Michael
Lublin is the story of three teenage boys who leave their small town to sell brushes in Lublin. But the three boys are Jewish, their hometown is a shtetl, and they are traveling through Poland in the early 20th century.
The three boys are almost stereotypes: the capitalist (who is inept and tells terrible jokes), the revolutionary on the side of the workers (who is something of a bully and likes to fight more than work) and the religious (who is spoiled and otherworldly). But as I was reading, they didn’t feel like stereotypes—they felt real.
The novel feels like it is told in the style of a fable. It starts off as an adventure, but the romance of the open road is soon gone. The boys are hungry, thirsty, and the map they have is no map at all and they are lost, walking in circles. There is hatred and fear toward them from many of the people they meet. The ending is very dark.
Wilkinson’s writing style is clear and straightforward. There is an omniscient narrator who comments on contemporary event that the boys don’t know about. The narrator also comments on the fate of people 35 or so years in the future. Grim. There is a fair amount of Yiddish in the novel. I could figure out the meaning of most of it from the context, but I do wish that Wilkinson had used a lighter hand.
About those jokes-I enjoyed them! Some were bad, some good, and some I swear I had heard before—another book? A movie? Growing up?
This is an unusual book that is well worth reading.
4.25
Lublin is the story of three teenage boys who leave their small town to sell brushes in Lublin. But the three boys are Jewish, their hometown is a shtetl, and they are traveling through Poland in the early 20th century.
The three boys are almost stereotypes: the capitalist (who is inept and tells terrible jokes), the revolutionary on the side of the workers (who is something of a bully and likes to fight more than work) and the religious (who is spoiled and otherworldly). But as I was reading, they didn’t feel like stereotypes—they felt real.
The novel feels like it is told in the style of a fable. It starts off as an adventure, but the romance of the open road is soon gone. The boys are hungry, thirsty, and the map they have is no map at all and they are lost, walking in circles. There is hatred and fear toward them from many of the people they meet. The ending is very dark.
Wilkinson’s writing style is clear and straightforward. There is an omniscient narrator who comments on contemporary event that the boys don’t know about. The narrator also comments on the fate of people 35 or so years in the future. Grim. There is a fair amount of Yiddish in the novel. I could figure out the meaning of most of it from the context, but I do wish that Wilkinson had used a lighter hand.
About those jokes-I enjoyed them! Some were bad, some good, and some I swear I had heard before—another book? A movie? Growing up?
This is an unusual book that is well worth reading.
4.25