If I Told You Once

by Judy Budnitz

In her novel about mothers, daugthers, and love, Judy Budnitz gives the traditional folktale an electrifying twist as she follows four generations of women from an Eastern European village to the tenements of an American city.
Illana, eager to escape her formidable mother's all-consuming love, embarks on an epic journey to the New World and is met along the way by evil, magic, and good fortune. The daughter, granddaugther, and great-granddaughter who follow in her footsteps share her special powers of observation, and, often, destruction.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Fairy Tales, Novels, Contemporary

304 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Judy Budnitz was born in 1973 and grew up in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from Harvard in 1995, and recieved an MFA in creative writing from New York University in 1998.

Reviews

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favourite book, and no-one I know has heard of it. :-(

[Hannah Greendale (Hello, Bookworm) · Rating 3 out of 5]

Watch my BookTube deep dive on the weirdest Women's Prize nominees . 👀



"Once upon a time, on a night when the houses lay buried to the eaves in snowdrifts and bits of ice danced on the wind, I left my village intending to never return."

If I Told You Once opens with a girl named Ilana who lives in an Eastern European village. One day, she meets a strange man in a forest who gives her a decorative egg with a tiny city inside of it. Ilana has never seen the world beyond her village, so a seed of wanderlust takes root in her heart.

The first third of this book is glorious. It's steeped with fables and fairy tales. The writing is dark and atmospheric; reminiscent of Angela Carter. But that changes when sixteen-year-old Ilana decides to take her egg and run away in search of a new life.

She eventually finds her way to the city, and the rest of the book concerns the three generations of women that follow her, specifically exploring the complicated relationships between mothers and daughters.

Unfortunately, all of the magic found at the start of the book fades away, and the story morphs into your typical multi-generational family saga set in a crowded city.

It's difficult to say who this book is for, as it reads like two separate novels, but a common thread is immigration and cultural displacement, so if that's something you enjoy reading about, then consider giving this one a read.

[Tory · Rating 3 out of 5]

“I thought how strange it is, the way the shape of your life grows up around you unbidden, like weeds. In the beginning you do not intend to live any particular way, you think you are living freely, are hardly aware of the subtle choices you are making. But as the years pass your life slowly closes in around you, hardening like a shell, crowding you from all sides, hemming you in with furniture and debts and habits, forcing you into narrower and narrower channels until suddenly you find you have no choices any longer and can only continue in the same direction until the end.”

This book, as a whole is hard for me to gauge. Some of it, was wonderful, and because of that, the parts that were not wonderful were glaring and obviously lacking.

The beginning, a story of a girl from a remote Eastern European village with the superstition and the folk-lore woven into her tale. It was intriguing and fabulous. Then the story moved on, to her daughter, her granddaughter and her great granddaughter, and they were such weaker characters that it almost ruined the book. Along with the characters being unlikeable, the story lost it’s magical touch.

When I started the book, I loved it. When I finished the book, I just liked it alright.

[Zoe Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel, starts in the shtetls of eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century but it could have been any century as so little has changed. Ilana's childhood world is one of medieval superstition, where fairytales live, as do wood spirits, witches and other demons. It ends in what I took to be modern-day New York.

The opening chapters of Ilana's childhood, youth and escape to America are simply wonderful. The magic and surreal works perfectly here, as you might expect given the beliefs of the people in the "old country". But it is not an idealized view of that world. Buditz does not spare us the brutality and grind of life in which everything is dull and grey: "In a place like that, the colour of an egg yolk was something of a miracle." Understandably when Ilana gets to see another world in the interior of a Faberge egg she wants to go to that colourful place. In so doing she rebels against her mother and escapes. In so doing she sets the pattern for daughters rebelling against their mothers that occurs over the four generations of women, whose narratives make up this book.

Another pattern which is repeated across generations is the role of men, sons and brothers are idealized and more intelligent sisters are both neglected and expected to sacrifice themselves. Nevertheless the men come and go: they disappear, they go to war, they die in foreign lands, even Ilana's husband drifts away mentally before dying, after hearing of his family's deaths in the holocaust. But through it all Ilana remains strong, almost ageless, something her great granddaughter recognizes: "Ilana, whom I could not bear to call my great-grandmother because saying the word is like trying to shout across a canyon, across a great distance. And she did not seem far away at all." And Ilana carries the old ways and old beliefs to America, something her daughter and granddaughter despise and dismiss.

