David G. Roskies

Encompassing a selection of Ansky's fiction, drama, and nonfiction, this collection is a step back through time, back to the beginning of the twentieth century and Jewish culture, life, and thought, particularly around the time of WWI. Even the fiction is so detailed, and so culture-rich, it feels as much like a peek into another time and history as it does like fiction. The standouts here are, though, Ansky's drama The Dybbuk and the English translation of a portion of his journals. The show more drama is as fascinating as it is powerful, and as short as it may be, the characters are built in a fashion that allows readers to fall into the drama's reality. The journals, much as the excerpt here may only be an excerpt of his much longer work, are difficult to read because of the territory of violence and poverty they cover, but also incredibly powerful, to the extent that I wish the rest of his nonfiction had been translated into English already.

I'd absolutely recommend this full collection for all those remotely interested. show less

A novel about a working-class Hassidic Jewish family in Poland sometime in the early 20th century, as narrated by twelve-year-old Mendl. There isn't really a plot, just a slice of life from that time and place. The book becomes all the more significant because it was published in 1935 and the modern reader knows that way of life is about to be destroyed forever: hence the subtitle, "Scenes from a Vanished Life." The author himself died in Auschwitz.

Although the narrator of "Everyday Jews" is show more a child, this book isn't a children's book by any means. Everyone is sleeping with everyone else, and it's not strictly married couples or even girlfriends and boyfriends who are doing this. Mendl has half-siblings from both parents, and at one point in the story his mother's son tries to seduce his father's daughter. (Or maybe it was the other way around, I don't remember.) One of his half-sisters becomes pregnant by her employer and then miscarries. A maid and a neighbor girl both try to seduce Mendl himself, though he hasn't even had his bar mitzvah yet. The Polish Jewry of the 1930s was shocked by this book when it came out, though it all seems pretty tame to me, not graphic at all.

I would recommend this book to people interested in Hassidic and/or pre-Holocaust Jewry. It has a few footnotes for clarification and also defines some terms for the Gentile reader. It's a slow-moving story without a lot of action, but beautifully written with some lovely similes, and it really taught me a lot about the prewar Polish Jews. show less

A classic dramatic play that is a wonderful piece of Jewish literature along with other short stories and writings from S. Ansky. I enjoyed reading The Dybbuk, the premise mixed with the mysticism was very interesting. The other stories offered a nice window into the time period.

short stories of varying quality. some, like the seven fat brides, are like old fables, which are just ok. some, like looking for the answers and the eight day, were somewhat pointless. many were about sad relationships, such as gifts and elvis, axl, and me. my favorite were pu-239, the hall of meteorites, stone, what must i say to you, mrs saunders writes to the world, and mr. mitochondria. they're mostly realistic and provide characters to ponder.