Moriel Rothman-Zecher
Teoksen Sadness Is a White Bird: A Novel tekijä
Tekijän teokset
Associated Works
Fight of the Century: Writers Reflect on 100 Years of Landmark ACLU Cases (2020) — Avustaja — 183 kappaletta
Merkitty avainsanalla
Yleistieto
- Sukupuoli
- male
- Asuinpaikat
- Yellow Springs, Ohio, USA
- Koulutus
- Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, USA (BS|Arabic and Political Science)
- Palkinnot ja kunnianosoitukset
- National Book Foundation, 5 Under 35 Honoree (2018)
Jäseniä
Kirja-arvosteluja
Listat
Palkinnot
You May Also Like
Associated Authors
Tilastot
- Teokset
- 2
- Also by
- 1
- Jäseniä
- 156
- Suosituimmuussija
- #134,405
- Arvio (tähdet)
- 4.3
- Kirja-arvosteluja
- 14
- ISBN:t
- 11
Why the troubles? This absolutely brilliant book is written in
• English
• English compound words that are direct translations from Yiddish
• Yiddish
The Yiddish sections were challenging because I don't speak Yiddish beyond the twenty or so words that have made it into the wider lexicon. The English compound words used as translations of Yiddish are like endless puzzles the reader has to work through. Instead of "earlier," we get "in the before moment." When a character appears suddenly, it's "as if throughwallwalking." A "receding" hairline is "backfallish." The beauty of this is that
• it slows the reader down in a good way
• it makes the reader really picture the actions and objects being described
• it creates a rhythm that simply wouldn't exist without the "Yiddishisms."
Before All the World is set in the 1930s and tells the story of three people. Leyb and Gittl are the sole survivors of a pogrom that decimated their village in Russia. At the time, Gittl was reaching adolescence; Leyb was an infant. Both Leyb and Gittl immigrate to the U.S., winding up in Philadelphia (which is transliterated as philadelphiya). Our third character, Charles, is a communist, Yiddish-speaking Black man (yes, there's a back story). Leyb and Charles meet in a semi-secret gay bar. Gittl, who becomes a poet, is sponsored for travel to the U.S. by "the Baroness," a wealthy Philadelphia Jew who likes the idea of having a poet at hand to perform on social occasions. She reconnects with Leyb and meets Charles. She also carries the voices of her murdered siblings with her, so she is never alone.
Given who they are, all three are marginalized in multiple ways, and the novel wrestles with issues of capitalism, antisemitism, racism, and nationalism—but never in a way that feels forced. These are simply the parameters defining the characters' lives.
This novel is genuinely profound in what it asks of its readers and what it offers in exchange. Before All the World is a book to travel through slowly, letting yourself soak in its languages and identities.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.… (lisätietoja)