Apr. 23rd, 2019 12:55 pm
My life as a cat
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muckefuckA few months ago I picked up a slim volume called Katschen; The Book of Joseph by Yoel Hoffmann. He's a Jewish Israeli author I'd never heard of before (to be honest, the only one I've read is Amos Oz) and the book is a translation of two novellas, each centred on a young Jewish boy growing up in somewhat bewildering circumstances.
Of the two, I liked "Katschen" more. The eponymous protagonist is an orphan of sorts (with his mother dead and his father in an instution) who gets passed around like a parcel from uncle to aunt to kibbutznik to Bedouin to Yemenite to policeman, finally ending up reunited with his father. It's a fascinating cross section of life in Mandatory Palestine seen through the eyes of an imaginative boy.
It's also (no prizes for guessing this) a semi-autobiographical first novel. Like Katschen (i.e. Kätzchen), Hoffmann was born in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire before being brought to Palestine, lost his mother at an early age, and was separated from his father (who put him in an orphanage until remarrying). What makes it interesting is how well-observed the milieu is and how successful the author is at channeling the voice and perceptions of a child.
Although only slightly longer, "The Book of Joseph" is substantially more ambitious, covering a longer period in a milieu Hoffmann knows less about (Nazi Germany) and seeking to provide a more comprehensive picture of that milieu. Although Yingele is arguably the novella's focus character, the chief protagonist is his father Joseph, a tailor struggling to raise him after the death of his wife.
It's also formally more ambitious, being told in snippets and occasionally slipping into poetry or song. There's also the parallel narrative of a Nazi youth woven in. (No prizes either for guessing where that story is headed.) Overall, it's rather successful up until the last section which is a run-on compilation of one-sentence impressions of the Berlin ghetto. I guess he's aiming for a fragmented but multifaceted portrait of what was lost with the liquidation of the city's Jewish community, but it ended up being a chore to get through.
I didn't pick it up on account of its use of language but that did add to the appeal. German and Yiddish are sprinkled liberally throughout, along with the amount of Hebrew you'd expect in a work about Jews and some Arabic as well. (The Bedouin speaks almost entirely in monosyllabic imperatives, which provides opportunity for some wordplay based on the homophony of German komm and Arabic قم.) All of this is carefully glossed in footnotes which I could for the most part ignore.
As for what to read next, my neighbour read Slaughterhouse 5 on her day off yesterday and just handed it off to me. Meanwhile a friend just finished The bone people and wants me to read it so we can talk about it. Of course, he also wants me to read Rayuela for the same reason and there seems little chance of that happening.
Of the two, I liked "Katschen" more. The eponymous protagonist is an orphan of sorts (with his mother dead and his father in an instution) who gets passed around like a parcel from uncle to aunt to kibbutznik to Bedouin to Yemenite to policeman, finally ending up reunited with his father. It's a fascinating cross section of life in Mandatory Palestine seen through the eyes of an imaginative boy.
It's also (no prizes for guessing this) a semi-autobiographical first novel. Like Katschen (i.e. Kätzchen), Hoffmann was born in the former Austro-Hungarian Empire before being brought to Palestine, lost his mother at an early age, and was separated from his father (who put him in an orphanage until remarrying). What makes it interesting is how well-observed the milieu is and how successful the author is at channeling the voice and perceptions of a child.
Although only slightly longer, "The Book of Joseph" is substantially more ambitious, covering a longer period in a milieu Hoffmann knows less about (Nazi Germany) and seeking to provide a more comprehensive picture of that milieu. Although Yingele is arguably the novella's focus character, the chief protagonist is his father Joseph, a tailor struggling to raise him after the death of his wife.
It's also formally more ambitious, being told in snippets and occasionally slipping into poetry or song. There's also the parallel narrative of a Nazi youth woven in. (No prizes either for guessing where that story is headed.) Overall, it's rather successful up until the last section which is a run-on compilation of one-sentence impressions of the Berlin ghetto. I guess he's aiming for a fragmented but multifaceted portrait of what was lost with the liquidation of the city's Jewish community, but it ended up being a chore to get through.
I didn't pick it up on account of its use of language but that did add to the appeal. German and Yiddish are sprinkled liberally throughout, along with the amount of Hebrew you'd expect in a work about Jews and some Arabic as well. (The Bedouin speaks almost entirely in monosyllabic imperatives, which provides opportunity for some wordplay based on the homophony of German komm and Arabic قم.) All of this is carefully glossed in footnotes which I could for the most part ignore.
As for what to read next, my neighbour read Slaughterhouse 5 on her day off yesterday and just handed it off to me. Meanwhile a friend just finished The bone people and wants me to read it so we can talk about it. Of course, he also wants me to read Rayuela for the same reason and there seems little chance of that happening.
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