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From: JHNJ
Category: Books
Date: 20 July 2001
Writing a book review is a bit like doing homework for school. Roth went around the East looking at Jewish communities before they all got killed. Hard not to think about what happens next, Roth with the usual attendant ironies missed the last boat out, and the poignancy sticks in the throat too much, makes you imagine Europe with Jews. Roth is funny about names, how anglicizing them doesn't matter to Jews arriving in New York because they were administrative impositions to begin with, and how bureacrats can only accept simplifications, that is lies. He reminds us of the Jews with crappy jobs, the beggar Jews, the peasant Jews, the Jewish singers. He summons up the life of a Jewish community of Berlin crammed into one street, hanging around in the cafe all afternoon. They are strange: Kafka, Benjamin, Roth, Europeans who did not dream of European Union, and are made impossible by today's politics.
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