“Nature’s Revolt”: The River’s Reply in Ida Fink’s A Scrap of Time

Bridget Menard

doi:10.3390/h10010020

Abstract

This article accounts for what language and memory are and are not capable of in literary depictions of the Holocaust. To read, analyze, or even write Holocaust narratives, readers must expect to encounter new forms of writing and expression. This interpretation of Ida Fink’s A Scrap of Time effectively inverts the paradox of ‘telling’ the unspeakable by giving voice to an aspect of life that cannot communicate in clear and ordinary ways. In Fink’s fiction, nature speaks. The Gniezna River in “A Spring Morning”, a nameless river in “Titina”, and the Rhine River in “Night of the Surrender”, all brim with associations and themes concerning connections between language, time, meaning, God, nature, and human suffering during the Holocaust. They have unspeakable things to say, refusing to remain silent in response to human atrocity.

Highlights

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations
“Titina”, and the Rhine River in “Night of the Surrender”, all brim with associations and themes concerning these connections between language, time, meaning, God, nature, and human suffering during the Holocaust
The river is brought to life as an active character in the story—a character that passes along the narrative of the young father doomed to die

Summary

Introduction

Surrender”, all brim with associations and themes concerning connections between language, time, meaning, God, nature, and human suffering during the Holocaust. Fink’s narrative instead characterizes rivers with associations that more clearly match Talmudic views in which nature is permeated with God’s presence, bearing witness and actively responding to the atrocities committed by and against humanity.

Results

Conclusion