A Simple Story
by Shmuel Yosef Agnon
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Szybusz, a small town in Jewish Galicia, is the scene of a bitter-sweet romance at the beginning of the twentieth century. Few of Agnon's stories are told as effortlessly as A Simple Story, yet this engaging tale reveals the profound psychological and social insights of the Nobel Laureate's finest fiction.Tags
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Enjoyable story set in the Jewish community of a small Ukrainian town at the turn of the century. It opens with a poor young Jewish girl being sent to live with her better-off shopkeeper relatives, after being left an orphan. However she is not the central character of the book - that is her relatives' teenage son, Hirschl. Will he and the good (but penniless) Blume be able to make a match? Or will he succumb to parental pressure for someone better for their son?...
The tale is narrated in a way that makes you feel, at times, that you are listening to a village story-teller entertaining an audience. From the opening sentence ('The widow Mirl lay ill for many years') it's as if he is talking to people who are familiar with the characters. show more Rhetorical questions and little homilies punctuate the writing.
I love the comic asides -one character, feeling 'out of it' at a party 'was perfectly presentable, yet unaccustomed to society as he was he kept touching himself to make sure that his tie was still in place and that his socks had not fallen down. He stood there uncertainly, running a hand over his clothes as though he had lice.'
Yet life is far from easy: as one character observes 'What a pitiful thing human life was. A man slept all night in order to rise in the morning, and looked forward all day to sleeping again at night. And between sleeping and waking, what a lot of guff he had to take.' When you finish reading this 'simple story', it makes you think about the way we are required to knuckle down to what society demands of us, and assume the mantle of adulthood. show less
The tale is narrated in a way that makes you feel, at times, that you are listening to a village story-teller entertaining an audience. From the opening sentence ('The widow Mirl lay ill for many years') it's as if he is talking to people who are familiar with the characters. show more Rhetorical questions and little homilies punctuate the writing.
I love the comic asides -one character, feeling 'out of it' at a party 'was perfectly presentable, yet unaccustomed to society as he was he kept touching himself to make sure that his tie was still in place and that his socks had not fallen down. He stood there uncertainly, running a hand over his clothes as though he had lice.'
Yet life is far from easy: as one character observes 'What a pitiful thing human life was. A man slept all night in order to rise in the morning, and looked forward all day to sleeping again at night. And between sleeping and waking, what a lot of guff he had to take.' When you finish reading this 'simple story', it makes you think about the way we are required to knuckle down to what society demands of us, and assume the mantle of adulthood. show less
Ik had wel wat meer verwacht van deze Nobelprijswinnaar. Agnon brengt ogenschijnlijk een simpel verhaaltje, maar het was verdorie worstelen om erdoor te geraken. Dat had vooral te maken met het trage ritme, de archaïsche stijl en het fletse romantische verhaaltje, waarbij de innerlijke zielenroerselen van de hoofdpersonages Hirsjl en Blume eindeloos werden uitgemolken en de nevenpersonages erg oppervlakkig bleven. Het curieuze is dat deze roman erg 19de eeuws aandoet, met een nogal cliché-romantisch gegeven dat lijkt uit te draaien op een naturalistisch drama, maar het juist niet doet. Agnon speelt hier een pervers spel van omkering, nog versterkt door een curieuze mengeling van moraliserende en ironische opmerkingen. Misschien een show more krachttoer op zich, maar het was voor mij erg bevreemdend, en sprak me dus niet zo aan. De enige charme die dit verhaal mij bood was de rijkelijke evocatie van het leven in een joodse gemeenschap in Oost-Europa, in de 19de eeuw. show less
Oct 25, 2018Dutch
