A Book that was Lost: Thirty Five Stories (Hebrew Classics) - Softcover

Agnon, S.Y.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1592642543 ISBN 13: 9781592642540

Publisher: The Toby Press, 2008

Synopsis

These stories span the lifetime of a quintessential wandering Jew - born in Buczacz, Poland, living in Germany, and finally settling in Jerusalem - and they bring to life the full gamut of the modern Jewish experience in fiction.This broad selection of Agnon's fiction introduces the full sweep of the writer's panoramic vision as chronicler of the lost world of Eastern European Jewry and the emerging society of modern Israel. Here are stories that portray the richly textured culture of traditional Jewish life in Poland, as well as changes in the life of the community over time.Several stories reflect on the Jewish infatuation with German and Western culture in the interwar period: "On The Road", for example, narrates an eerie encouter on the eve of a holy day between an itinerant Jew and a ghostly company of martyred Jews from the Crusades. The early years of Jewish settlement in the land of Israel are recalled in Hill of Sand, which is also a revealing portrait of the artist as a young man; "A Book That was Lost" is a powerful metaphor for the writer's own journey from Buczacz to Jerusalem.

About this title

Product Description:

A truly satisfying novel to complete the Agnon canon.

Review:

To hint at the scrupulous dazzle of S.Y. Agnon-complexity hidden in seeming innocence-one might name him the 'Flaubert of Hebrew letters'.... Agnon stands hugely out, permanently, under the canopy of Western literature. --Cynthia Ozick

S.Y. Agnon is the single modern master of Hebrew fiction, and this new collection gives American readers a rich sampling of the originality and complexity of his work. --Robert Alter

A brilliant collection... Agnon said, 'I write things simply as they are.' As simple as the Old Testament, written with a Kafkian-laced quill on burning parchment. --The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: The Toby Press
• Publication date: 2008
• ISBN 10: 1592642543
• ISBN 13: 9781592642540
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 600