THE BRIDAL CANOPY

by S. Y. Agson ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 20, 1967

Written when Agnon was in his early forties, and generally regarded as his first important creation, The Bridal Canopy is a panoramic parable about a holy fool, Reb Yudel, ""a certain Hassid"" who ""did serve his Maker with love and piety."" The style is both strangely sparse and highly concentrated, drawing on Jewish life and history, the tradition of the Talmud and the Cabbalists, evoking an almost ballad-like mixture of the earthy and the mystical, set against the Eastern Europe of the 19th century, crowded with folklore, pietistic fables, bizarre motifs. Though it is easy to see that Agnon's literary model begins and ends with the Bible, one here and there catches in this unique Hebrew writer's world something of the inspired irony of Gogol, a touch of Chagall's grotesque purity. Reb Yudel's exilic wanderings as he seeks husbands for his daughters is a symbol of the eternal pilgrimage of the Jew, and his adventures the eternal renewal of faith, themes which Agnon illuminates with an idiosyncratic gentleness, wry joy, profound simplicity and meditative grace.

Pub Date: April 20, 1967

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Schocken

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1967

Categories: FICTION