Fairy stories and folktales are woven into the book, appearing in new clothes but still recognizable - one reason why the author has been compared with Angela Carter. I had great fun recognizing spotting them: Little Red Riding Hood, a female Bluebeard, Baba Yaga and the Pied Piper were the most obvious. And what is more they work within the novel. It is partly because of the familiarity of these stories that one can fill in gaps.

I enjoyed reading this book. Yet again we have a magic realism book which tells the tale of several generations of mothers and daughters. If I were to fault this book it is that with Ilana being such a strong character it is difficult sometimes to sustain the same level of engagement when the story turns to Sashie and Mara and they pick up the narrative. This is partly because neither is particularly likeable, indeed Mara is downright psychotic. Both doubt Ilana's tales of life in the old country and dismiss them as lies and fabrications, but then their view of the world and Ilana are also clearly fabrications and self delusions. As Ilana says: "The trouble is not in my eyes; my vision is as sharp as ever. It is the world that has become more blurred." My sympathies and interest returned with the arrival of Nomie, who comes to believe her great grandmother: "I had not been paying attention in the right way. I had thought her stories were only about her, I had not thought they had anything to do with me."

The book is beautifully written. There are some wonderfully evocative descriptions: "The men made a fermented liquor so colourless it was invisible, nothing but a raging headache stoppered in a bottle." Images occur and reoccur, with variations, woven into the fabric of the story, sometimes reinforcing Ilana's account of her youth. The book ends with one of loveliest last lines I have ever read, but I will not spoil it for you by repeating it here.

This review first appeared on the Magic Realism Books Blog http://magic-realism-books.blogspot.com

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book enchanting. It is an old world folk tale in progress to the present, not just being told as the past and I don't think I have ever read something similar. It weaves from the realistic to the bizarre seamlessly which is an aspect I particularly liked. The characters of each of the women run the gamut from great strength to insanity and I enjoyed puzzling out which was strongest and could not, which is perfect because it keeps the story going and alive as folk tale should. I continued to think about the story after finishing the book and this puts it in a small category for me of stories that keep on giving. A rare gift indeed. I do have to say that though I have seen this book described as humorous, the book jacket used 'hilarious', I didn't find it what I would call humorous at all, though I did find it delightfully weird and sometimes macabre.

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oddly intriguing from the first page. I find this book fascinating and impossible to describe. I think every reader will take a different meaning from the stories. It's a fairytale for grownups and a great read.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a story about stories. Stories that people tell, stories that people believe and stories about things that have happened. The plot follows four generations of women, the oldest of whom was born in the Northern European forests of snow, and who emigrates to America where her family grows. Told by the four women themselves, this story has an added injection of folklore and superstition which continues through the more western life in the States and provides another dimension to the novel. Interpretation, myth or reality, all of life is as real as the person who tells the story believes it to be, and here we have four points of view, four realities.
Llana is the matriarch, mysterious and strong, in touch with the 'old ways', who survives a climate (meterological and political) to find love and a new life. Sashie, her daughter is very different and rejects her mothers traditional roots for the 'clean' American way. Mara is the grandaughter, the darkest character, whose view is almost sociopathic. Finally Nomie in the present day, who is closest to Llana and sees the truth through her eyes.
All four have a distinctive voice in the narrative, but it is Llana from the old country who is the strongest presence and provides the pivot that all other characters revolve around, and finally circle back to.
Some of the novel feels like a series of short fairystories, especially the first part in Europe. This is emphasised by the short punchy sentences. The first 20 pages were a captivating opening into Llana's world, and raced away without me noticing that I was enveloped in the plot.
Some of the stories later in the book are more ambiguous and left unexplained, like Sashie's cleaners, or Mara's ladder to the sky. Reality, story or delusion? This sometimes left me frustrated but it also leads you to ask what is reality?
Budnitz pulls no punches in illustrating the horrific episodes in life too, like in war, with poignant descriptions and the economy of words adding to the distasteful scenes. Every fairystory has some sense of the horrific, a wolf lurking in grandma's clothing. Budnitz employs all of these tales we were brought up on with fascination and wonder.
This is not a long book but the time scale (early 20th century, through World War II, to the present day) gives it an epic feel which led me to a few tears at the ending. A very enjoyable book and an interesting voice to look out for.

