A Guide to the Perplexed

This article is about the novel by Gilad Atzmon. For the book by Maimonides, see The Guide for the Perplexed. For the book by E.F. Schumacher, see A Guide for the Perplexed.

A Guide to the Perplexed (originally in Hebrew: מוֹרֵה נְבוּכִים‎, Mōrē Nəḇūḵīm) is a novel written in 2001 by British musician and anti-Zionist campaigner Gilad Atzmon, who has been described as antisemitic.

Synopsis

The novel is presented in the form of unfinished memoirs of one Professor Gunther Wünker, born in Ramat Gan, Israel in the 1960s, an anti-Zionist and the founder of the philosophical school of 'Peepology' (the science of peep-show voyeurism). The novel takes place in a fictitious near-future period, some 40 years after the State of Israel is dismantled and replaced with the State of Palestine. The novel excoriates what it calls exploitation of The Holocaust for propaganda purposes designed to shield Israel from scrutiny for its "transgressions" against the Palestinians. The perplexed is defined as "the unthinking chosen" who "cling to clods of earth that don't belong to them".

Reviews

Jeffrey St. Clair in CounterPunch described it as "vividly written satire, infused with a ribald sense of humor and an unsparing critique of the incendiary political cauldron of the Mideast" which criticises what it describes as "the commercialization of the Holocaust, suggesting that such uses amount to a trivialisation of one of history’s greatest horrors" and "argues that the Holocaust is invoked as a kind of reflexive propaganda designed to shield the Zionist state from responsibility for any transgression against Palestinians". Matthew J. Reisz for The Independent wrote that "As a viciously black satire on Israeli life" the book "is grandiose, childish and nasty, but with just enough connection with reality to give it a certain unsettling power" while Darren King in The Observer commented that "it works because Atzmon writes with so much style and his gags are so hilarious".

Translations

The English translation by Philip Simpson was published by Serpent's Tail. The Spanish translation La Guia de Perplejos was published by Emece Editores. It has also been translated into German by Gabriela Hegedus as Anleitung für Zweifelnde.