Rodinsky's Room

by Rachel Lichtenstein, Iain Sinclair

David Rodinsky lived above a synagogue in the heart of the old Jewish East End of London, and sometime in the late 1960s he disappeared. His room, a chaos of writings, annotated books and maps, gramophone records and clothes, was left undisturbed for 20 years. Rodinsky's world captured the imagination of a young artist, Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had escaped Poland in the 30s, and over a period of years she began to document the bizarre collection of artifacts that were found in his room, and make installations using images from his enigmatic bequest. She became obsessed with this mysterious Who was he? Where did he come from? Where did he go? Now Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair have written an extraordinary book that weaves together Lichenstein's quest for Rodinsky. Part mystery story, part memoir, part travelogue, Rodinsky's Room is a testament to a world that has all but vanished and the celebration of the life of a unique man.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, London, Jewish, Cities, Religion

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Lichtensteins Buch ist der Bericht einer Suche, die sie durch die jüdische Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts und von East London nach Jerusalem führt, um schließlich nicht nur Spuren des verschwundenen David Rodinsky zu finden, sondern auch ihren eigenen künstlerischen und persönlichen Weg.

Die Beschreibungen des verlassenen, baufälligen Raumes in der ehemaligen Synagoge, in dem sich noch die persönlichen Gegenstände des verschollenen Rodinsky finden, Gegenstände, die auf einen so gelehrten wie eigenwilligen Menschen schließen lassen; die Beschreibung des Stadtteils Whitechapel, eines der ärmsten Viertel Londons, das nun am Fuße der Gentrifizierung steht und seine Geschichte und seine Identität verliert - diese Schilderungen haben mich sehr bewegt. Und natürlich auch die Fragmente der Biographie Rodinskys, die sich langsam und manchmal lediglich durch Zufälle enthüllt und dem Vergessen entrissen wird.

Was bleibt von einem Leben, was kann man von einem Menschen wissen?
Rachel Lichtenstein arbeitet wider das Vergessen, als Künstlerin wie auch als Schriftstellerin.
Schließlich wird spürbar, dass Rodinsky nicht in der verlassenen Mansarde präsent ist, sondern in Rachel Lichtensteins liebevoller Beschäftigung mit ihm.

RODINSKYS RAUM ist ein Buch der Sympathien, die sich beim Lesen entwickeln; tiefe, ruhige Gefühle, die mich bereichert haben. Und Dankbarkeit, dass sich Menschen immer noch, auch nach Auschwitz, füreinander interessieren, sich Schicksale verknüpfen können; dass das Leben für Momente doch nicht so bedeutungslos scheint; dass nicht einmal Hitler, Stalin und ihresgleichen es gelungen ist, die Kette der Wesen für immer zu zerstören. Aber wer weiß, was das 21. Jahrhundert bringen wird?

In jedem Fall erwähnt werden müssen noch die eingeschobenen Texte von Iain Sinclair, der mir bis dato unbekannt war. Er hat die Geschichte der Stadtteile Londons mit großer Genauigkeit erforscht mit dem scharfen Blick eines Sozialkundlers, der gern gängige Meinungen gegen den Strich bürstet, und das mit seltener Wortmächtigkeit. Seine Texte ergänzen die empathischen Schilderungen von Rachel Lichtenstein mit kritischer Zuneigung.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Rodinsky was a man who lived in a little attic room above a synagogue in East London. At some time in the late 1960s, he disappeared. The room was locked and not opened again until the 1980s where his belongings were discovered undisturbed, right down to the empty beer bottles on the table and the dried-up tea leaves in a cup. This is a book which stems from Rachel Lichtenstein’s research into the old (and sadly declining) Jewish culture of this part of London, and from her investigations into Rodinsky’s history and his ultimate fate.

The authorship is shared between her and Iain Sinclair, and the book alternates between their sections which run more or less along the same chronology, enabling them (to an extent) to comment and respond to one another. I write ‘to an extent’ because at heart, I think this is really Rachel Lichtenstein’s book; Sinclair is basically relegated to a role on the sidelines, riffing on the mythology around the periphery of The Room, while Lichtenstein does the hard work in journalistic prose of tracking down contacts and digging up old records. Sinclair does what he does very well, but I had the sense throughout that the actuality of Rodinsky’s case didn’t matter much to him: he could be doing the same thing for pretty much any subject strong enough to catch his attention.