[Christy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Budnitz writes in magical realism intended often as social commentary. The first third of this novel is extraordinary. At one point, the main character, who was born in a East European village goes to a port city in Western Europe, hoping to find her lover. Instead she finds the city deserted. She runs to the docks, and the ocean is dry with the tall sailing ships resting lopsidedly on the ocean floor. She flees in terror, later finding her lover in a different city. She tells him of this place she went to and he dismisses it as a dream. The rest of the book does not quite live up to the atmospheric attraction of this first section, but is still intriguing in its own way as it follows the main character's daughter and granddaughter.

[Natasha · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was just... wow. I was glued to this book.
It started off by Ilana telling the story of her birth, and from then on the story of her childhood. I was HOOKED. The narroration was just so captivating, and the world they live in was just so mesmorizing.
I couldn't believe it. I loved Ilana for her strength, her way of not abiding the rules. By her WAY.
And then she met Shmuel. (Way to GO, Ilana! I was rooting the whole time). Soon, Sashie was born, and grew, and then Mara was born, and alas, years later, Nomie came into the world. I loved seeing everyone age, especially from their point of view.

I just, just didn't want it to be over.
It was a masterpiece.

[Stephen Redwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

Allusions to the harsher spectrum of fairy tales, with rather fantastical events and characters operating in a gritty and magical environment, begin this tale. But the fairy tale spirit, while never quite leaving the story, increasingly gives way to a less fantastical tale of immigration hardship and a bizarre set of family dynamics passing through 5 generations. The central characters (Ilana, Sashie, Mara, and Nomie), are 4 generations of a family, each displaying rather bizarre and crazy behaviors, as if they are doomed by the family line they are born into. They exhibit a mix of what appears to be schizophrenia, paranoia, fantasy and obsession that clashes occasionally with the outside world, generally with awful results. The novel progresses through the voice of the 4 main characters, switching from one to another with increasing frequency towards the end. Ilana is the core around which much of the events circle - a complex character, with immense determination and fortitude, but given to brutal acts when she believes it necessary to protect herself or her family. It’s really skillful writing, and very imaginative, but I was struggling to find the point of it all. Fairy tales tend to focus on a theme, but this has a less clear focus, other than an abstract, implicit, warning not to shut oneself off from the external environment for fear that delusion will set in. Intriguing, but a bit lost on me.

[Djrmel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of four generations of women, starting with a the first daughter's emigration from a tiny eastern European village to America and ending with her great grand daughter's first attempts to do the very same thing that started the story - break away from her mother. The historical part has a great sense of time and place, while the contemporary part relies on characterization to draw the reader in. This makes for an uneven, but still quite readable story.

[Jasmine · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am almost finished with this book, and I am not quite sure I care to trudge through to the end. I love the quirky writing, and the magical realism. That being said, the story is heavy, dark and oppressive. This book is the literary equivalent of wearing one of Grandmother Llana's itchy wool sweaters in the summer heat.

[Jillian · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an AMAZING book that for some reason hasn't gotten the publicity it deserves. It is is magic, memoir, feminist, powerful, poetic, and gripping. I don't give out 5 stars that easily, and this is 5 stars hands down.

[Yvette · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved the dark fairy tale of this book, a wonderful read and worth re-reading

[Kelly Goffin · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I can believe anything. For a little while."

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book starts out feeling pretty fantastical, a mythical world of fairy tales, but that also somehow manages to be Eastern European. Ilana starts things out, but once she makes the journey to New York, the folktale elements maybe lessen, but are still very much present as she raises her children. Sashie is Ilana's daughter who tries to reject superstition and her mother's tales as much as possible. Her daughter Mara is a strange girl who is obsessed with her brother and grandmother, and then finally Nomie rounds out this multi-generational tale. Each woman gets further and further away from the magic permeating Ilana's life, but also since they all live together, each has a different perspective on the old woman's stories.

[Romi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I’m either not smart enough for the metaphorical nature of this book or too smart for the detached drivel. What the actual heck?

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I knew it was my sort of story from the opening paragraphs, with its imagery and descriptions, such as liquor being 'a raging headache stoppered in a jar' and 'the colour of an egg yolk...something of a miracle'. I absolutely adored the imagery - Budnitz veers away from all the usual clichés and effortlessly brings in clever images that are a little more unusual and unique. I was also impressed with the way the setting and storyline evolve. It opens in a bleak and outdated place, with people who are heavily influenced by tradition, folklore and 'old wives tales', but one character is transported into a more modern world that is recognisable to readers. 'If I Told You Once' seems to me a story about storytelling. The storyline is passed fluidly between four characters, who seem to clamour at times to tell it 'their way'. Budnitz presents the idea that a story can be passed down through generations, gradually becoming distorted as others add to it. What remains is not the original story of one person, but the combination of multiple narratives to make a new story.

