My new book. ‘All Quiet on the Midwestern Plains,’

 

So, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. My new book is out. Hooray! So far it’s only available as an ebook, but the paperback version is in the pipeline and will be available soon, I hope.

It’s taken about two years to write, which is almost twice as long as each of my previous four books have taken, partly due to its length and partly to its complexity. Of course, there is also my own dithering about what to say and how to say it, about how far to go with the various strands of the narrative — how evil to make the bad character, how far to embroil the hero in the various machinations, and to what extent to involve the themes of Jews, Israelis, sex and anti-Semitism.

Yes, all those themes and more are in the book, along with a whole bunch of other ideas and situations that cropped up in the course of writing.  Essentially, the book is based on my own experience of living in Nebraska for a year back in the 1980s, when my OH was employed at a university there. This involved uprooting our family from its environment and moving to a totally different culture and set of experiences.

At the time we had three children of varying ages, but in the book these have been whittled down to teenage twins who have a really hard time in the new place. They make their feelings known in no uncertain terms, both at home and at school. I found myself laughing and crying at some of the events they encountered and their reactions, whether real or imagined. 

The wife of the chief protagonist who has docilely followed her man as he goes ahead with forging his career finds the climate and stultifying atmosphere of the Midwest a bit too much to bear and derives consolation in attending an evening art class. This leads to her having an affair with the art teacher. Of course, this part is complete fiction, and no such situation arose in real life. In fact, it was then that I attended a creative writing course, run by a very nice lady writer, and started to write seriously. For that I will be eternally grateful for the chance to take that break out from the routine of life in Israel.

The people of Nebraska were almost invariably warm and welcoming, though this cannot be said for the climate, which has its own role to play in the novel. However, the American Nazi Party happened to have its headquarters in the area, and this manifested itself primarily in letters and items in the local paper, though there were indications that more ominous developments could arise. Fortunately these never came to fruition. Current events in the USA indicate that these trends have not abated and may even be growing in strength.

Thus, my novel is a mixture of fact and fiction, and it’s difficult to tell where one ends and the other begins. What I earnestly hope is that I have created an interesting story with believable characters and a plot that will keep the reader laughing and crying and eager to find out what happens next.

The Kindle ebook is available on Amazon for only $2.99. so please do go ahead and buy a copy, and better still — write a nice review on Amazon.

 

 

 

‘Adieu Volodia’ by Simone Signoret

The name of the author, the actress Simone Signoret, caught my eye and I bought this book for 50 cents (521 pages, hardback) last summer while browsing the stalls at a village brocante, a kind of flea-market in rural France where the locals bring out the items they wish to sell.

On opening the book (published in French by France Loisirs, Paris. 1985) and starting to read I was stunned to find that I was reading the saga of two families of Polish Jews who emigrated to Paris at the beginning of the twentieth century, and so before too long I was engrossed in the account of the lives of the Guttman and Roginski families, their struggle to find their feet and make a living, their relations with one another and with the other residents of their building and their delight a few years later on obtaining their naturalization papers as French citizens. Of course, I had to struggle with the French language, and found myself referring quite often to my dictionary, but I could not tear myself away from the chronicle of their daily lives and the characters they encountered along the way.

Knowing Simone Signoret’s career as a film and theatre actress, I suppose it is no coincidence that as the story develops some of the characters find themselves involved to a greater or lesser extent with the French film industry, whether as seamstresses or furriers, as well as with political developments in the country. The history of Europe has a role to play in this inter-war period, together with memories of pogroms in the families’s countries of origin, of relatives lost and property destroyed. As the children of the families and their neighbours grow and develop we know that the clock of history is ticking, that the period of the Second World War and the German occupation of France is approaching and that the characters with whom we have become involved will have to face a period of darkness and danger.

Simone Signoret describes the individuals with a theatre-director’s eye, or perhaps it’s a cinematic eye, but it is also an ear and a nose, for her accounts of scenes, people, situations and incidents are always lively and convincing. The lives of people are always played out against the backdrop of world events, and it is with admirable skill that Signoret succeeds in combining the two threads.

This is less a novel about Jews than about people who are doing their best to fit in with the wider society, find their place and provide their children with the education that will equip them to function as adults, not knowing what lies ahead.The characters do not celebrate their Judaism or observe any traditions, but simply seek to find their place in the world and in modern-day Paris. The eponymous Volodia makes only a small appearance in the book, but he symbolizes the world that has been left behind and the tragic fate of the Jews there that has always been in evidence. Occasional references to conversations that take place in Yiddish are the only other acknowledgement of the characters’ place of origin.

The reader is spared lurid accounts of atrocities and brutality, and the description of the way Jewish residents of Paris are persuaded to accompany the French police to an unknown destination is presented with sensitivity and delicacy. By a quirk of fate (or of the author) the characters to whom we have become attached are spared the destiny of so many of France’s Jews, and we are also given an insight into some of the ways in which the Resistance worked to sabotage the plans of the Nazis, both in Paris and in the countryside.

At the end of the book Simone Signoret gives her own account of the process whereby she wrote the book, providing a fascinating insight into the workings of her mind and the way she tackled her subject-matter and the process of writing. Born in Germany to a Jewish father and Catholic mother, she seems to have been well-situated to describe both societies and the individuals who comprised them. She confesses that although she had always loved to write, as an actress it was considered advisable to present herself as illiterate rather than as a writer. There is no doubt, however, that she is (or rather was, she died in 1985, shortly after the publication of this book) a very talented author.

 

Home Again

 

As ever, returning to Israel after two months of absence is something of a culture shock, particularly when it comes to driving a car. One is reminded with alarm that rules are no longer rules, the word ‘courtesy’ does not exist in the Hebrew language and the overall feeling is that someone out there wants to kill me.

