In fact, because Goldkorn narrates the entire novel, The Rabbi of Lud becomes a kind of extended comic monologue.
So I'm walking down Lud's main street one fine Tuesday morning figuring I'll pop by Sal's, see can I hear anything worth listening to.
Although Goldkorn's narrative turns are in the main somewhat more muted than the notable rhetorical excursions in Elkin's other books--Ben Flesh's celebration of his motel's "night of love" at the conclusion of The Franchiser, for example--The Rabbi of Lud nevertheless provides many Elkinesque set pieces, as in the following passage, which also brings together several of the book's--and the Elkin oeuvre's--thematic and structural preoccupations:
While clearly and forcefully articulating the Jewish self-awareness which marks The Rabbi of Lud among Elkin's novels, this passage at the same time links the rabbi's profession to that of the salesman or shill, a figure that looms large in Elkin's work.
"Lud is one of those individuals that truly loves his work and lives to work, which is why he continues working at the age of 73," said Mr.
"In the years prior to my joining Lawter, when I owned my own vanish business, I always looked up to Lud as the 'Master of Ink Vehicle Technology,"' said Guy Trerotola, director of strategic sales and global accounts at Eastman Resins.
We always teased Lud that all us chemists worked for an alchemist."
"Lud has an uncanny talent-he understands how to use these ingredients to make a better ink to run on press, and he can then communicate that to ink makers," Mr.
Lobby Lud would walk the streets of a stated seaside town and if a reader correctly challenged him with the immortal words: "You are Lobby Lud and I claim my five pounds" he could be quids in.
"Reading about Lobby Lud brought back memories of a holiday with my mum and dad when I was about six," says Betty, who is now 80.
He wanted to see how many people stopped him to ask if he was Lobby Lud.
Not that he had any hope of getting five pounds, you understand, or that I had changed my name by deed poll to Lobby Lud.
Of course I remembered Lobby Lud. Whole train loads of people would go on holiday to the seaside in the 1940s and 1950s, and scour the promenade clutching a copy of that morning's paper looking for a chap whose silhouette appeared on the front page, ready to grab him, make the famous declaration and, if they had got the right bloke, gain a financial reward.
Lobby Lud was invented in 1927 by the long defunct newspaper the Westminster Gazette.
I shall tell the editor I am quite happy to be Mr Lud if he wants to send me to Benidorm for a week.