I do like Iain Sinclair’s writing, but I find him difficult to tolerate in large quantities; I’ve always thought him best when constrained as an essayist or editorial presence (as in his excellent collection ‘City of Disappearances’). I admire his tendency towards informed and witty digression, but his habit of name-dropping without citation or explanation tends to frustrate as often as it enlightens. It’s the kind of thing which interferes with the fact that he’s basically a very good writer.

But it’s Rodinsky’s story which is the main draw here, and which is what kept me reading through to the end. It is fascinating and sad and strange all at the same time; I was worried at first that the initial hints towards cabbala mysticism would overwhelm the actuality of his case with spooky shenanigans, but thankfully Lichtenstein keeps things grounded throughout. She seems to have a genuine interest in the case motivated by a deeply personal connection to her own history and religious culture, and while Rodinsky ends up feeding her artistic impulses, it doesn't feel like she's exploiting the aura of mystery which surrounds his old home.

Indeed, she's never less than damning towards those other figures in the art world who've tried something similar: there's a particularly memorable scene in which she interrupts a performance art event where a stack of precious old texts from a synagogue are being systematically and pointlessly destroyed. Ultimately, it's thanks to Lichtenstein that Rodinsky emerges as something of a tragic figure - not a mystic at all, but a lonely, gifted and intelligent human being who at some stage in his life fell upon hard times from which he never quite recovered.

[Camille Ammoun]

Le Secret de la chambre de Rodinsky est écrit à quatre mains par Rachel Lichtenstein dont on découvre les obsessions et les quêtes parfois modianesques, et Iain Sinclair qui donne à ses digressions psychogéographiques des accents borgésiens.

Dans une seule chambre de l'est de Londres, il est donc possible de trouver de quoi tirer près de 450 pages d'enquêtes et de digressions. C'est l'histoire d'un « homme qui est devenu une chambre » écrit Iain Sinclair.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half of this book is pretty interesting stuff (the Lichtenstein parts) - less of an occult mystery as I'd led myself to believe, for sure, but still interesting. The other half (the Iain Sinclair half) is obtuse. Very obtuse. Thick with name-droppings. I skipped his sections. You'd be advised to do so as well unless you are really familiar with London and Londoners. It meant zip to me, sadly.

[Belle · Rating 2 out of 5]

If Ms Lichtenstein had written this alone then I would have rated it 4. I was very excited and looking forward to reading this book. The Jewish East End of London, Eastern Europe: lots of history and also mystery. I only wish Rachel Lichtenstein had written this book alone. I would strongly recommend that you not waste your time reading any of the chapters in this book written by Mr Sinclair. You'll save yourself from trying to decipher what he puts to paper and to be honest you won't miss anything whatsoever to this story.

Ms Lichtenstein writes in a very straightforward friendly manner and tells a story not just about the man who lived in the attic and what happened to him under mysterious circumstances but also about her obsession with him and her simultaneous journey to find herself through her family history. There were very moving scenes in the book at times but they were handled sensitively. I liked that in the Afterword, Lichtenstein took criticism on the chin with regard to negative feedback at readings, She was on a journey and we, as readers, learnt as she learnt.

Negatives: The photos in this book weren't great (printed on the paper and not very clear) and it was quite annoying that the photo descriptions were listed at the front of the book because I found myself frequently going from the illustrations list at front of the book then to the back of the book for the glossary. Photo descriptions under the photos would have been a much smoother reading experience because as much as it was interesting it was hard work. I really did have to keep referring to the glossary and unfortunately there were a couple of words not listed.

Mr Sinclair almost ruined this book for me. He came across as an aggressive, pretentious, pompous, waffling, name dropper. At one point early in the book he accuses someone of spouting loquacious rubbish, well I had to laugh. Talk about pot and kettle. Then on page 182 he asks 'how does all this concern David Rodinsky?' My thoughts exactly! Why use 10 words when you can use 65, half of which need to be looked up in a dictionary and maybe only 5 are even tenuously relevant anyway.

I have always finished a book once started (except one previous book as per my reviews) but the first chapter, written by Mr Sinclair, very almost had me calling it a day. This would have been a real shame, as the story as told by Ms Lichtenstein was informative, engaging, well researched and she did appear to be sensitive to the fact that Rodinsky was an intensely private man.

