Lilian Nattel
Author of The River Midnight
About the Author
Lilian Nattel was born and raised in Montreal. Her family emigrated from Poland, their history lost in prewar memory. Reinventing this history, she has rewoven the broken threads with years of research. Nattel's short stories have been anthologized, and she has been awarded grants by the Canada show more Council and the Ontario Arts Council. She now lives in Toronto. show less
Works by Lilian Nattel
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Nattel, Lilian
- Legal name
- Nattel, Lilian
- Birthdate
- 1956
- Gender
- female
- Occupations
- mother
- Short biography
- Lilian Nattel is the mom of 2 amazing daughters and the spouse of a great guy who cooks. Her oldest friend remembers her telling stories as young as 5, but she didn't decide to be a writer until she was 10, when she discovered that not all authors were dead. She collects stories of late bloomers. Her themes are redemption and the importance of friendship in women's lives. She sees literature as a partnership between author and reader. The author puts her vision on the page and the reader brings to it personal perceptions, experiences and insight. Together author and reader create a new book with each reading. And this journey together can continue through the wonders of the internet.
- Nationality
- Canada
- Places of residence
- Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Montréal, Québec, Canada - Associated Place (for map)
- Canada
Members
Reviews
The River Midnight tells the story of a Shtetl in Poland using 4 women friends, the "Vilda Chayas" (wild animals, a nickname they received as children because they were mischievous) as the main characters. Easy to see this novel as a play with a number of acts in which each main character and sub-characters move the simple plot forward.
Hard to believe a poor Jewish hamlet could contain so much depth and wisdom about women's strengths, hidden or otherwise, spirituality and belief in G-d, show more loyalty, innocence, anger and violence, birth and death, education and ignorance. These 4 women care deeply about their families, neighbors, the town and do everything in their power to help each other whether giving charity to those without enough to eat, praying, herbal preparations, advice or love. They are not perfect but understand how they all need each other.
I love Nattel's capable use of magical realism, the river as purifier, gossip and humor to create a wonder of a world fraught with danger but filled with life and fulfillment.
Well done! show less
Hard to believe a poor Jewish hamlet could contain so much depth and wisdom about women's strengths, hidden or otherwise, spirituality and belief in G-d, show more loyalty, innocence, anger and violence, birth and death, education and ignorance. These 4 women care deeply about their families, neighbors, the town and do everything in their power to help each other whether giving charity to those without enough to eat, praying, herbal preparations, advice or love. They are not perfect but understand how they all need each other.
I love Nattel's capable use of magical realism, the river as purifier, gossip and humor to create a wonder of a world fraught with danger but filled with life and fulfillment.
Well done! show less
As much a look into history as it is a piece of transporting entertainment, Nattel's The River Midnight brings to life the men and women of a shtetl northwest of Warsaw. Weaving small-town gossip with frightening politics, the concerns of a small town with individuals in hope and in mourning, and half-dreamt magical realism with hard-pressed reality, the novel is a layered masterpiece, and well worth reading.
In Blaszka, this fictional village of Polish Jews, everything is paramount. show more Meticulously detailed, the novel moves effortlessly between characters, teaching history even as it entertains. On some level, there's a pregnant midwife named Misha who is at the center of everything. On another level, she is less important than the village community, and only as important as the young men and women who are around her, accepting or rebelling against changing politics and a seemingly shrinking village.
All together, it's difficult to say anything at all about this work. More than any historical fiction I've read in recent years, this book manages to balance daily life with historical care while still treating issues of the time which go beyond the day-to-day, and there's something magical about the way it all comes together.
Simply, this is one of those novels that is worth reading. Call it literary fiction or magical realism or historical fiction or whatever you like--it tells a wonderful story, with both grace and humor, and it is, very simply, powerful.
Absolutely recommended. show less
In Blaszka, this fictional village of Polish Jews, everything is paramount. show more Meticulously detailed, the novel moves effortlessly between characters, teaching history even as it entertains. On some level, there's a pregnant midwife named Misha who is at the center of everything. On another level, she is less important than the village community, and only as important as the young men and women who are around her, accepting or rebelling against changing politics and a seemingly shrinking village.
All together, it's difficult to say anything at all about this work. More than any historical fiction I've read in recent years, this book manages to balance daily life with historical care while still treating issues of the time which go beyond the day-to-day, and there's something magical about the way it all comes together.
Simply, this is one of those novels that is worth reading. Call it literary fiction or magical realism or historical fiction or whatever you like--it tells a wonderful story, with both grace and humor, and it is, very simply, powerful.
