult novels. I expect much of this is autobiographical but it is very funny and wise and has a two-page reading list that I believe may actually BE a list of the books Pinkwater read in High School. Chances are if you are even reading this review, you have already decided to buy this book. So, go ahead.
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