[Ashley Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

A quick review - I found the majority of this journey to be fascinating. Obviously the intrigue of this mysterious ghost David Rodinsky and his mummified living space is enough to get anyone hooked. I became invested in Lichtenstein’s personal journey and felt there was equal heart and soul with uncovering her rich heritage as well as David’s.
Her moving trip to Poland paints a vivid picture of Jewish history and feels like an appropriate distance of her understandable desire to discover David’s past.

However…

The last quarter of the book is just hectic, names everywhere, interrogating friends, family, postmen, someone who may or may not have glimpsed at him to the point of intrusive and obsessive (she even names her baby David) to the point where I started to feel very uncomfortable and icky like a line was being crossed and so, I did not enjoy the ending.

Also, to echo many people’s point about Iain Sinclair’s sections, they really take you out of the story as he has no personal attachment to this journey it’s hard to understand his involvement. His contributions would have worked better as an accompanying essay perhaps.

So yeah, mostly great!

[Stephen Howell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely compelling account of the ‘disappearance’ of David Rodinsky from Whitechapel. Two writers for this one, very different styles, I preferred Rachel Lichtensteins account, she was the main voice and her narrative was more straightforward and structured. A real life detective job on what happened to this Jewish man in the mid 20th century, full of mystique, urban legend, Jewish folklore and culture and a bit of travelling to Israel and Poland. A unique real life story.

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and it's a good way into understanding the East End of London from the perspective of one of the groups that have helped shaped it. Lichtenstein's sections are wonderful; she manages to weave her own family's history and search for identity into her research on Rodinsky and 19 Princelet St without it feeling fake or forced. She goes from London to Poland - the chapter on this trip is absolutely gripping - to Israel and back to London, tracing a geographical, historical and personal journey, with the aid of several intriguing photos. Sinclair's sections are less enjoyable, but have to be waded through in order to get to the next section of Lichtenstein's narrative. As in his novel Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire Sinclair's writing consists mainly of name-dropping and obscure cultural references (occasionally you understand one and think 'yes!') with the odd brilliant sentence. It's tiring and has put me off reading his other books; Lichtenstein's, however, I will look out for.

[Dariko · Rating 5 out of 5]

So difficult to rate this book. I loved the absorbing story of Rachel Lichtenstein about her quest to find the truth of Rodinsky's life and death. However, the chapters written by Iain Sinclair were very difficult to understand. I also felt some negativity in Rachel Lichtenstein's words towards Bangladeshi community living on Brick Lane.
Other than that i loved it. Very interesting and educational book.

[Bekah · Rating 5 out of 5]

There's nothing like reading a psychogeographical book about a decrepit Jewish scholar in London's East End.

[John Sheridan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A scrap of minor local history becomes through Rachel Lichtenstein's perverse detective work a portrait of firstly the (then vanishing and now I expect vanished) Jewish community in East London and then pre-war Europe.

I could probably have done without Ian Sinclair's sections and admittedly skimmed some of them - he gets a bit carried away with the literary/mythological/mystical elements of things at the expense of a very human story.

[Nicole]

This book was so surprising and good. I had no idea the journey it would take me on going into it, and it was really moving. The parts Sinclair wrote are (as lots of other reviewers note) dense and opaque in the way that his writing always is (something about his sentence grammar, I think...), but I found this more readable than some of his other work.

[paula.]

(read for uni so no rating)

lichtenstein’s story was fascinating and i wanted more of it, sinclair needs to shut up and stop intellectualising and mythologising a man’s life

[Isla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Lichtenstein uses this story of a lonely jewish scholar to tell the story of the Jewish east end, her own family story and her own jewish journey. For me it helped me see the importance of archivists and historians

It also offers an insight (for people who may not see it already) into the damage of culture vulturing gentrification and destruction it wrecks on history and community.