Absolutely recommended. show less
Set in a shtetl in Russian occupied Poland during the late 1800s, this is a story told multiple times. The action takes place over a year’s time (with both flashbacks and glimpses of the future, too); first it’s told from the viewpoint of the women of the village, then again from the men’s POV, then finally from the view of the main character, Misha, the shtetl midwife and herbalist. While the whole village is part of the story, the backbone of it follows the pregnancy of Misha, ended show more with her giving birth.
The story focuses on four women. As young girls, they were nicknamed the vilda hayas, the wild creatures, because they ran wild through the forest and the village. They had great plans. But in the end, one emigrated to America and died, leaving two children; one ran her husband’s business brilliantly but never had a child; one had too many children; and the fourth was Misha, who did not have a husband but was pregnant, had one divorce, still wore her hair loose, and knew all the secrets of the shtetl.
Each telling brings the story and the people more into focus, like watching an old interlaced GIF download years ago. While we find out what happened in the first telling, by the end of the third telling we know *why* the things happened. Hard things happen; children are orphaned, a young girl goes to jail, an unspeakable crime takes place. But it’s still a story of joy; their sect of Judaism asks them to look for joy, to help each other, to let no one starve.
Nattel brings the shtetl to life with her writing. From the houses with the chickens roosting in the hallways, to the herbs that Misha gathers and stores, to the way that religion permeates every aspect of the villager’s lives, it’s all described in loving prose. The love and friendship that binds them together is warm and alive; the story is like a tapestry with a million details. While the pace is moderate to slow, I love this book. It has a touch of magical realism and a lot of life. show less
The story focuses on four women. As young girls, they were nicknamed the vilda hayas, the wild creatures, because they ran wild through the forest and the village. They had great plans. But in the end, one emigrated to America and died, leaving two children; one ran her husband’s business brilliantly but never had a child; one had too many children; and the fourth was Misha, who did not have a husband but was pregnant, had one divorce, still wore her hair loose, and knew all the secrets of the shtetl.
Each telling brings the story and the people more into focus, like watching an old interlaced GIF download years ago. While we find out what happened in the first telling, by the end of the third telling we know *why* the things happened. Hard things happen; children are orphaned, a young girl goes to jail, an unspeakable crime takes place. But it’s still a story of joy; their sect of Judaism asks them to look for joy, to help each other, to let no one starve.
Nattel brings the shtetl to life with her writing. From the houses with the chickens roosting in the hallways, to the herbs that Misha gathers and stores, to the way that religion permeates every aspect of the villager’s lives, it’s all described in loving prose. The love and friendship that binds them together is warm and alive; the story is like a tapestry with a million details. While the pace is moderate to slow, I love this book. It has a touch of magical realism and a lot of life. show less
There is an area of London often ignored in popular history. “This was the high road of the ghetto, the one square mile where Yiddish was spoken, the irritating pimple on the backside of London, the subject of parliamentary debate, the hundred thousand newcomers among the millions, ready to take fog as their mother’s milk here in the East End, where all the noisy, dirty, and stinking industries were exiled from the city.�?
Canadian author Lilian Nattel is trying something different for show more her sophomore effort. Her first novel, the award-winning The River Midnight, was an exercise in magical realism, a plainly fictional conglomeration of men endowed with the power of transmogrification, angels and demons manipulating mankind to their heart’s content, and even the Angel of Death itself, all weaving throughout a late 19th century Polish-Jewish hamlet.
In Nattel’s follow-up novel, the fantastic co-mingles with realism in a far more muted fashion. Ghosts of grandmothers and wives flit about in the background, providing minor commentary, but more content to stand mutely by, watching as the tragedy of life unfolds about them, tut-tutting to themselves all the while. Nattel is more focused on the human element this time around, resulting in a story that, if more traditional in form than the predecessor, has greater depth and resonance.
The Singing Fire, a notably fine novel, continues Nattel’s exploration of Jewish identity, this time in turn-of-the-century London. Amidst the peddlers and thieves lining the streets and doorways, Nattel drops Nehama, an innocent Polish runaway dreaming of independence. Ignorant and confused, she finds herself literally sold into prostitution, beginning a chain of misfortune and adversity made all the more painful by her stubborn refusal to give up her dreams.
Nattel parallels Nehama’s hardships with those of Emilia’s, a pregnant Russian runaway who finds shelter with Nehama. Determined to make a finer life for herself, Emilia flees the “half-Yiddish, half-Cockney English of the alley.�? Abandoning her baby with Nehama, she creates a new image for herself as a gentile in London’s West End.
