Tevye's Daughters: Collected Stories of Sholom Aleichem

I most highly recommend this collection of stories illuminating Jewish village life in Russia during the last days of the csars. Not all of the stories in this collection deal with the experiences and tribulations of Tevye the dairyman, a character made familiar by the rendering in the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. The Tevye stories, six or seven in all, are scattered throughout the collection and certainly provide the collection's backbone.

Aleichem, who of course knew his subject matter intimately, makes vivid the daily existence of Tevye and his townspeople, the slow erosion of their way of life and the slowly increasing hardships they endure, brought about by steadily more restrictive and punitive laws handed down against Russian show more Jews by czarist officials desperate to retain power.

Aleichem uses the daughters, and especially the marriages they make, to illustrate the ways in which the passing of time changes the family's experiences. When Tevye, distraught over his youngest daughter Bielke's choice for a husband, tells her (and for the rest, now, I will paraphrase, for I do not have the book in front of me), "Hodel (her much older sister) wouldn't do what you're doing," Bielke replies sharply, "Don't compare me with Hodel. Hodel married in Hodel's time, and I am marrying in my time." To provide more detail would create spoilers. To truly savor this book, a reader must experience each event along with the characters. You already know enough of the basic story if you've seen the play, although the differences in plot detail are considerable.

The joy is all bittersweet, here, and the tragedy, for Tevye personally and for his people, is ever-present and ever-increasing. And yet the book, as with all wonderfully written literature, is uplifting nevertheless. show less

Have finally read this all the way through after owning it for 30 years. Gently told tales of life amongst Russian jews 100 years ago. Not all are about Tevye and his daughters (many different narrators) but all are set in the same area. Often humerous, they are laced with a dreadful sadness as they tell of poverty and persecution endured with fatalism. Beautiful and sad.

This work is best know through the musical Fiddler on the Roof. Here we have the origional text which inspired this much loved musical, and we find the opportunity to go deeper into the stories of Tevye. A real treat.

The stories on which Fiddler on the Roof is based

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