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| The Tears and Prayers of Fools : A Novel
ISBN: 9780815656883
Platform/Publisher: Ebook Central / Syracuse University Press
Digital rights: Users: Unlimited; Printing: Limited; Download: 7 Days at a Time
Subjects: Literature;
Lithuanian author Kanovich (Devilspel), who died in 2023, paints a decidedly unromantic picture of Jewish shtetl life in this strange and affecting 1880s-set novel. At the outset, a man wearing a velvet kippah, who claims to be "a messenger from God," shows up in a small Lithuanian Jewish town. Though the community is accustomed to visits from itinerant madmen, the newcomer--who does not reveal his name and says he's "from everywhere"--turns the townspeople's lives upside down. He accuses the town watchman, Rakhmiel, of having sinned, and vows to make the tavern keeper, Reb Yeshua Mandel, cry. Rakhmiel hopes the stranger might actually be his long-lost son, Aaron, whom he hasn't seen since he was drafted into the czar's army years earlier. Each person imbues the newcomer's presence with a meaning based on their own deeply rooted needs and desires, until an act of violence toward the stranger rends the town apart. Kanovich meticulously renders each of the townspeople, taking care to avoid framing them as quaint caricatures, while the haunting prose ("The creak of cart wheels echoed in the universe like a moan and an omen") adds a bewitching sheen of unreality. Admirers of I.B. Singer should take a look. (Oct.)
Grigory Kanovich (1929-2023) was an internationally acclaimed Lithuanian-born Jewish writer. He was the author of ten novels translated into fourteen languages, including Devilspel and Shtetl Love Song . His play, "Smile Upon Us, Lord," toured in the US, Canada, Europe, and Israel. The recipient of numerous awards, he was awarded the Lithuanian National Prize in Art and Culture in 2014. Settling in Israel in 1993, he was a member of PEN International both in Israel and Russia.
Mary Ann Szporluk is an editor and a translator of Russian literature whose translations include Escape Hatch: Two Novellas by Vladimir Makanin and The Death of a Poet: The Last Days of Marina Tsvetaeva by Irma Kudrova.
Ken Frieden , the B. G. Rudolph Professor of Judaic Studies at Syracuse University, has published numerous books and essays on Yiddish and Hebrew literature. |