Alongside Nattel’s vivid descriptions of the hardscrabble lives of her women, Nattel delves into the spiritual and moral heritage of the Jewish experience in England. Her London is a vast cultural landscape divided between the East End traditionalists, and the assimilated English Jews of the West End. The poor of the East End find themselves derided by the population, while the upper-class Jews are “edgy, sitting as they did on a spiked fence between their Englishness and their Jewishness, wanting to prove one and too often reminded of the other, whether by their own hearts or by the distrust of the English-English.�?
Nattel, while not a particularly remarkable stylist, is an absolutely natural storyteller. Her London is boldly alive, a vibrant universe of pain and stereotypes that she tweaks slightly with her own sensibilities, bringing fresh insight to an atmosphere that has grown lyrically stale since the days of Charles Dickens.
Yet Nattel’s London would be nothing but window-dressing without her characters. Nehama and Emilia provide sterling examples of the survival of insanity. Nehama experiences all the brutality and indifference a Jewish woman can expect of the times, while Emilia undergoes the extreme crisis of conscience in her determined efforts to deny her heritage. Many books have been penned on the Hebrew life, but rarely has such commentary received the compassion Nattel brings to her writing.
The Singing Fire has no great meaning behind its story. There are “no great needs, only necessary ones.�? Lilian Nattel wants to bring voice to those who have not been allowed to speak, and she succeeds wonderfully. show less
Canadian author Lilian Nattel is trying something different for show more her sophomore effort. Her first novel, the award-winning The River Midnight, was an exercise in magical realism, a plainly fictional conglomeration of men endowed with the power of transmogrification, angels and demons manipulating mankind to their heart’s content, and even the Angel of Death itself, all weaving throughout a late 19th century Polish-Jewish hamlet.
In Nattel’s follow-up novel, the fantastic co-mingles with realism in a far more muted fashion. Ghosts of grandmothers and wives flit about in the background, providing minor commentary, but more content to stand mutely by, watching as the tragedy of life unfolds about them, tut-tutting to themselves all the while. Nattel is more focused on the human element this time around, resulting in a story that, if more traditional in form than the predecessor, has greater depth and resonance.
The Singing Fire, a notably fine novel, continues Nattel’s exploration of Jewish identity, this time in turn-of-the-century London. Amidst the peddlers and thieves lining the streets and doorways, Nattel drops Nehama, an innocent Polish runaway dreaming of independence. Ignorant and confused, she finds herself literally sold into prostitution, beginning a chain of misfortune and adversity made all the more painful by her stubborn refusal to give up her dreams.
Nattel parallels Nehama’s hardships with those of Emilia’s, a pregnant Russian runaway who finds shelter with Nehama. Determined to make a finer life for herself, Emilia flees the “half-Yiddish, half-Cockney English of the alley.�? Abandoning her baby with Nehama, she creates a new image for herself as a gentile in London’s West End.
Alongside Nattel’s vivid descriptions of the hardscrabble lives of her women, Nattel delves into the spiritual and moral heritage of the Jewish experience in England. Her London is a vast cultural landscape divided between the East End traditionalists, and the assimilated English Jews of the West End. The poor of the East End find themselves derided by the population, while the upper-class Jews are “edgy, sitting as they did on a spiked fence between their Englishness and their Jewishness, wanting to prove one and too often reminded of the other, whether by their own hearts or by the distrust of the English-English.�?
Nattel, while not a particularly remarkable stylist, is an absolutely natural storyteller. Her London is boldly alive, a vibrant universe of pain and stereotypes that she tweaks slightly with her own sensibilities, bringing fresh insight to an atmosphere that has grown lyrically stale since the days of Charles Dickens.
Yet Nattel’s London would be nothing but window-dressing without her characters. Nehama and Emilia provide sterling examples of the survival of insanity. Nehama experiences all the brutality and indifference a Jewish woman can expect of the times, while Emilia undergoes the extreme crisis of conscience in her determined efforts to deny her heritage. Many books have been penned on the Hebrew life, but rarely has such commentary received the compassion Nattel brings to her writing.
The Singing Fire has no great meaning behind its story. There are “no great needs, only necessary ones.�? Lilian Nattel wants to bring voice to those who have not been allowed to speak, and she succeeds wonderfully. show less
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- 5
- Members
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- #35,341
- Rating
- 3.9
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