But humour and exaggeration aside, it is enough to get behind the wheel of a car to realise that the overall culture and philosophy of life in Israel is very different from that of rural France. And quite rightly so. What does the French farmer have to contend with other than the vagaries of the climate and the occasional encounter with a neighbour (although anyone who has seen the film ‘Jean de Florette’ might be led to believe otherwise)? Israel, on the other hand, has to fight for its existence, and that mindset seems to spill over into daily life.

But home is where the heart is, and my heart is definitely in Israel. My ‘vacation from my retirement’ was restful and productive, as is generally the case, and I managed to read (and even write) a great deal more than I do when I’m in Israel. I suppose that not having the distraction of television may have something to do with it. I only wish I could manage to avoid the constant barrage of news and information that emanates from my TV set during the normal course of the day when I’m in Israel. My inability to grasp the rapid speech of the news-readers on the radio in France helps in this respect, of course.

The last week of our holiday was spent in London which, as usual, provided all manner of delights. Meeting old friends, and renewing acquaintance with some with whom I’d lost contact, was wonderful, and I still dwell with amazement and joy on the memory of those renewed friendships (which I hope we will manage to maintain). Some old friends found me as a result of my articles in the AJR Journal, for which I’m eternally grateful.

In addition, in London there is the pleasure of attending theatre performances where the actors are trained to project their voices, so that there is no need to use a face microphone, as is the case in Israel. Learning to speak from the stage so that the entire auditorium can hear you is an essential part of an actor’s training in England, and that unfortunately does not seem to be the case in Israel. I find it annoying to be subjected to an artificially-projected voice and that, apart from the inferior standard of most plays in Israel, is why I avoid the theatre here. The standard of music, on the other hand, is as high as anywhere in the world, if not higher, so that serves as some compensation. And so, the two plays we managed to see in London (another great production of ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’ and ‘Imperium’ based on the writings of Cicero) were immensely enjoyable.

London seems to have become the polyglot centre of the world. Wherever you go you hear a dozen different (and not always identifiable) languages as you walk around. Oxford Street, the mecca of all shopping expeditions, is awash with people hurrying along in search of the perfect item to bring home in triumph. I joined the throng in eager anticipation of achieving just that objective (only partly fulfilled, I’m afraid).

And of course, the ultimate enjoyment, a pub lunch with the traditional fish and chips, or even bangers and mash, is an experience to be savoured far beyond any of the fine culinary delights on offer in France or even one of the better restaurants in London or elsewhere. Whether the sight – and particularly the sound – of dozens of Londoners watching a football game on the huge TV screens in the pub is so enjoyable is questionable, but there are some delights that have to be endured rather than enjoyed.

And finally, of course, there is always the comfort of ‘a nice cup of tea’ and a piece of cake or a chocolate digestive biscuit as one rests between excursions, museum tours, outings to places of interest or reunions with friends. Little things can also give enormous pleasure.

Yes, London is certainly full of delights, but there’s no denying that coming home to the bosom of one’s family and friends is the greatest delight of them all.

Red Sky at Noon by Simon Sebag-Montefiore

 

 

This book (published by Penguin, Random House, UK, 2017) gives a detailed account of the days leading up to the German attempt to take Stalingrad in the summer of 1942, doing so by tracing the exploits of a group of former prisoners, taken from the Gulag and given the chance to redeem themselves by becoming a special unit of the Russian army known as Shtrafniki.

Amongst the motley crew of murderers, swindlers and cut-throats, whom the reader learns to know and identify by name, is a Jew and former writer by the name of Benya Golden, whose death sentence for supposedly plotting to assassinate Stalin, has been commuted to a lifetime of hard labour in the Kolyma mines of the Gulag.

As part of the training of the new recruits they are formed into a cavalry troop, assigned horses and weapons, taught to ride and initiated into the niceties of methods of killing the enemy. The endless steppes of Russia form the backdrop to the events that follow as, having completed their training period, the men begin to advance toward the Don River, where Stalingrad is situated. Along the way they clash with enemy troops as well as with splinter-groups of other Russian units who have defected to the German side. Among the armies fighting alongside the Nazis are Italians, Ukrainians and Hungarians, most of whom are also on horseback, although some tanks are also involved. The Italians, recognizable by their feathered caps, display a more humane attitude to the civilian population, and are not as quick to murder and pillage as the other troops. Their army is also equipped with medical personnel and equipment for treating the wounded.

In that terrain and at that stage of the war cavalry was still utilized in combat, providing greater speed and ease of movement than tanks, and it is Golden’s horse, Silver Socks, who comes up trumps and rescues her rider from dangerous situations. Golden himself, who is the book’s main protagonist, manages to survive the various battles, and even to escape pursuit together with the Italian nurse who has tended his wounds, but eventually finds himself alone with two companions from his original troop. After various encounters with murderous Germans, a kind-hearted doctor who appears to be a defector and any number of enemy soldiers, he is invalided out of battle and ends up in a Moscow hospital.

Along the way, displaying considerable knowledge of the Soviet hierarchy and the Russian front, the author provides us with a glimpse into the workings of Stalin’s inner circle, life in the Kremlin, and the machinations which decide the fate of millions of subjects of the USSR. The entire fate of the country rests in the hands of a few powerful men, and it is their jealousies, rivalries and desires which determine which way the dice will fall.

The book ends with a series of surprises that leave the reader somewhat taken aback by the twists and turns, but without a doubt it is a well-written and thoroughly-researched read. The very informative epilogue gives the author’s insights into the process of researching and writing the book, and there is no doubt that it shines a light on a period of Russian and WWII history about which not very much is known.