[Carole Tyrrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is my second reading of this book as it enjoyed it so much the first time.
In many ways this is a detective story in that a solitary Jewish man, the Rodinsky of the title, who had been living above a decaying and abandoned synagogue, vanishes into complete oblivion one day. He leaves everything behind, even the imprint of his head on the pillow and this book is Rachel Lichtenstein’s account of her search to discover what happened to him and what happened to her along the way.
The synagogue, 19 Princelet Street in London’s Spitalfields, was built in someone’s back garden and forgotten about before, ironically, being rediscovered as the area became home to a new wave of immigrants into the area and the remaining Jewish community moved out. She meets relatives of Rodinsky who give her vague glimpses of the man, speaks to the last remaining Jewish residents and creates her own artwork inspired by her research.
This is also a voyage of discovery for Rachel as she re-discovers her Jewish heritage, marries, has a child and becomes Orthodox.
The most poignant section is where she visits Poland and Eastern Europe to seek out the now vanished and long forgotten Jewish communities destroyed by the Holocaust. Most traces have vanished with overgrown cemeteries and synagogues either derelict and abandoned or being used for secular purposes as no-one could remember their original purpose .In several towns there was a self-appointed guardian taking care of these vestiges but once they were gone, who would care? Interspersed with Rache’ls experiences and research are Iain Sinclair’s discussion of the Jewish myth of the Golem, the gentrification of Spitalfields and his involvement with Rachel’s quest.
But Rondinsky remains elusive We, and Rachel, never meet him and he is, instead, viewed through others recollections and a faded photo of him that Rachel is give. There are no photos of his room in its original state as it is strongly rumoured that successive visitors may have appropriated items or re-arranged them to create a better image.
Rachel eventually discovers Rodinsky’s fate which is a surprise to say the least and yet the journey to find him has changed her in so many ways. He remains almost imaginary until the very end.
A wonderful book which fascinated me,especially after I visited 19 Princelet Street. Now in a fragile state and Rodinsky’s room closed to visitors for the same reason. I was aware that I was seeing something which genuinely breathed history instead of a country house, antiseptic experience. But a sacred place where people had lived and worshipped. It’s an amazing survivor especially as successive waves of immigrants took over the building but left the synagogue intact. Also a book about the ever changing face of London.
The manner in which traces of a previous wave of immigrants vanish under the next wave is well portrayed as the Asians begin to appropriate abandoned synagogues as mosques leaving ghostly traces of Hebrew writing as the ghosts. Lichtenstein records her anger at attending an art show in the now defunct Jewish dining club in which sacred Hebrew texts and books had become part of the show as the participants had no idea what they were destroying and thus history vanishes.
And so a walk around Spitalfields becomes a detective story as you begin to look for the traces of Judaism and other long since moved on races.
Well written and well researched I loved it again.
.

[Steffi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beide Autoren beschreiben ihre Annäherung an Rodinsky, den angeblichen Hausmeister einer Synagoge in der Princelet Street 19 in London, der in den 60er Jahren spurlos verschwand und nur ein Dachzimmer mit seinen Habseligkeiten, insbesondere Notizen in verschiedensten Sprachen hinterließ.
Das Viertel Spitalfield, seine Geschichte und Wandel werden faszinierend beschrieben: Scheinbar lebten dort immer schon arme Einwanderer: Hugenotten, die als Seidenweber arbeiteten, später osteuropäische Juden, inzwischen Einanderer aus Bangladesch. Viele der Kulturen scheinen verloren zu gehen oder überlagern sich, indem ein Gebäude mal eine Synagoge, dann eine Kirche und schließlich eine Moschee beherbergt.
Rachel Lichtenstein verbindet ihre Recherchen zu Rodinsky mit ihrer künstlerischen Arbeit und der Auseinandersetzung mit ihrer eigenen jüdischen Herkunft.
Iain Sinclair spannt den Bogen weiter, lässt zahlreiche literarische Assoziationen einfließen (Peter Ackroyd, Hawksmoor; Golem-Legenden von Gustav Meyrink und Leo Perutz; deren Wechselwirkung mit London-Beschreibungen von Charles Dickens) und geht auf das aktuelle Problem der Gentrifizierung ein.
Sehr lesenswert und macht Lust mehr über die Geschichte des East Ends zu erfahren.

[Katelyn Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic account of the Jewish history of Whitechapel and the surrounding area. David Rodinsky is just one of the many fascinating characters met along the way. Fantastic research and storytelling

[Taff Jones · Rating 4 out of 5]

I used to live in Spitalfields - 1988 - 1991 - in the old St Matthews vicarage. It was the end of the old time really - I think I went to the Sunday market almost every single weekend that I lived there. There was an oldish (50s) Jewish bookseller who sold books from a completely dilapidated building every week on Cheshire Street and an ancient and wrecked synagogue opposite which sometimes had a few stalls. The city devours itself and few of us are more than shadows or memories of our own making. I loved this book.

