This is a crucial act of preservation: by archiving and translating into English this wealth of fiction, Glinter has helped...
A new anthology gathers a century’s worth of fiction from a pre-eminent Yiddish publication.
When the Forward began publishing news, editorials, literature, and essays in 1897, it became a haven for writers and readers of Yiddish not only in New York, where it was published, but also in much of Europe. It has since become the longest-lasting Yiddish newspaper in the United States. A vibrant, and vital, new anthology gathers fiction from across the Forward’s long tenure. It seats luminaries like Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Asch, and Abraham Cahan (longtime editor of the Forward) alongside lesser-known figures like B. Kovner, Yente Serdatsky, and Miriam Raskin. Many of the stories, like those of Lyala Kaufman (daughter of the illustrious Sholem Aleichem), are here translated into English for the first time. With sections organized around various themes, such as “Immigration and Its Discontents,” “Modern Times,” which looks at shifting social and sexual mores, and “World on Fire,” with fiction inspired by the two world wars, the Ukrainian War of Independence, and other violent tragedies, the anthology provides a wide-ranging, comprehensive depiction of a century’s worth of experiences by American and European Jews. Many of the stories take the form of slight character sketches, like Roshelle Weprinsky’s “Annie,” which describes a factory worker’s yearning to provide her husband and children with comforts they can’t afford. In Avrom Reyzen’s “Who Will Prevail?” a pompous young intellectual tries to win over his landlady’s daughter only to lose her to a more unequivocal tailor. Many of the stories have the edifying aspect of fables. If there is a certain sameness in narrative structure and literary style, this is forgivable, since Glinter, who edited the collection (and currently serves as deputy culture editor for the Forward) has selected such a diverse, wide-ranging group of writers. Women are well-represented here, as are the aging, the lonely, and the yearning.
This is a crucial act of preservation: by archiving and translating into English this wealth of fiction, Glinter has helped to ensure the legacy of the Forward and its many brilliant contributors.Pub Date: Nov. 1, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-393-06270-0
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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