The Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain

The Gustav Sonata, by Rose Tremain (2016)

 Gustav Perle grew up in poverty in Switzerland in the years at the end of World War II.  His father died when he was too young to have any clear memory of him and is mother, whom he adores, is distant and bitter.  In kindergarten, Gustav befriends Anton Zweibel, a boy his same age, who is a promising musician.

 The novel is written in three parts.  In Part One, Gustav and Anton are young boys who are constant companions.  Anton’s family, who are wealthy, take Gustav on vacations with them.  Emilie, Gustav’s mother is not keen on Anton and his family because they are Jewish.  She is bitter because she blames her husband’s death on saving Jews during the War.

 Part Two focuses on Emilie and her early life and how she fell in love with Erich Perle.  Erich was an Assistant Police Officer.  In his position, he helped Jewish refugees into Switzerland after the country had closed its doors.  When his actions were discovered, he lost his job and was reduced to finding a menial job with poor pay.  Although Emilie loved Erich and called referred to him as a hero, she could never forgive him for plunging the family into poverty.

 Gustav and Anton are middle-aged in Part Three.  After having been separated for years, each with his own life, the two friends come together again.  The bond they formed as children remained strong.

 This was a beautifully written novel.

5 Stars

Read:  May 28, 2021

 

The Lost Letter

The Lost Letter, by Jillian Cantor (2017)

This Holocaust novel alternates between Austria in 1938 and 1989 Los Angeles.  

 

In 1938, young Kristoff, an orphan who had no family life, finds himself an apprentice to Frederick Faber, a Jewish engraver who specialized in making stamps.  Faber was a famous for his engraved stamps.  As an apprentice, Kristoff lives and dines with the family.  Although not a Jew himself, he finds himself attracted to the Shabbat rituals and prayers.  He also has a crush on Faber’s 17-year-old daughter, Elena.

 

In Los Angeles in 1989, Kate Nelson is struggling through a painful divorce and a father suffering from dementia.  She has just placed her father in a nursing home and is going through his belongings.  He had been a stamp collector and Kate had wonderful memories as a child going with her father as he sought out his “gems”.  She takes his stamp collection to be appraised, thinking that there might be something of value that can be sold to help defray the costs of his medical care.

 

She takes the stamps to Benjamin Grossman, a philatelist, for his appraisal.  He discovered among the collection an unopened letter with a unique Austrian stamp.  It was the picture of an Austrian church with a small unauthorized edelweiss on its steeple.  The letter was addressed to one of Faber’s daughters, and the stamp appears to have been a Faber design, but seemed to have been issued after his apparent death.

 

Still thinking that the stamp might be of value, Benjamin and Kate locate Fraulein Faber in hopes of discovering the mystery of the edelweiss on the stamp.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

 

Read:  October. 27, 2020

 

4.5 Stars

 

 

Oreo, by Fran Ross (1974)

 

What’s not to love about a novel that, within its first few pages contains the following: 

 

"There is no weather per se in this book.  …  Assume whatever season you like throughout.  Summer makes the most sense …  That way pages do not have to be used up describing people taking off and putting on overcoats."

 

This novel is a very funny novel about relations between African-Americans and Jews.  Fran Ross (1935 ~ 1985) was the daughter of a Jewish father and an African-American mother.  She had also been a comedy writer for Richard Pryor, hence, her humor in this book.

 

The heroine of the novel is also the daughter of a Jewish father and Black mother.  Although her given name was Christine Clark, she was known by family and friends as Oreo.  Ostensibly, it was because her grandmother called her Oriole after the bird.  But, of course, this is a nod to the fact that the name is also a racial slur.

 

Her parent’s marriage causes concern on both sides of the family.  Oreo is raised by her maternal grandmother after her father deserts the family, but not before he leaves his legacy of Yiddish words and phrases, and her mother travels with a theater troupe.

 

When she reaches of age, Oreo sets off for New York City to find her father and his new family.  This book is hard to describe, as it is written in such a humorous manner, complete with graphs, tables and mathematical equations.  It addresses heavy issues on race relations and is quite relevant in todays atmosphere.

 

Read:  August 3, 2020

 

5 Stars

The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman

The Inn at Lake Devine, by Elinor Lipman is a delightful little romantic comic novel.

We first meet Natalie Marx, the heroine of The Inn as Lake Devine, as a young girl, who lives in a tight-knit Jewish family in Newton, Massachusetts.  The year is the early 1960s.  While exploring a resort for a summer vacation, her mother writes a letter of inquiry to the Inn at Lake Devine, which is situated on a beautiful lake in scenic Vermont.  Ingrid Berry, the owner and manager of the Inn, writes back stating that the clientele at the Inn is for gentiles.  This seems to be Natalie’s first experience with anti-Semitism.  It also convinces her that she absolutely must find out what is so great about this particular Inn.

