- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Schocken (Feb 27 2007)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0805241779
- ISBN-13: 978-0805241778
- Product Dimensions: 15 x 2.6 x 21.7 cm
- Shipping Weight: 386 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #767,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Israeli novelist Appelfeld (The Story of a Life; The Iron Tracks) sets this pre-Holocaust novel in 1938 Czernowitz, Ukraine, where narrator Paul Rosenfeld, a nine-year-old Jewish boy, watches his family and community fall apart. Paul, whose isolation is exacerbated by his exemption from school because of his asthma, watches as, in short order, his parents divorce, his adored nanny is killed by her jealous fiancé and his schoolteacher mother abandons him (first when she marries a colleague and converts to Christianity, and later when she contracts typhus and dies). Paul is left in the care of his father, a depressed, alcoholic painter who hardly speaks except to rail against the anti-Semitic art critics who have labeled his art "decadent" and thwarted his career. Paul daydreams about an idyllic country vacation he once took with his mother and finds himself drawn to the Orthodox Jews he meets. Meanwhile, strangers hurl anti-Semitic insults and World War II looms. Though Appelfeld's bewildered child narrator is a pleasure to follow, he stumbles into gratingly precious territory on occasion. For all its morbidity, the story is seductive and, ultimately, devastating. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
Growing up in Bucharest, Czernowitz, and various small places in Eastern Europe in the 1930s, Paul Rosenfeld, nine, cares little about his Jewish identity; in fact he despises "the bearded Jews" who pray in the synagogue next door, and local anti-Semitism barely registers. His life is focused on family turmoil after his beloved mother remarries and he must live with his gifted artist father, who veers between alcoholism and bouts of feverish work. The child's naive first-person narrative is sometimes excruciatingly detailed and slow--this would work better as a short story. But the translation from the Hebrew is eloquent, and well-known Israeli writer Appelfeld gets perfectly the way politics seems very unimportant and distant compared with the anguish of a mother dying of typhus and a father struggling for recognition. For the reader, who knows that the Holocaust will wipe out Paul's world, there is bitter irony in the drama of daily struggle. Hazel Rochman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.8 out of 5 stars (5 customer reviews)
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An astounding glimpse into the little known world!, Feb 1 2009
By Michael P. Korn "Yeshua Notzer Yisrael" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: All Whom I Have Loved: A Novel (Hardcover)
This book is an astounding glimpse into the little known world of pre-WWII Europe. Appelfeld reveals many amazing things almost as asides in the course of his narrative. Such as the admiration of many Jews for Orthodox Christian rites. The friendship between Jews and Christians. The anger of God-fearing Christians over secular Jews' abandonment of Biblical values. And ultimately the eerie sense that a Jew can never belong to any established fellowship.
Appelfeld is a lyrical writer. I could not put this book down and read it through in one evening. As a Hebrew speaker I also can attest that the English translation is unusually good, a work of art in its own right.
There are secrets, such as the similarity between Appelfeld's surname and that of his protagonist: Rosenfeld. There are many other such secrets discernable to the perceptive reader.
I finished this book with a deep sense of sadness but also with gratitude for having been able to catch a glimpse of the author's beautiful soul.
You won't be disappointed!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Amazing read, Aug 30 2009
By readernyc "readernyc" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: All Whom I Have Loved: A Novel (Hardcover)
All Whom I have Loved is a wonderful novel, not about the Shoah but about one boy's life just before it began. One might say: Nothing much happens but O so much does happen here and it is so easy to enter's the young boys' moods and moves. I just loved reading this because Appelfeld has put in his 100,000 hours into his craft of writing and has learned to prune and make reading this sad novel a pure pleasure. Highly recommend 5 stars
6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
There is no other author like Aharon Appelfeld, April 1 2007
By D. Resnick - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: All Whom I Have Loved: A Novel (Hardcover)
I have read, and own, all of Mr. Apelfeld's books in English. The prose is literate, his words are almost poetic, and all of his stories build up from serenity to crescendo. A must read for anyone who loves fine literature.
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