Katerina
Roman
Autor: Aharon AppelfeldISBN(s): 0805211985
Artikelnummer: 999800005877
Sprache: EN
Verlag: Schocken
Paperback
224 Seiten
Whether anticipating the Holocaust or assessing its consequences, Appelfeld's novels read like fables: dreamy, almost otherworldly in tone, they nevertheless deliver sharp moral lessons. In his most recent work, Katerina abandons her backward village and is eventually taken in as a servant by a Jewish family. This wayward gentile girl learns to love the Jews and their customs even as they face obliteration throughout Europe. When a peasant from her village kills the child she has had with a Jewish lover, Katerina counterattacks--and becomes Katerina the murderer. Released from prison at war's end, she concludes that "there are no longer any Jews left . . . but a little of them is buried in my memory." In fact, the importance of memory is stressed throughout this unsettling novel, which contrasts Jewish rootedness in an ongoing spirituality with the free-floating vacuousness that allows gentiles mindlessly to hate Jews. Appelfeld's misty prose at times seems unmoored, but he gracefully delivers the little details that make evil what it is. This is recommended for all literary collections.
