Un grito en el silencio, la poesía sobre el Holocausto en lengua sefardí: Estudio y antología by Shmuel Refael

Abstract

affluent Polish woman who gives the couple a lift expresses admira tion fortheir lifestyle:"You have no things,no lug-jij,credit cards,monii, you're just travllin. Free from all the constant eating and schittingof theworld. You have no ideawhat a messch itall isch." This precocious, iconoclastic Polish literaryphenom enon evocatively portrays global ized angst in late-capitalist societies. RaymondTaxas Stanford University Pascal Quignard. La barque silen cieuse Paris. Seuil. 2009. 238 pages. 18. isbn978-2-02-099109-4 Best known forhis novel Tous les matins du monde (1991; Eng. All the World's Mornings, 1992), whose film adaptation he co-scripted, Pas cal Quignard has been a prolific writer since 1969.He has gradually developed a unique style, aphoris tic and fragmentary,blending ele ments of thenovel, essay, historical, and autobiographical genres. In2002 he began a series of books, Dernier royaume (Last kingdom), that com bine his distinctly evocative style with the various thematic elements of his previous work. The firstof these books, Les ombres errantes (The wandering shadows), received the prestigious PrixGoncourt. The sixth of theseries,La barquesilencieuse(The silent skiff),is made up of eighty-six very short chapters,most ofwhich revolve around the morbid imagery suggested by the title.The various meditations on theprocess of dying include theauthor's own brushwith death after a heart attack in 1997: "Crachant le sang, traine sur mon chariot d'h?pital ... je commencais de mourir" (Spittingblood, dragged along onmy hospital gurney, Iwas starting to die). While otherwriters might have found a new incentive to celebrate life after the traumatic experience of contemplating their own imminentdemise, Quignard is fascinated by thevisions he encoun tered, going so far as to claim: "Je decouvris que c'etait agreable de mourir. II y a une extase du mourir" (I discovered it was pleasant todie. There is an ecstasy todying). Perhaps as a consequence, the other recurring themes in this book include a defense of the right to choose the time and manner of one's own death. Quignard provides examples related to the tradition of philosophic suicide, which trans forms the blind terrorofmortality into an act of free will. Interestingly enough, for a writer who so elo quentlymakes use of religious imag es and metaphors, Quignard vigor ously upholds themoral value of atheism: "Si l'atheisme est la pointe extreme de l'individualisation des etreshumains, le suicide est lepoint extreme de la liberte humaine" (If atheism is the extreme limit of human individuality, suicide is the extreme limit of human freedom). Unsurprisingly, the act ofwriting is also celebrated: "Ecrire des romans ?te les fers. Les romans imaginent une autre vie" (To write novels is to break free of one's chains. Novels = conjure up a differentlife). = As he constantly shiftsbetween = themes, places, and historical peri- = ods, Quignard often seems to be = free-associating, which produces an = eruditehodgepodge ofhistorical and = literary anecdotes, fragments from = classical mythology, excerpts from = the lives of religious saints andmar- = tyrs, grotesque talesof sex and death, = and hauntinglymelancholy accounts = of lost love.While many of these = fragmentsprovide moments of fasci- = nating reading, others seem tedious = and repetitive,inspiteof theauthor's = elegant concision. Alternately wry = and moving, Quignard's aphorisms = at times approach the brilliance of = the seventeenth-century writer La = Rochefoucauld. However, after fin- = ishing this latestexercise in fragmen- = tary literature, many readersmight = come tomiss the timewhen Pascal = Quignard was writing realnovels. = EdwardOusselin = WesternWashington University = Quignard has graduallydeveloped a unique style, aphoristicand fragmentary, blending elementsof the novel, essay, historical, and autobiographical genres. ShmuelRefael.Un grito en el silencio, E la poesi'a sobre el Holocausto en E lengua sefardf: Estudio y antologi'a. E Barcelona. Tirocino. 2008. 341 pages. E 38. isbn 978-84-935671-0-1| In Un grito en el silencio (A scream E in silence), Shmuel Refael, child of E Greek survivors of the Holocaust, E writes: "My destiny and thehistory E of theHolocaust seem to be inter- E mingled... forever." Refael's lifewas E not an easy one, forhe lived the trag- E edy sufferedby his own parents and E theSephardic communities of theold = Ottoman Empire. He had first-hand E knowledge of the oral and written E narratives and poems createdbothby E survivors and...