I was lead to this novel by comments that J. Epstein made in his biographical essays, mostly running down Saul Bellow. While reading it, I suddenly realized that I had seen the movie of it in the late 60's with the YPS of TBE. Sometimes I think that it is a good idea to be reminded of what imprisonment is like, before we give our consent to locking up every African-American who has some marijuana. ( )

First edition fine

Yakov Bok se verá obligado a ser algo más que un factótum, tendrá que arreglar su propia vida. Harto de su infructuosa existencia, busca un futuro mejor en Kiev, lejos del aislamiento que supone para él, un librepensador y lector de Spinoza, la comunidad judía. Pronto consigue un trabajo, después de salvarle la vida a un antisemita ebrio, pero en la época del zar Nicolás II y con un pogromo cada vez más y más tangible, se ve obligado a no revelar su identidad judía. Sin embargo, tras el asesinato de un niño ruso, demasiado cerca de su puesto de trabajo, le señalan como autor del crimen. No faltarán testigos, pruebas y acusaciones orientados a condenarle, en una época de gran virulencia antisemita.

Disturbing ( )

During Yakov’s first days in the courthouse jail the accusation had seemed to him almost an irrelevancy, nothing much to do with his life or deeds. But after the visit to the cave he had stopped thinking of relevancy, truth, or even proof. There was no “reason,” there was only their plot against a Jew, any Jew; he was the accidental choice for the sacrifice. He would be tried because the accusation had been made, there didn’t have to be another reason. Being born a Jew meant being vulnerable to history, including its worst errors. Accident and history had involved Yakov Bok as he had never dreamed he could be involved. The involvement was, in a way of speaking, impersonal, but the effect, his misery and suffering, were not. The suffering was personal, painful, and possibly endless.

In early 20th century Tsarist Russia, a restless young Jewish man, a fixer by trade, leaves the shtetl for Kiev. Yakov Bok hopes to improve his mind, earn some money, and maybe emigrate to somewhere better like America. Yakov is not a religious man, but he is basically a moral man. A couple of good deeds involve Yakov in a chain of events much larger than himself. Accused of a crime he did not commit, Yakov spends months, years in jail resisting state pressure to confess for the welfare of all the Jews in Russia.

This novel’s religious themes and the suffering that Yakov endures as the state pressures him to make a statement against his will echo similar themes in Shusaku Endo’s Silence. Both novels wrestle with the silence or absence of God in the face of unrelenting suffering. Interestingly, both novels were first published in 1966. Maybe there’s a thesis there for some aspiring scholar of literature. ( )