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like many others, I ended up skim-reading or skipping the chapters written by Sinclair, and focussing on those of Lichtenstein. Sinclair's contributions seemed to me a metaphysical discursion rather than a real contribution to my understanding.

The uncovering of Rodinsky's life and death is described by Lichtenstein, who is deeply involved, as she contemplates her own Judaism and its roots and personal history.

[Carolyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

With the exception of the Iain Sinclair name dropping, butt kissing, crap. I Loved Lichtenstein's account of a fascinating man who loved words and odd facts as much as the rest of us....Even his mysterious disappearance was worth the reading through the Sinclair parts. Very fun read.

[Cat · Rating 2 out of 5]

odd. alternating chapters: i liked the main author's bits, but the other sections (Sinclair) were overlong and added nothing to my experience

[Nasnin Sulfath Nasser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rodinsky’s Room (1999) by Ian Sinclair and Rachel Lichtenstein provides us two parallel roads to the same destination, which Val Williams also apprehended in his musings on Rodinsky as quoted above; to discern, at least in parts, the mysterious picture of the Jewish scholar who disappeared in the late sixties to obscurity. David Rodinsky’s disappearance got its charm by the discovery of his abandoned room above the Synagogue in 19 Princelet Street, Spitalfields. Untouched till in the eighties, the room fascinated Sinclair and Lichtenstein with the diversity of its contents, both religious and secular, ever eluding any fixity in labelling him one or the other because of its mixed nature. They couldn’t neglect the “indestructible whisper” as Sinclair calls it, of the room which stands for the man itself, almost on the verge of extinction, waiting to be ripped of all the rumours by the public and the media, which started to distort the person as well as the place.

The reading of Rodinsky’s life by both these authors through his room sheds light on the man, but in two different ways. Lichtenstein tries to decode the man through factual discoveries, documenting the artefacts, going in search of any knowledge that can be obtained from people and places that Rodinsky was associated with, providing us with a narration that anchors us back to the real rather than the romantic and the mystical representation of the man and his room. Her engagement with the synagogue in 19 Princelet Street gets intense as it ushers in the realisation that her grandparents’ marriage happened there, along with her other associations with the place. It’s this psychogeographical effect on her that instilled the indistinguishable quest by means of dissecting the many archival materials, mostly from Princelet Street Heritage Centre, books and newspapers, visiting institutes, libraries such as the one in Bishopsgate institute, museums such as Museum of London, conducting interviews, engaging in conversations, reaching out to his ancestors like Bella Lipman and Carol Wayne, and also to the extent of putting posters hoping to get someone who had known Rodinsky and even travelling to Israel and Poland, in search of her own roots as well of Rodinsky’s. And finally, even after her research proved Rodinsky’s death, she doesn’t close her investigation until she finds his grave. In answer to one of the questions arrowed towards her in a public reading, regarding “whether she felt that the reclusive David Rodinsky would have wanted his life to become such public property” she firmly replied “I felt that Rodinsky chose me, in some way, to publicly displace these myths with the truth about his life and sad death” (Lichtenstein, 324). She breathes life to the real human being by unveiling the enshrouding myth by her intense and illumining study on how the personal objects and places that he used and visited can be a portrayal of the man himself. She preferred picturising Rodinsky as an ordinary man in an ordinary room, a loner who ended in an asylum later, rather than spangling his life with mystical enchantments for sensationalism.

Sinclair on the other hand celebrates the contradictory nature of what constitutes Rodinsky’s room and tries to preserve the aura of his mystery. His acknowledgement of Rodinsky being metaphorically called as a mythical Golem is an example of how he doesn’t want to go beyond a point to break the man’s picture of otherness, trying not to make it ordinary and real. If Lichtenstein’s cataloguing and archiving of the artefacts from Rodinsky’s room and her intense research and study on those objects along with interviews, travels and ancestral tracing served as a solution to the Rodinsky puzzle and a proper denouement to his story, Sinclair doesn’t want to resolve the contradictions that emerged as he retraced Rodinsky’s journey to places. Sinclair is reluctant to fix Rodinsky, the mysterious wanderer, in one place by a closed interpretation as he says, “in movement the Golem is unseen, only when he comes to rest is he vulnerable” in his chapter “Mobile Invisibility: Golem, Dybbuks and Unanchored Presences'' (Sinclair, 183). He seems to consider such indeterminism as functional in making Rodinsky, the Golem to keep on moving, to not to lose the charm of the personalised gaze to the public gaze. Sinclair says in his introductory chapter “Rachel Lichtenstein in Place'' that “Rodinsky was a shape whose only definition was his shapelessness, the lack of a firm outline” (Sinclair, 3 & 4) and he firmly believes “Rodinsky thrives on what can never be known” (Sinclair, 11).

