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The Lion Seeker: A Page-Turning Epic Family Saga of Survival and Ambition in WWII-Era South Africa
National Jewish Book Award A family saga set in WWII-era South Africa offering both “page-turning thrills [and] a painful meditation on destiny” ( NPR, All Things Considered ).
Called “a latter-day Exodus ” by Kirkus Reviews , The Lion Seeker is an epic historical novel centered on the life of Isaac Helger. The son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, he runs around the streets of Johannesburg as a young hooligan and dreams of getting rich. But his parents are still haunted by the memories of the anti-Semitic pogroms they escaped, even as Isaac secretly pursues a relationship with a gentile girl.
As the Nazi threat rises, Isaac is caught between his mother’s urgent ambition to bring her sisters to safety out of the old world, and his own desire to enjoy the freedoms of the new. But soon his mother’s carefully guarded secret takes them to the diamond mines, where mysteries are unveiled in the desert rocks and Isaac begins to learn the bittersweet reality of success bought at any cost.
Called “a latter-day Exodus ” by Kirkus Reviews , The Lion Seeker is an epic historical novel centered on the life of Isaac Helger. The son of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants, he runs around the streets of Johannesburg as a young hooligan and dreams of getting rich. But his parents are still haunted by the memories of the anti-Semitic pogroms they escaped, even as Isaac secretly pursues a relationship with a gentile girl.
As the Nazi threat rises, Isaac is caught between his mother’s urgent ambition to bring her sisters to safety out of the old world, and his own desire to enjoy the freedoms of the new. But soon his mother’s carefully guarded secret takes them to the diamond mines, where mysteries are unveiled in the desert rocks and Isaac begins to learn the bittersweet reality of success bought at any cost.
576 pages, Paperback
First published February 26, 2013
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About the author
Kenneth Bonert
4 books34 followersKENNETH BONERT's first novel, The Lion Seeker, won the National Jewish Book Award, the Edward Lewis Wallant Award, and the Canadian Jewish Book Award. Bonert was also a finalist for the Sami Rohr Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award. He was born in South Africa and now lives in Toronto, Ontario.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 142 reviews
March 19, 2014
I hesitated to rate this book. It's set in South Africa with all the linguistic style it entails, and I don't particularly enjoy that. Whereas it's also a story of the world war ii (or so it says on the blurb), and I love stories of the war. It turned out to be surprisingly easy to read, but it wasn't a war story. Rather, it's a story of a young jewish man being brought up in South Africa, having been lucky enough to escape Lithuania when Hitler wasn't even a name. Consequently, he is one of the unbelievers when it comes to the Jewish persecution in Europe, and his family (and he himself) suffers for it.
I think it was well written. It's an angle I hadn't heard about with regards to the world war ii - Lithuanian immigrants to South Africa. It's also a flawed protagonist story done right. It's painful to sit through the mistakes made by Isaac and those done to him, time and time again. But it's also weirdly heartbreaking, even when he has it coming to him. I didn't even mind the romance with the shiksa girl, a rich princess who I can't really believe would give someone like Isaac the time of day in real life. Once that initial hurdle is past, it's handled realistically enough (i.e., it crashes and burns).
Where it loses points for me is that it's too long, and it leaves out a prominent stage in Isaac's life. He seems to have been shaped by the war, but the book skips right over the war. That's right - it's a war story that never shows any action even though its main protagonist was an enlisted soldier and a prisoner of war. It may have made this book into yet another world war ii soldier story, but I would have preferred that some pages in this massive book were given to it. The romance goes on too long, and so does Isaac's childhood. But, the epilogue is what really disappointed me.
It's a South African book that, though massive, was easy enough to read. For that I'm glad. It could've been better though if certain portions were snipped and some were added to, and if I'd felt that the protagonist had come through a more meaningful arc. 3 stars.
I think it was well written. It's an angle I hadn't heard about with regards to the world war ii - Lithuanian immigrants to South Africa. It's also a flawed protagonist story done right. It's painful to sit through the mistakes made by Isaac and those done to him, time and time again. But it's also weirdly heartbreaking, even when he has it coming to him. I didn't even mind the romance with the shiksa girl, a rich princess who I can't really believe would give someone like Isaac the time of day in real life. Once that initial hurdle is past, it's handled realistically enough (i.e., it crashes and burns).
Where it loses points for me is that it's too long, and it leaves out a prominent stage in Isaac's life. He seems to have been shaped by the war, but the book skips right over the war. That's right - it's a war story that never shows any action even though its main protagonist was an enlisted soldier and a prisoner of war. It may have made this book into yet another world war ii soldier story, but I would have preferred that some pages in this massive book were given to it. The romance goes on too long, and so does Isaac's childhood. But, the epilogue is what really disappointed me.
It's a South African book that, though massive, was easy enough to read. For that I'm glad. It could've been better though if certain portions were snipped and some were added to, and if I'd felt that the protagonist had come through a more meaningful arc. 3 stars.
