Instruct: Classify Amazon reviews into positive or negative sentiment
Query: The Jewish Everyman

Past Perfect is the second novel by Yaacov Shabtai, who blasted the world of Hebrew letters with his novel Past Continuous. He died in his early forties, and left this book largely unfinished. His widow winnowed down the material and created this novel. Here we follow Meir through Tel Aviv and Amsterdam, and are privy to all his desires, and his largely repressed and unhappy life. The subject matter and Shabtai's tone and technique make this novel difficult reading, probably only suited to a fan of his work (I am one).But if you can get past the boredom of reliving someone's daily frustrations, there is so much to Past Perfect that speaks very deeply to what it means to be human. We all walk around with a satchel full of disappointments, but hide them from ourselves and others. Shabtai puts them all on display. And we can't look in the other direction.