Shmuel Yosef AgnonReseñas

I loved the first tale, 'The Betrothed,' because it's a love story involving a marine biologist who has to choose between half a dozen women and yet there's nothing here that feels remarkably chauvinistic. The second left me cold - I couldn't get into it, and the names were all so similar that when something dramatic happened, I wasn't sure who it was happening to.

His last (and shortest) novel. The story operates, I suppose, on two levels. The plot revolves around a (European) writer who lived in Palestine but returns to Europe on the eve of World War I. He becomes stranded in Berlin and the book is nothing more or less than the story of his wanderings from rented room to rented room in a city with a severe wartime housing shortage. That’s it. One could read many things into it: a commentary on exile, on Zionism, on egoism, and so forth. It is not the first thing I’ve read by him and it will not be the last, but although it read easily and was even entertaining from time to time, I found it just a little too slight for my taste.

A mythic and poetic journey of the faithful to Israel.

I may not have read this book in the correct reading mode, because renovations to our house are currently taking up a large part of my attention and energy. And this book requires you to fully immerse yourself in it. It is actually a kind of frame story, based on the adventures of the Jewish rabbi Yudel and his friend Nuta, in what is now western Ukraine. It completely immerses you in the rich Jewish life that flourished in Eastern Europe in the early 20th century. This book has been repeatedly compared to Cervantes' Don Quixote, and indeed it is probably best read as an edifying comedy. But, as I said, the endless sequence of stories didn't captivate me, and I gave up after 100 pages. Maybe I should pick up the thread again after my renovations.

A Book That Was Lost delivers many short tales of Jewish devotion - to Torah, to the Land of Israel, to the author's birthplace in Buczacz,
to love, family, and the end of wars.

Shmuel Agnon gradually weaves in the horror and massacres of World War II.

For World War I, many Jewish men fought on the side of Germany.
This adds to the horror of the massacres and extermination in World War II.

S.Y. Agnon seeks to unite divine reason with classical and modern Jewish thinking.
His beliefs are inspired by his devotion to religious tradition.

My favorite of his stories of variable quality and interest was "The Tale of the Menorah,"
while I deep-pearled "Pisces" for animal cruelty.

The Glossary was excellent reading.

ספר שקשה מאוד לבקר אותו בקצרה. מצד אחד ספר נפלא. מצד שני ספר טרחני ומעצבן. צד אחד - לשפה יש ניגון יחודי לגמרי זו שפה שאינה ממש עברית, כולל מילים שאינן מובנות, אבל הזרימה של הטקסט, למרות שהיא קשה למעקב, נפלאה. הסיפורים על ירושליים בתקופת המרד הגדול ועל חיי הפרופסרים למדעי הרוח באוניברסיטה העברית של שנים אלה ועל עליית הייקים מגרמניה הנאצית ועל המרד הגדול עצמו בירושליים, הם מעניינים עד מאוד. הבנתו של עגנון לנפש האדם, למניעיו, לטקסים שלו, לשקרים שלו עם עצמו ואחרים, גם היא מופלאה. מהצד השני - העלילה לא זזה בכלל, הסיפור לא רק שאיננו נגמר כי אם לחלוטין איננו ממוקד ונע במעגלים שחוזרים על עצמם. מצד שלישי לקרוא ספר כל כך קשה, כמעט ללא פסקאות, בהרד קופי ובאותיות זעירות, זו ממש משימה פיזית קשה. ולמרות הכל, גמרתי ונהניתי.

Ik had wel wat meer verwacht van deze Nobelprijswinnaar. Agnon brengt ogenschijnlijk een simpel verhaaltje, maar het was verdorie worstelen om erdoor te geraken. Dat had vooral te maken met het trage ritme, de archaïsche stijl en het fletse romantische verhaaltje, waarbij de innerlijke zielenroerselen van de hoofdpersonages Hirsjl en Blume eindeloos werden uitgemolken en de nevenpersonages erg oppervlakkig bleven. Het curieuze is dat deze roman erg 19de eeuws aandoet, met een nogal cliché-romantisch gegeven dat lijkt uit te draaien op een naturalistisch drama, maar het juist niet doet. Agnon speelt hier een pervers spel van omkering, nog versterkt door een curieuze mengeling van moraliserende en ironische opmerkingen. Misschien een krachttoer op zich, maar het was voor mij erg bevreemdend, en sprak me dus niet zo aan. De enige charme die dit verhaal mij bood was de rijkelijke evocatie van het leven in een joodse gemeenschap in Oost-Europa, in de 19de eeuw.½