November 1, 2013
Kenneth Bonert writes in the Acknowledgements supplement to this powerful novel about his "profound gratitude" to his late grandmother, her memories of her Lithuanian home village of Dusat, and the Jewish community in South Africa that "so nourished her." It is clear that this book is a labour of love, inspired by family experiences and tragedies that shape the work's harsh narrative and complex interwoven texture.
Isaac Helger, five year old hellion as this story begins, is the central character -- whom his mother Gitelle wants to be a "Clever" not a "Stupid," a boy who veers between ambitious scams and skilled metal work, who wants to escape his background and its poverty, then discovers the brutality of anti-semitism. His sometimes violent, often audacious, always vivid life ties the novel together over twenty-five years. But the depth and artistry of this book shows especially in the series of beautifully realized additional figures that the story encompasses -- especially Isaac's mother with her hard-edged determination to advance her family both in South Africa and Dusat, his father Able who embodies a decency and dedication to excellence in his work, the entrepreneurial yet weak Hugo Bleznik, Isaac's Zulu friend Silas Mabuza and the set of characters at Gold Reef Panel Beating.
"The Lion Seeker" is a dramatic saga, part a parable on the centrality of family, part a testament to the history of Jewish struggle and survival, part a searing perspective on South Africa's heritage. The range of varied personalities combined with the urgency of Bonert's excellent writing make this saga rich and credible -- and the poignancy of the overall story reinforces its emotional force.
There are parts of the book that do not work very well for me. The relationship between Isaac and the rich non-Jewish daughter, Yvonne, from an elite family, seems to me improbable -- and in the end has little impact, it seems, in the core narrative. Isaac joins the South African army, too, when World War Two breaks out, and the book traces his time before that, and then his adjustment difficulties afterwards. But there is no significant treatment of his time as a soldier (and just limited material on his time as a prisoner of war.) Perhaps the novel would have become just too unwieldy if this phase of his life had been handled more fully. But I was left feeling surprised by the gap. I also felt the novel would have been strengthened by some stronger black characters.
These concerns mute my enthusiasm somewhat. But this remains, in my view, a fine book. It has been chosen as one of the five finalists for the Governor-General's Prize for Fiction in Canada in 2013, and will rightly be seen as a serious contender.
Isaac Helger, five year old hellion as this story begins, is the central character -- whom his mother Gitelle wants to be a "Clever" not a "Stupid," a boy who veers between ambitious scams and skilled metal work, who wants to escape his background and its poverty, then discovers the brutality of anti-semitism. His sometimes violent, often audacious, always vivid life ties the novel together over twenty-five years. But the depth and artistry of this book shows especially in the series of beautifully realized additional figures that the story encompasses -- especially Isaac's mother with her hard-edged determination to advance her family both in South Africa and Dusat, his father Able who embodies a decency and dedication to excellence in his work, the entrepreneurial yet weak Hugo Bleznik, Isaac's Zulu friend Silas Mabuza and the set of characters at Gold Reef Panel Beating.
"The Lion Seeker" is a dramatic saga, part a parable on the centrality of family, part a testament to the history of Jewish struggle and survival, part a searing perspective on South Africa's heritage. The range of varied personalities combined with the urgency of Bonert's excellent writing make this saga rich and credible -- and the poignancy of the overall story reinforces its emotional force.
There are parts of the book that do not work very well for me. The relationship between Isaac and the rich non-Jewish daughter, Yvonne, from an elite family, seems to me improbable -- and in the end has little impact, it seems, in the core narrative. Isaac joins the South African army, too, when World War Two breaks out, and the book traces his time before that, and then his adjustment difficulties afterwards. But there is no significant treatment of his time as a soldier (and just limited material on his time as a prisoner of war.) Perhaps the novel would have become just too unwieldy if this phase of his life had been handled more fully. But I was left feeling surprised by the gap. I also felt the novel would have been strengthened by some stronger black characters.
These concerns mute my enthusiasm somewhat. But this remains, in my view, a fine book. It has been chosen as one of the five finalists for the Governor-General's Prize for Fiction in Canada in 2013, and will rightly be seen as a serious contender.
November 13, 2016
3.5 stars
This is an engaging historical novel, and given the quality of writing and characterization I can see Bonert going on to write excellent literary novels in the future. This one falls short of its ambitious goals, but it’s still worth a read.
The Lion Seeker follows a young man named Isaac, a Jewish refugee from Lithuania, growing up working-class in South Africa in the 1930s. Numerous threads follow various aspects of Isaac’s life: his complicated family, his romance with a rich girl, his work – this last is a surprisingly large part of the book, as Isaac is pulled between his own desire to work on cars (encouraged by his craftsman father) and his mother’s urging that he make as much money as possible, by fair means or foul. The social situation of the day also intrudes, both in ways that make Isaac’s blood boil (anti-Semitism) and ways he refuses to acknowledge (oppression of black South Africans).
All these threads are woven together in an engaging way. The style, meanwhile, is on the literary side and takes a little getting used to: quotation marks are not used, and there’s a lot of South African slang. It’s all easy enough to understand if you roll with it, and the local language lends vibrancy to the text. The characterization, meanwhile, is very strong. Isaac is a prick – selfish, none too bright, easily moved to anger and violence – but drawn so believably that rather than spending time disliking him, I was engaged in seeing how his life would play out. By drawing readers into Isaac’s life, Bonert does a great job of creating empathy for him without trying to convince us to like him.
