- Paperback: 128 pages
- Publisher: New Directions (May 31 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0811215679
- ISBN-13: 978-0811215671
- Product Dimensions: 20.3 x 14.2 x 1 cm
- Shipping Weight: 159 g
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,954,918 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
From oblivion there ascends, like that legendary bird rising from its ashes, the veranda on which my father's father Isaac Emerich sat, along with my grandmother Emma. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
From oblivion there ascends, like that legendary bird rising from its ashes, the veranda on which my father's father Isaac Emerich sat, along with my grandmother Emma. Read the first page
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Concordance
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Butterflies stood at the edge of the eye.",
By Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Shunra And The Schmetterling (Paperback)
Lively images of the cat (shunra) and the butterfly (schmetterling) chase and play through the memories of a poetic child as Yoel Hoffmann, one of Israel's most celebrated writers, recreates childhood and the coming of age. More than sixty years have passed since the speaker first lived in Rabat Gan, and the passage of time has intensified some memories, eliminated the irrelevancies from others, and connected the fantasies of childhood with the perennial mysteries of adulthood. As he begins to recall images from his life, the veranda on which his grandfather sat rises from memory, "like that legendary bird rising from its ashes" and becomes "the veranda of the world itself," a symbol of the experiences of the family and, ultimately, the history of the Jewish people, a veranda with "A broken railing. Grillwork like Auschwitz. A floor laid with tiles of pogroms...Nuremberg laws in the plaster..."Not a manifesto or catalogue of wrongs, this "memoir" is the vivid and poetic evocation of one boy's life, the people he remembers from a seemingly ordinary Israeli village, and his discoveries about dreams and the passage of time. Impressions from past and present flow through the speaker's consciousness, unfiltered, with one idea reminding him of another from another place and time. Gradually, the reader meets the speaker's grandfather, father, and deceased mother, the neighbors, his teachers, and his friends, all of whom have sought sanctuary in Israel from other places. Words in Aramaic, Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and even Icelandic, are sprinkled casually throughout the story, a natural part of the speaker's memory and the collective memory of his village and country. Though "A butterfly big as a volume of Talmud stood above our heads" throughout the speaker's childhood, the adults in the village have had more difficult lives, all of them having escaped from various wars. Soon it is time for the speaker to serve in his own army and fight in his own war, an experience which marks him forever. Nature imagery--of birds, animals, clouds, and the sky--permeate this impressionistic painting of a poet's life, giving depth and color to instants in time and to moments in history. Through intense, compressed and sometimes elusive pictures, the story--and our understanding of the speaker--do gradually emerge, insinuating themselves into our own consciousness and speaking directly to us, a powerful communication between author and reader which transcends time and place. Mary Whipple
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews) 5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Butterflies stood at the edge of the eye.",
By Mary Whipple - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Shunra And The Schmetterling (Paperback)
Lively images of the cat (shunra) and the butterfly (schmetterling) chase and play through the memories of a poetic child as Yoel Hoffmann, one of Israel's most celebrated writers, recreates childhood and the coming of age. More than sixty years have passed since the speaker first lived in Rabat Gan, and the passage of time has intensified some memories, eliminated the irrelevancies from others, and connected the fantasies of childhood with the perennial mysteries of adulthood. As he begins to recall images from his life, the veranda on which his grandfather sat rises from memory, "like that legendary bird rising from its ashes" and becomes "the veranda of the world itself," a symbol of the experiences of the family and, ultimately, the history of the Jewish people, a veranda with "A broken railing. Grillwork like Auschwitz. A floor laid with tiles of pogroms...Nuremberg laws in the plaster..."Not a manifesto or catalogue of wrongs, this "memoir" is the vivid and poetic evocation of one boy's life, the people he remembers from a seemingly ordinary Israeli village, and his discoveries about dreams and the passage of time. Impressions from past and present flow through the speaker's consciousness, unfiltered, with one idea reminding him of another from another place and time. Gradually, the reader meets the speaker's grandfather, father, and deceased mother, the neighbors, his teachers, and his friends, all of whom have sought sanctuary in Israel from other places. Words in Aramaic, Hebrew, German, Yiddish, and even Icelandic, are sprinkled casually throughout the story, a natural part of the speaker's memory and the collective memory of his village and country. Though "A butterfly big as a volume of Talmud stood above our heads" throughout the speaker's childhood, the adults in the village have had more difficult lives, all of them having escaped from various wars. Soon it is time for the speaker to serve in his own army and fight in his own war, an experience which marks him forever. Nature imagery--of birds, animals, clouds, and the sky--permeate this impressionistic painting of a poet's life, giving depth and color to instants in time and to moments in history. Through intense, compressed and sometimes elusive pictures, the story--and our understanding of the speaker--do gradually emerge, insinuating themselves into our own consciousness and speaking directly to us, a powerful communication between author and reader which transcends time and place. Mary Whipple 1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Beautiful poetry of a childhood,
By M. J. Smith - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Shunra And The Schmetterling (Paperback)
I am an unabashed fan on Yoel Hoffman's books. This volume, however, is different - for the first time I felt on the outside looking in without comprehension. Why? I suspect it is because I am not Jewish and have never been to Israel. Hoffman has written a beautiful, poetic narrative of childhood. It is, perhaps, closer to prose poems than poetic prose. The images are multifaceted gems that are pleasurable to read. But the connotations that should have arisen from the references to Jewish writers, to children's songs, to Jewish festival prayers and hymns -- footnotes gave me minimal denotations. The rest was lost on me.
I still recommend everything by Hoffman but suggest that you learn to love him from one of his earlier books before tackling The Shunra and the Schmetterling. Earlier works: The Christ of Fish or Bernhard |
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