[Alfie Shaw]

An interesting story. In tracking down the details of the vanished David Rodinsky's life, Lichenstein sheds light on the fate of the East End's Jewish community. Shut off from society in his shoddy room in the roof of the Princelet street synagogue in Whitechapel, the eccentric Rodinsky vigorously pursued his scholarly interest in linguistics, sticking to the ascetic lifestyle that his Hasidic religion dictated. In the 1960s English social services considered Rodinsky mad and shipped him off to a mental asylum in Epsom where he died in 1969 aged 44. The area of Whitechapel has now been developed and cleaned up, the Jewish community no longer existing there in its previous form.
Lichenstein's search started in Rodinsky's room, which was left untouched for 20 years after he disappeared. This made me consider my own domestic surroundings, and what sort of clues my objects would leave about my own existence. The book is in part a meditation on the act of memory and the different ways in which a single person's life can be interpreted once they have gone.
The contrasting styles of Lichenstein and Sinclair complemented each other nicely, Lichenstein telling the story in straightforward prose, with Sinclair given to stylistic flourishes describing and commenting on Lichentstein's intense pursuit.

[NN · Rating 4 out of 5]

The liminal lives of the survivors, the refugees and victims of war cotinue to haunt our continent and cities. Their memory and the continued existence of our world understood as held up by lamed vavniks, the secret holy people. If one dies another is born, or, if one steps out, another steps into this role. So the writer steps into the shoes of Rodinsky. A thorough document of generational trauma or should it be: generational connection. The hermit that feels lost away from his people revered as a holy man at the same time snickered at as an unremarkable worker in the shoe factory. Everyone has their own memories, makes something mean something and lives their life around and away from it. I was happy to again get closer to the writer that i got to know in the Estuary book.

[Rob Adey · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lichtenstein bits are an urgent, increasingly personal and moving detective story (and done at about the last possible time when you had to use phone calls, archives and randomly bumping into people to find stuff out). I ended up skipping the Iain Sinclair bits (like most people, judging by reviews) – in theory, I should like him, but his incessant layering of London feel stuffy and oppressive to me, whereas Peter Ackroyd manages to make that kind thing exuberant. Not sure why he's all over this, to be honest, I guess he wrote an introduction that Could Not Be Stopped.

[Mary K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lichtenstein wrote a gripping and moving account of her search to give meaning to another forgotten Jew, and to breathe life into an abandoned Jewish community. I walked away from the book heartbroken by the abandonment and neglect of the world’s synagogues, and want to look into this further, contributing when I can. I could have done without Sinclair’s chapters - I read the first, skimmed the second, and skipped the rest. They didn’t fit into the book well at all.

[Hailey Watt · Rating 2 out of 5]

As advised by fellow readers, I skipped Sinclair's chapters. I found Lichtenstein to be a surprisingly unreliable narrator, despite this being a form of memoirist writing. While I thoroughly enjoyed, and cried through, her reflections on visiting various Polish cemeteries and saying Kaddish at each one, her purported archival and investigative work seemed unrealistic at best.

[Dorothy Piper]

I found this book very challenging. Not being Jewish or understanding Jewish customs, there were times when I scratched my head. I could follow Rachel Lichtenstein's narrative fairly easily, and I am glad that she achieved her objective of finding out what happened to David Rodinsky. Iain Sinclair's writing, however, was too complicated and abstract.

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rachel Lichtenstein's investigative journey holds up and keeps the reader engaged, one revelation after the other.

Iain Sinclair's chapters, although alternating Rachel's, read more like independent observation essays, around the general atmosphere and semi-relevant figures of the area. This can become distracting, and I wish I knew I could skip them and return if I decided to.

[Dylan Rock · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fine book judging by the reviews, I'm in a minority who enjoyed the Iain Sinclair chapters over the Rachel Lichtenstein, which I felt declined into a middle-class Jewish Woman's tired travel log and holocaust reference guide