This is a wild, weird translation of Job. Greenstein is committed to reconstructing the original text's shape, meaning, and poetic force. He's willing to do a lot of guesswork and take risks with a book whose original text is stitched together from multiple versions and written in at least two languages. Greenstein's talents as a philologist and a poet serve him extremely well: his Job feels startlingly fresh and frightening...and uniquely Jewish, too. Sometimes this translation reads like dark Yiddish theater. Greenstein foregrounds the sarcasm and humor of the book; Job kvetches and his companions scold him with frightening metaphors written in effective Hebrew parallel structure. It's a fast, thrilling read. Greenstein's Introduction is also fantastic, full of informed speculation about the purpose, authors, and audience of Job.

It's hard not to compare Greenstein's approach to Job with Robert Alter's magisterial translation of the Hebrew Bible. Alter clearly felt great responsibility while translating the Bible. He labored under the weight of the seriousness of his endeavor: he knew his translation would be influential and widely read, and he translated accordingly, carefully. You can sometimes feel him straining as he writes. Greenstein is downright mad by comparison, in the best way possible, and he clearly had a blast working with this remarkable narrative.