Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, Jeffrey M. Green

Abstract

JeanEchenoz's AlvinGreenberg's MaryRoach's narrativeinventions. featsofattention. space flight revelations. Fiction,page 58 i Verse,page 70 Miscellaneous,page 79 j Fiction Aharon Appelfeld. Blooms of Darkness . Jeffrey M. Green, tr. New York. Schocken. 2010. 279 pages. $25.95. isbn 978-0-8052-4280-5 Another bookon theboundary of LifeandDeath.Another story ofthe savagery ofthatreality, thehaunting bare nightmare of survivalat anycostduringthewar.Blooms of Darkness explores thehuman willto findmeaning, evena tinymoment ofit,inthemidst ofhorror. Thisis thestory ofa little boy,Hugo,who is taken ina great hurry byhisparentstoa womanthey haveknown tobe favored bytheNazi soldiers. Mariana hidesHugoinherbedroom closet for a longperiodas sheplays hergamewith destiny. Thequestion ofsurvival iscentralin BloomsofDarkness(see WLT Nov. 2010,20-23).Bywhatmeans did peoplemanagetolivethrough thehell-on-earth oftheHolocaust? Marianawas destinedto survive withherHugo,butwhatwas the attitude that helpedonetosurvive? BrunoBettelheim, who was also a prisoner of thecamps,wrotethat peopleadjusted totheharshreality by regressing to childhood behaviors thatactuallyproducedwhat theSS wantedtoproduce: childlike dependency andinadequacy. A survivor ofthecampsonce explainedherattitude withbrutal honesty: "Mefirst, secondandthird. Thennothing. Thenmyself again andthen all theothers.'7 Evenhere, in AharonAppelfeld's story, Marianasavesherself andinthat saving, herspiritsaves another littlesoul January -February 2011 157 ■■■■ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Q aboutMartin Buber, Shagar's battles at university, the FirstGulfWar. Shagar'sworldrushestowardnarrative disaster, butit'sunclear where Ashour'sis going.Still,thenovel insists that no moment is a careless aside.After sheisstartled byconnectionsthatcritics found inhernovel Granada, Ashourwonderswhether anyone can"follow thethreads that makeup thefabric ofhislife." The memoirnever provides an easythread to follow. It spools through someofthesameterritory thatAshour's husband wrote about inhis1999memoir, I SawRamallah. Poet MouridBargouti's memoir is the morebeautiful, but Ashour's autofiction demands, and rewards, morethought. Some sectionsof memoirfeel likeanungovernable stream ofconsciousness . We disappeardown a rabbit holeofRadwa'spersonal historyonlyto reemerge again with Shagar,on herpointedway somewhere .In the end, it seems that Shagarhasbeendefeated. Butthen Ashourputs her heroinetogether again,ifnotquitesurewheresheis headedorhow,oncethere, shewill getpasttheogre. 58 1WorldLiterature Today boundtooblivion inthis experiment oftotalitarianism and totaldestructionofthehuman spirit. Whatemergesseemsto be a connection betweenlove,survival, and salvation.ViktorFrankl,in describing his experience in Auschwitz , tellsus thattheones who somehow survived werenotnecessarily thestrong onesbutthose who hada rich internal life. Hewrites that whenthepain becameunbearable and beyondanyhellknown, one's mindwandered tothevisionofthe belovedone,fora visionoflove.A meansoftolerating theintolerable, love made survivalpossibleand, ultimately, salvation.It sustained the human being,human spirit. Franklconcludesthatpsychological reactions arenotthesoleresult oftheconditions oflife butalsothe result ofthefreedom ofchoiceone alwayshas inseveresuffering. The innerhold a prisoner has on his spiritual selfrelieson havingfaith inthefuture, andoncehelosesthat faith, he is doomed.Frankl writes that the vision ofhisbeloved seemed acutely real.As Frankl echoesPlato: "The salvationof man is through loveandinlove/' Dalia Daniel Stanford University Radwa Ashour. Specters. Barbara Romaine, tr.Northampton,Massachusetts . Interlink. 2010. 282 pages. $15. ISBN 978-1-56656-832-6 Radwa Ashour's Specters - part autobiography, partfiction - is full of echoes, tangled threads,and impossiblechoices.The entwined narratives hoveraroundthe 1948 attack onPalestinians atDeirYassin, anevent that claims theattentions of both"real"andfictional characters. Butthebookdoes notcenter here. Instead itshuttles forward andback, resisting a clear focus justasitresists easytruths. Early on,theauthor talks about herschoolyears.She reflects on a time, after theexpulsion ofPalestiniansfrom Israelandthenationalizationof Egyptianschools,of antiJewish censorship. Speaking ofthis, Ashourwrites: "Instories there are always two paths - one to safety, theother tocalamity - andblocking thewaytosafety is theogre, whom thosewhoareclevermustgetpast by meansof cunning and artifice. I don'tknowwhatit is I need,to begin with, inorder tomakea choice betweenthetwopaths.The possibilities havemultiplied, thethreads havebecometangled, and itseems that they become moreknotted each day,whileI amas yetnotevenable todistinguish safety from calamity." Intersecting calamities recur throughout.The novel moves between thestories oftwowomen's lives,thatof the fictional Shagar and the"real"Radwa:their grandfathers , their protests, British attacks on Egyptians and Israeliattacks on Palestinians, official and unofficial accounts. Bothcharacters attempt to getat and defenda smallpatchof narrative truth. Eventually, wearrive attheDeir Yassinmassacre, atwhichthebook hasbeenpointing. Here,Radwaand Shagarstepbackand givethePalestinian and Israeliparticipants an opportunity to describe whathappened ,in sometimes starkterms. Israelifighter Patchiah Zalivensky: "Eachphalanxadvancedon itstarget .We blew up thedoorsusing sticks ofgelignite. Thenwe tossed handgrenades intothehousesand bombarded them with gunfire." Butthebookdoes notremain here. Itmoves instead toa conference M. LynxQualey Cairo,Egypt Jean Echenoz. Des éclairs. Paris. Minuit .2010. 175 pages. €14.50. isbn 9782 -7073-2126-8 Jean Echenoz's latest book, Des éclairs, takesitsplacenextto Ravel (2006)andCourir (2008)as thethird andfinal text intheauthor's "three lives" cycle.AfterMauriceRavel and Emil Zatopek,Echenozturns inthisinstance tothelifeofNikola Tesla(1856-1943), whomhe sketches in the transparent disguiseof one...