Katerina

With piercing clarity, Israeli novelist Appelfeld tells the profoundly moving story of Katerina, a Polish housekeeper who works for a succession of Jewish families in the years before WW II. Raised in a culture permeated with virulent anti-Semitism, she must constantly try to overcome the prejudice instilled by her bitter mother, who beat her, and her callous father, who attempted to rape her. One by one, Jewish people who are good to Katerina die: an employer murdered by thugs on Passover; a moody, perfectionistic female pianist. Then her own baby, whom she has raised as a Jew, is snatched from her arms and killed. For knifing her son's murderer, Katerina spends more than 40 years in prison. Other inmates cheer as freight trains take Jews to concentration camps. Released from prison, Katerina lives in a hut on her deceased family's deserted farm and, at age 79, narrates her life story, lamenting that there are no more victims in the world, only murderers. A theme that might be didactic in the hands of a lesser novelist is here conveyed with moving, unpreachy simplicity. This masterful novel is a powerful study of the poison of prejudice, a poignant meditation on life's horrors, beauty and God's inscrutable ways. Appelfeld imbues every scene with deep humanity in a riveting tale of universal appeal. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre. From Library JournalWhether 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. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91.- Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --Ce texte fait référence à une édition épuisée ou non disponible de ce titre. Voir tous les Descriptions du produit