[Sue Chant · Rating 1 out of 5]

Tiptree shortlist 1999. Didn't finish. The first third was dull "eastern-European peasants in the big forest", with a few half-hearted re-workings of old folk-tales, When if finally got to "one of the peasant goes to America and lives a totally unremarkable life" I gave up completely - about half-way through the book. The only thing that was vaguely SF&F was the folk tales, and the only thing that vaguely examined gender was that Bluebeard was a woman in one of them. Very disappointing for a Tiptree.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my second read of this novel - and at times it felt like visiting an old friend. Although I could not have told you anything about it before hand (it had been many years since I first read it) the stories are so unique you cannot help but recognise them.

Tall tales and true 'from the old country' - it is an amazing collection of stories interwoven with magic and insight. Set across two continents and 4 generations - this novel manages to keep on moving through good times & bad, accumulating stories and baggage without slowing down, always referring to the past but never dwelling on it. Perhaps its biggest triumph is managing to avoid melancholy - which is so often the by product of inter-generational family sagas, something to do with compressing so many lives into only the highlights, which often turn out to be disappointments. Yet right to the end there is still something to smile about.....

[Rosie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that I chose for myself. It was not a book club pick, or recommended to me from anyone else or from my usual sources. And, since I have chosen a real streak of stinkers for myself lately, I did not have high expectations for this one. I was really surprised with how much I enjoyed it. It's sort of a weird story about three generations of women from the same family. It has some magic thrown in, but it's still easy to visualize everything and kept me captured. I enjoyed that it was a story about 4 women who are very strong willed and want what they want, but all of these women places more value on the men who came into their lives than they did on each other. I don't think that is RIGHT, but it's just interesting how that is the way it goes a lot of the time, without us even realizing it.

[Meri Meri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Actually a 3.5 out of 5. An Angela Carter-like novel about family ties with quasi-magical realist elements popping up in the life of early twentieth century Jewish immigrants in the States. Very poetic and occasionally laugh-out-loud funny, Budnitz has a voice that is refreshingly original in the avalanche of "third generation" American Jewish writing. I particularly liked the roundabout manner in which she approached the Holocaust without an overtly postmodern laboured twist a la Jonathan Safran Foer. Her writing feels more seamless and less gimmicky. The book has feminist overtones and deals very well with issues of gender as a threatening and potentially exclusive category.

[Marya DeVoto · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was beautiful in places--I like the magical realism mixed with gritty and sometimes funny story that slowly reveals itself to be an immigrant tale. It was a bit unremittingly grim though. Didn't anyone ever have a happy marriage with surviving kids? Don't girls ever fail to get knocked up? Can't mothers and daughters ever communicate? Still, worth reading and Ilana, the matriarch, is a gripping, tough, magical character.

[pani Katarzyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now that is what I call a page-turner! It is gloomily odd, oddly gloomy, and beautiful. The confrontation with the story was pretty challenging at first (It's not that it was boring. It just felt so weirdly *uneasy* to read it) but it left me stronger. There are not that many books which do that for me.

[Autumn · Rating 5 out of 5]

What an amazing, fantastic book. I love the magical atmosphere of it, I was intrigued by the complex characters and their thoughts on each other. This is a fairytale, a mother-daughter story and a multi-generational, immigrant tale. The author is so beautifully descriptive yet leaves the reader wondering and examining.

[Kristi · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a multi-generational story of a family, told from the women's side, with a heavy sprinkling of magical realism throughout. While the prose was lovely, and the stories compelling, I found the characters to range from disturbing to downright abhorrent. How do these people function in normal society? It's a dark book with dark characters, not a light weekend read.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but also a bit too weird at times. I definitely enjoyed the first part, Illana's story, the most. It was very eerie to see too how each daughter started off so rebellious... and then just turned more or less into her mother. At times in the later chapters I had to flick back to remind myself which one was narrating because they all grew so similar over time!

[Theediscerning · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three and a half stars for this; I preferred the first act, even though I felt on uneven ground not knowing where or when we were at that stage, but it is still worth categorising halfway between Angela Carter and Eowyn Ivey.

[Emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

(I did read this almost 2 years ago)
Very odd, I think I liked it, I also think I should reread it once I am older (because I would have been 16 when I read it first and I'm sure about 50% of it just went over my head).

[Lxfolsom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful example of magic realism