"Commentaries selected by S.Y. Agnon" is on the title page. Sections, most then showing verses from Exodus, include:
The making of this book
Before creation
In the third month
And Moses went up to G-d
You shall be to me a treasured possession
We will do and we will hear
Abstinence and bounds
Urging upon urging
Thunder and lightning
The Sinai event
The appearance of the Shehkinah
Separate places
The giving of the Torah
The ten commandments
You yourselves saw

Really liked the stories that almost seemed as if they could have been written by Kafka.½

Enjoyable story set in the Jewish community of a small Ukrainian town at the turn of the century. It opens with a poor young Jewish girl being sent to live with her better-off shopkeeper relatives, after being left an orphan. However she is not the central character of the book - that is her relatives' teenage son, Hirschl. Will he and the good (but penniless) Blume be able to make a match? Or will he succumb to parental pressure for someone better for their son?...

The tale is narrated in a way that makes you feel, at times, that you are listening to a village story-teller entertaining an audience. From the opening sentence ('The widow Mirl lay ill for many years') it's as if he is talking to people who are familiar with the characters. Rhetorical questions and little homilies punctuate the writing.
I love the comic asides -one character, feeling 'out of it' at a party 'was perfectly presentable, yet unaccustomed to society as he was he kept touching himself to make sure that his tie was still in place and that his socks had not fallen down. He stood there uncertainly, running a hand over his clothes as though he had lice.'

Yet life is far from easy: as one character observes 'What a pitiful thing human life was. A man slept all night in order to rise in the morning, and looked forward all day to sleeping again at night. And between sleeping and waking, what a lot of guff he had to take.' When you finish reading this 'simple story', it makes you think about the way we are required to knuckle down to what society demands of us, and assume the mantle of adulthood.½

Here’s a strange book. I spent most of this picaresque account of a group of Jewish friends attempting to reach Jerusalem on a pilgrimage from the Ukraine trying to figure out why it’s on the 1001 books list.

Unfortunately, reading the entry in the 1001 Books book didn’t really enlighten me much. I’m aware, from the cover of the book, that Agnon was a Nobel Prize-Winner. I thus thought that perhaps it is the legacy of this book which makes its importance. It’s certainly not the plot, characters, style or other things that I usually rate a book on.

Digging around on the web, I did discover that Agnon is pretty much the apogee of modern Hebrew literature and figures largely in the identity of the nation. And, this novel, understandably from a Jewish point of view with its focus on the seemingly unattainable prize of reaching Jerusalem, would have been a common theme among the diaspora when the book was written in 1933.

The group of friends who embark on this pilgrimage do so with their only knowledge of Jerusalem coming from their scriptures. It’s almost a fantastical place which they strive to remind themselves is real and will be attainable if only they persevere against the many barriers that lie in their path. Much of this short book is taken up not so much with the journey as discussions among the friends as they stop off on the way.

This is one of those books that broadens your understanding of what’s important in other literary cultures. For that reason, I’m glad I read it.

I wanted to read a book that many consider to be Agnon’s masterpiece, as well as others who claim it to be one of the finest examples of modern Hebrew literature. I was not disappointed at all. It took me quite a while to finish ‘Only Yesterday’ as apart from being particularly busy in recent weeks, I found that I wanted to read each page quite slowly, savouring the folkloric language and making sure that I had fully absorbed what the author wanted to say.

On the surface this is a tale of one man’s passage to the Land of Israel from his home village in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The pre-WWI Ottoman Palestine he arrives in is a world far removed from his naïve imaginings. Our ‘hero’ – Isaac Kumer – is a young and impoverished Zionist of the Second Aliyah. This was the period of renewed zeal amongst the (mainly Russian) Jews of the pogrom and persecution-beset old country, and although relatively small in number, the wide-ranging influence of its pioneers on subsequent generations in the founding of the State of Israel is beyond compare. Agnon charmingly weaves into his plot many historic (and also the future historic) figures alongside the fictional cast of many. Initially finding his feet in the bustling port town of Jaffa, Isaac eventually makes the trip up to Jerusalem. At either end of this journey Agnon lavishly portrays the fascinating world of these two very different towns – the former being coastal, politicised, and predominantly secular, the latter being of the interior, traditional and overwhelmingly orthodox. If nothing else, this book serves as a wonderfully valuable portrayal of a world now gone. The co-mingling of European Jews and their indigenous brethren, the urban and the rural, the liberal and the conservative, at a time when the very soul of the future Jewish state was in gestation, is fascinating to behold.