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Shmuel Yosef Agnon was born Shmuel Yosef Halevi Czaczkes in 1888 in Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now Poland). He received training in Yiddish, Hebrew and the Talmud from his father, and was introduced to German literature by his mother. When he was fifteen, his first poems, written in Yiddish and Hebrew, were published in the newspaper. He took his show more pen name, later his legal name, S.Y. Agnon, from the title of his first story Agunot, published in 1909. He lived and worked in Palestine from 1907 until his death in 1970, except for an eleven year stay in Germany. He was buried on the Mount of Olives. Agnon was a prolific novelist and short-story writer. After his move to Jerusalem from Germany, Agnon began writing about the decline of Jewry in Galicia. His first major publication was a two-volume novel, Hakhnasat Kalah (The Bridal Canopy), 1932, which recreates the golden age of Hassidism. Ore'ah Nata' Lalun (A Guest for the Night), 1939, is an apocalyptic novel depicting the ruin of Galicia after World War I. 'Tmol Shilshom (Only Yesterday), published in 1946, is considered his greatest novel, portraying the early pioneer immigrants to Palestine. A great many of his later books are set in his adopted Palestine and deal with the replacement of early Jewish settlements after World War II. Agnon received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966, boosting interest in his work outside of Israel. About 85 of Agnon's works have been translated into at least 18 languages. Agnon was made an honorary citizen of Jerusalem in 1962. His portrait appears on the Israeli Fifty New Sheqalim banknote. Other works include Sefer Hamaasim (The Book of Deeds ), published in 1932, Pat Shlema (A Whole Loaf ), from 1933, Shevuat Emunim (Two Tales), 1943, and Kol Sipurav Shel Sh. Y. Agnon ( The Collected Works in 11 volumes), 1931-62. (Bowker Author Biography) Agnon was born in Galicia, the former Austrian crown land in east central Europe. In his home he was influenced by rabbinical and Hasidic traditions and the reviving spirit of European culture, Agnon began writing Hebrew and Yiddish at the age of eight. He contributed poetry and prose to periodicals, such as Ha-Mizpeh and Der Juedische Wecker. After he immigrated to Palestine in 1907, he no longer wrote in Yiddish. He chose the pen name "Agnon" from the title of his first novel, Agunot (Forsaken Wives); its meaning is "cut off" in Hebrew. From 1912 to 1914 Agnon lived in Germany, where he met Salman Schocken and convinced him that someone should undertake the publishing of Hebrew books. In 1931 Berlin Schocken Verlag published four volumes of Agnon's collected works in Hebrew. Agnon was awarded the Bialik Prize for literature in 1934, and in 1936 the Jewish Theological Seminary of America made him an honorary Doctor of Hebrew Letters. Other honors followed, including the Israel Prize in 1954 and 1958. In 1966 he became the first Israeli to receive the Nobel Prize for literature, which was awarded jointly to the Swedish writer Nelly Sachs. Agnon often deals with philosophical and psychological problems in a miraculous or supernatural manner. Reality is colored in a dreamlike atmosphere. Agnon is concerned with contemporary problems of a spiritual nature-the disintegration of traditional life, loss of faith and identity, and loneliness. At the center of his work is the Jew in various manifestations: a person of faith, a nihilist, a victim of pogroms and the Holocaust, a pioneer, and a saint. Creating a unique Hebrew prose style, his works link historic Jewish piety and martyrdom with longing for Israel. Yet they have universal appeal to the modern reader. Agnon himself has said: "I am not a modern writer. I am astounded that I even have one reader. I don't see the reader before me... No, I see before me only the Hebrew letter saying 'write me thus and not thus.' I, to my regret, am like the wicked Balaam. It is written of him that "the word that God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak"' (The New York Times). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Awards and Honors
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- A Simple Story
- Original title
- Sipoer Pasjoet
- Original publication date
- 1935
- People/Characters
- Hirshl Hurvitz; Mina Ziemlich; Blume Nacht
- Important places
- Szybusz, ukraine
- First words
- The widow Mirl lay ill for many years.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And were we to write about Getzel Stein too, who was mentioned here only in passing, and about all the other characters in our simple story, much ink would be spilled and many quills broken before we were done. God in heaven knows when that will be.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 892.4 — Literature & rhetoric Literatures of other languages Afro-Asiatic literatures Jewish, Israeli, and Hebrew
- LCC
- PJ5053 .A4 .S52413 — Language and Literature Oriental languages and literatures Oriental philology and literature Hebrew Literature Individual authors and works
- BISAC
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- 177,418
- Reviews
- 3
- Rating
- (3.04)
- Languages
- 8 — Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Portuguese
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 12
- ASINs
- 4