Soon after this event, the Civil Rights Act became the law.  Young Natalie began a campaign to flood the Berry’s letters reminding them that they could no longer restrict their clientele to only gentiles.

Later, while at summer camp, Natalie meets Robin Fife, whose family just happens to vacation at the Inn at Lake Devine each summer.  Natalie befriends Robin, even though she finds Robin a bit dull.  She devises a scheme to get herself invited to go to the Inn with Fife family for a week’s vacation.

Flash-forward 10 years.  Natalie is now a professional chef who is between jobs.  Natalie and Robin have more-or-less lost track of each other when Natalie learns that Robin is working in Boston at the Pappagallo store on Newbury Street in Boston.  (How well I remember this store!)  Natalie learns that Robin is engaged to marry Nelson Berry, son of the infamous Inn at Lake Devine.  Robin insists that Natalie attend her upcoming nuptials, which will be held at … (wait for it) the Inn!

Natalie returns to the Inn for the wedding and, on the way to the event, Robin is killed in a tragic car accident.  With family gathered for the wedding, the family decides to hold the funeral there instead.  Natalie stays for the week, cooking for the grieving families where she befriends Kris Berry, the groom’s younger brother.

She hopes that her budding friendship with Kris will develop into something more.  Her parents aren’t thrilled with her involvement with Kris because not only is he not Jewish, but at least 1 member of his family is anti-Semitic.  They fail to give Natalie messages and letters from Kris.

Ultimately, Kris and Natalie get together and go off to a resort in the Catskills with Nelson and his college friend Linette.  Linette’s family runs a kosher resort in the Catskills and she is engaged to a rabbinical student.  She and Nelson, however, renew their friendship as Natalie and Kris’s relationship blooms.

I liked this book, however, the ending was a little too trite.  Nelson quickly became involved with Linette so soon after Robin’s death.  This seemed very callous.

There is a brief, but interesting, #MeToo incident between Natalie and her influential boss.  He tacitly promises to provide her with job opportunities in exchange for sexual favors.  Natalie declines his “offer”, but this passage was written 20 years before such actions were even remotely being taken seriously by the public at large.

Read:  February 26, 2020

4 Stars

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas

The Last Watchman of Old Cairo, by Michael David Lukas (2018)

The Last Watchman of Old Cairotakes place over a millennium, from 1000 years ago when Ali became the night watchman of the Ibn Ezra Synagogue in Cairo, to the late 1890s, when Solomon Schechter and the Smith twins, Agnes and Margaret, “discovered” and saved the documents stored in the synagogue’s geniza, to present day Joseph al-Raqb, who traveled to Cairo, Egypt to learn about his father.  The synagogue is said to house the legendary Ezra Torah Scroll, which was written centuries before the birth of Christ.

In alternating chapters, we learn Cairo during three periods of history.  Ali’s story takes place around the year 1000. He was a young Muslim orphan who was hired by the synagogue council to be its night watchman.  As he learned his job, he also became fascinated by Jewish traditions, while maintaining his own religious beliefs.  In the late 1890s, Solomon Schechter (1847 ~ 1915) was in Cairo to search for the Ezra Torah Scroll.  With him were the middle-aged widowed twins Agnes Smith Lewis (1843 ~ 1926) and Margaret Smith Gibson (1843 ~ 1920), who were real people (although probably did not join Schechter on this quest).  The sisters were known for having discovered the Syraic Sinaiticusand were Biblical scholars in the Presbyterian Church.  In present day, Joseph al-Raqb, is a young American graduate student, raised by his Jewish mother, but whose father is Muslim.  A few months after his father’s death, Joseph received a mysterious package from his father.  This led him back to Cairo to find out why the object was sent to him.

In alternating chapters, the focus is on one of the above periods of history.  In Jewish tradition, texts with G~d’s name are sacred.  When such texts become worn or unusable, they must be treated with respect and not just thrown out.  Traditionally such texts are either buried or stored in a geniza.  The geniza in the Ibn Ezra Synagogue is a small room in the attic.

When portions of sacred texts are found being sold on the black market, Solomon Schechter traveled to Cairo to seek out the documents.  He had the documents saved and sent to Cambridge University, where they are still held.  [This is true.]

In family tradition, the eldest son of the al-Raqb family (with Ali being the original night watchman).  Joseph’s father was the eldest son, hence was the night watchman.  He held this position until after the Yom Kippur War when an event occurred in which he was unable to keep a mob from the synagogue. Joseph became fascinated in his quest to determine the fate of the Ezra Scroll.

The novel doesn’t take a position on the religious tradition per se, but does raise issued confronted by religious scholars in studying ancient documents.

I was totally absorbed by this novel.  Michael David Lukas also wrote The Oracle of Stamboul, which is a historical novel about the last days of the Ottoman Empire.  I read this book about 7 years ago and very much enjoyed that as well.

Read: August 8, 2018

5 Stars