After many early setbacks in his attempts to find the work on the land that he had dreamed of [One disappointment of ‘Only Yesterday’ was the nearly complete absence of the Arabs of the country. An exception to this is in reference to those farmers preferring to employ the cheaper Arab labour to that of the Jewish immigrant. They’re referred to in other places, but so scantily that I can only conclude that they did not figure largely in the day to day life at that time of either Agnon himself, or those contemporaries of the period that he is portraying.] – Isaac stumbles on another way to earn a living as a painter.

As his early years in the land are told – sometimes the narrator is from Isaac’s point of view, sometimes detached from Isaac as an omnipotent observer, and sometimes in the lives of others altogether – the novel starts to develop simultaneously on several levels. As well as the tale of Isaac’s days, the reader is aware of the question of being a stranger in a strange land. In Jaffa Isaac is a Galician among the Russians. In the fields he is a Jew among the Arabs. In Jerusalem he is a ‘modern’, or a Zionist, among the Hasidim. And so on. Questions of identity and purpose are constantly in Isaac’s mind as he is also caught between the only two women he has ever known outside of his family – one in Jaffa and the other in Jerusalem.

Agnon has a great sense of humour and mischief as well, as we discover mid-story when he introduces an almost magical or Kafkaesque element in the guise of a stray dog. Balak, the dog, suffers the misfortune to be the butt of Isaac’s tomfoolery in a moment of boredom. The repercussions of the joke are so consequential to the story that I can’t say more. Suffice to say, in every chapter when Balak takes the lead, the reader is treated to an alternate view of the universe from a lonesome dog’s perspective.

Agnon’s writing is soaring and beautiful in as many places depicting the mundane and the ugly of everyday life as it is the wondrous and mystical. The imagery of his tale is powerful and will stay with me for a long time to come. An unforgettable story.

PS:
A description of the artwork on the cover: "Pinwheel Vendor" by Reuven Rubin (1923). It is taken from a catalogue for a Rubin exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art entitled "Dreamland". I include it as it is of some interest considering the publisher's choice and that it seems to express with great subtlety something of the story itself:

An Arab of Sudanese descent sits facing the sea while a Jewish pioneer stands beside him. The Sudanese man’s pose, his elevated chin and the fixed gaze focused on a faraway point on the horizon create the sense of a character operating within the dimensions of “inexhaustible time” – time which is not measured in the units of “here and now” but by means of an hourglass in which the sand grains do not run out. The Sudanese man has so much time that he does not even bother to blow at his pinwheels. Sooner or later, the wind will come. If not sooner, then later. And if not later, then after later. The pioneer at his side stands barefoot like the natives and carries a hoe – a symbol of Zionist activism – on his shoulder, his back turned to the sea. The Sudanese man looks as if he could keep crouching on his heels for a long time. He is in no hurry, and patience is the trait ensuring his survival. He operates in another temporal sphere. By contrast, the “New Jew” – bearded and wearing a European hat – is full of movement and impetuosity. He has no time, and must begin his task.

NO OF PAGES: 295 SUB CAT I: Feasts/Festivals SUB CAT II: SUB CAT III: DESCRIPTION: Here in one volume are readings and meditations from the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, and the Zohar, to deepen the spiritual experience of the holiest days of the Jewish year.NOTES: SUBTITLE: A Treasury of Jewish Wisdom for Reflection, Repentance, and Renewal on the High Holy Days

Nobel Prize (1966). Traveler's tale from East Europe to Jerusalem, as the heavenly city's reflection and meeting the Divine Presence

סיפור מצוין של עגנון. בספר מתואר סיפור אהבתם הלא ממומשת של הירשל ובלומה זאת על רקע העירה בגולה. בהתחלה קצת קשה להכנס לסיפור אך אח"כ הוא מדהים

This is a witty and intelligent book about life in Berlin during the first World War. The protagonist is a Jewish writer and his wanderings, chance encounters, and interludes with old friends provide insights into a very special niche of a not always welcoming society.

This was a delightful tale of a group of Jews who make a journey from their East European home to “the Land of Israel.” The writing about the people, the journey and their adventures was beautifully descriptive so that the story really comes alive for the reader. Along the way we also get to “listen” to the fables and legends they share with each other as they travel. We are even privileged to witness a miracle! Although short, this book is rich with illusion, humor and, especially, heart. We gain a deeper understanding of the importance of the idea of “Israel” is to these people. I want to buy this book because it was a joy to read and I know I will want to read it again

Sort of damning with faint praise but all I can say is that I didn't mind it. A gentle tale of a group of rabbis traveling from Eastern Europe to Israel. It was amusing at times...I enjoyed a rabbi asking an innkeeper how he knew God wanted his prayers instead of a glass of brandy and a dish of groats. However, I also found it tedious at times; fortunately it is short. I've read that Agnon is a great stylist in Hebrew, writing very taut and compelling prose. The translation gave me none of that, mostly emerging as a parody of an archaic form of speech.½

The last few weeks of my life were louder than usual, thanks to the blessed noises and cries of our newborn. Agnon’s book was the perfect retreat to at least inner quietness. Whenever I read any of his books, the near-Biblical language he is using and the pace of his books always provide the calmness I seek from them. I was not disappointed this time either; I could transfer myself to mellower times by reading In the Heart of the Seas. The constant reference to the heroes as “our men of good heart” greatly contributed to the pleasant atmosphere the book emanated.

The plot of the story sounds simple; a group of Hasidim make aliyah, emigrate to Israel. On one hand this does not sound too exciting; after all, nowadays lots of people travel, emigrate or even make aliyah. On the other hand we have to consider that these travelers made their journey back in the day, when traveling was a much more arduous process. Furthermore, making aliyah is not just any journey, but THE journey for a devout Jews of the 19th or any century, it requires as much spiritual preparation, strength and persistence as physical. Agnon’s story draws a clear parallel between the physical, spiritual and lifelong journey. By the last I mean that it is possible to read the book at a deeper level as a metaphor for life journey. We start out somewhere low and as we aspire to higher ground, we do everything we can to get there. What we strive for more of is not material wealth, but getting closer to G-d. This is Agnon’s main point in my reading.

Another focus is that the journey cannot be done alone. The value of community is essential for our travelers. They would not be able to survive alone. They value each other and each others’ differences. The group develops from a band of travelers to a close-knit congregation through their tribulations.

There are two literary connections I could not escape noticing. Joseph Campbell described the monomyth, aka the hero’s journey, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces as a tri-stage process,

" A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

In this case (most of) our heroes do not return, but they definitely follow the rest of the pattern Campbell recognized. In this sense Agnon’s book is a typical monomyth.

The other famous book where ten people travel together and tell stories to each other is Boccaccio’s Decameron. It is mostly known for its erotic and tragic content, but that too deserves more attention. There the characters escape from the Black Death. Here they are not escaping from death but going towards fulfillment of their lifelong dream. There Lady Fortune, aka fate, is the decisive factor of what happens. Here divine authority saves or condemns people, who have the power through their actions and prayers to influence their life. Rather different outlooks, wouldn’t you say?

Just last week I wrote that I like reading fiction books for their plot and character development. I forgot to mention that I enjoy descriptive just as much. Shmuel Yosef Agnon is a master of that. (I spelled out his first and middle name on purpose, because almost all the time he is referred to only as S. Y. Agnon. He deserves his full name to be known. And not just because the Nobel Prize for Literature he won in 1966.) Here is the very opening of the book, setting the tone for the rest,

"Just before the first of the Hasidim went up to the Land of Israel, a certain man named Hananiah found his way to their House of Study. His clothes were torn, rags were wound around his legs, and he wore no boots on his feet; his hair ad beard were covered with th dust of the roads, and all his worldly goods were tied up in a little bundle which he carried with him in his kerchief."

I cannot omit mentioning the work of I. M. Lask, who magnificently translated the book from Hebrew to English. T. Herzl Rome illustrated the book with nine pictures. His style of drawing with simple, yet powerful lines fit well the book’s theme.

I guess this is a great book. It is long. The author develops an original narrative style which I assume is based on rhythms in the Torah. He paints an in-depth picture of a time & place, East Europe (Austria) between the Wars, when all the changes wrought by WW1 were playing out but the specific threats of the Nazis were not yet apparent. People thought they had choices, they went to America, they went to IPalestine ("The Land"), they stayed there. It is an amazing story of a history that stopped. The narrator is forced out of Palestine by violence so he goes back to where he grew up, and he contrasts what used to be with what now is.

The story in which a traveler is asked to remain in a remote part of Eastern Europe so that the inhabitants can form a minyan is one of my favorites.

Hebrew fiction of mid-20th century

Jews--Europe, Eastern--Fiction.

Writer Alon Hilu has chosen to discuss  S Y Agnon’s Only Yesterday, on FiveBooks as one of the top five on his subject - Israel and Palestine in Art, saying that:



"Shmuel Agnon is the only Israeli writer who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. He is still regarded as the best writer in modern Hebrew literature. This book takes place in Jaffa between the end of the 19th century and the start of the First World War. I read it three times to get the atmosphere and spirit of the place at that time"




The full interview is available here: http://www.five-books.com/interviews/alon-hilu