My biggest issue with the book is the way it falls apart towards the end. Isaac does something awful, though understandable given the hundreds of pages we’ve read before, and then the book mostly peters out. He joins the army, which we don’t see, but which is perhaps meant as some sort of atonement, and then he returns home and still is not particularly remorseful, and finally the book ends with little sense of any thematic arcs coming to a close. I was left wondering about the point of many of its threads, especially the romance (which was always the least believable aspect of the book, though at least it ends believably). What is this book ultimately about? It’s hard to say. And for such an ambitious novel, that is an issue.
I’ll also add, even for folks who don’t think of themselves as sensitive readers, that the book includes a couple of particularly horrific death-by-torture descriptions. Honestly, they’re so gruesome I’m not even sure I find them believable. It seems like there’s so much of this out there now that authors feel they have to outdo all other authors for such scenes to have an impact.
Ultimately, I did enjoy this book, and for immersion in a time and place and in the life of a flawed protagonist, it’s excellent. I look forward to seeing what Bonert writes next.
This is an engaging historical novel, and given the quality of writing and characterization I can see Bonert going on to write excellent literary novels in the future. This one falls short of its ambitious goals, but it’s still worth a read.
The Lion Seeker follows a young man named Isaac, a Jewish refugee from Lithuania, growing up working-class in South Africa in the 1930s. Numerous threads follow various aspects of Isaac’s life: his complicated family, his romance with a rich girl, his work – this last is a surprisingly large part of the book, as Isaac is pulled between his own desire to work on cars (encouraged by his craftsman father) and his mother’s urging that he make as much money as possible, by fair means or foul. The social situation of the day also intrudes, both in ways that make Isaac’s blood boil (anti-Semitism) and ways he refuses to acknowledge (oppression of black South Africans).
All these threads are woven together in an engaging way. The style, meanwhile, is on the literary side and takes a little getting used to: quotation marks are not used, and there’s a lot of South African slang. It’s all easy enough to understand if you roll with it, and the local language lends vibrancy to the text. The characterization, meanwhile, is very strong. Isaac is a prick – selfish, none too bright, easily moved to anger and violence – but drawn so believably that rather than spending time disliking him, I was engaged in seeing how his life would play out. By drawing readers into Isaac’s life, Bonert does a great job of creating empathy for him without trying to convince us to like him.
My biggest issue with the book is the way it falls apart towards the end. Isaac does something awful, though understandable given the hundreds of pages we’ve read before, and then the book mostly peters out. He joins the army, which we don’t see, but which is perhaps meant as some sort of atonement, and then he returns home and still is not particularly remorseful, and finally the book ends with little sense of any thematic arcs coming to a close. I was left wondering about the point of many of its threads, especially the romance (which was always the least believable aspect of the book, though at least it ends believably). What is this book ultimately about? It’s hard to say. And for such an ambitious novel, that is an issue.
I’ll also add, even for folks who don’t think of themselves as sensitive readers, that the book includes a couple of particularly horrific death-by-torture descriptions. Honestly, they’re so gruesome I’m not even sure I find them believable. It seems like there’s so much of this out there now that authors feel they have to outdo all other authors for such scenes to have an impact.
Ultimately, I did enjoy this book, and for immersion in a time and place and in the life of a flawed protagonist, it’s excellent. I look forward to seeing what Bonert writes next.
September 3, 2018
When anti-semitism hits Lithuania, a father moves from Lithuania to South Africa, starts a small watch business, and sends for his wife, Gitelle and two children. The rest of Gitelle's sisters stay in Lithuania. Isaac, Gitelle's boy, is an active child. He has orange hair, freckles, and big ears. Not a student, he tries to be a "businessman," going into business with a character who likes to gamble on horses, who loses one business after another.
Isaac has a good job repairing bashed in cars. He does not make much money, but his hyperactivity is put to good use. Living in South Africa presents problems for Isaac. He sees the African black people as lower than himself. The way South Africa was set up at the time, Isaac was always the "superior" worker when black men worked with him. Isaac was white, and felt superior, like Afrikaaners, but Isaac was Jewish, and he realized as he grew up, that he lost his girlfriend because he was Jewish, and the workers he liked, beat him to a pulp when he was framed by a racist Nazi sympathizer. Before WWII began, and at the beginning of the war, the hatred of Jews in Lithuania and South Africa was at its apogee.
This is Isaac's story, his coming of age story. His youthful innocence prevented him from seeing the racism that was at its peak in South Africa, of both blacks and Jews. Isaac trusted the wrong people and was duped over and over again, even at the job he loved when the Nazi sympathizer taunted him, played hateful tricks on him, and even got him fired.
Isaac's mother and father loved Isaac and always took care of him at his worst moments. When Isaac finally learned the whole truth about his mother, that she always hid from him, he began to understand life for what it was, but one dreadful decision alienated him from his parents...
This was a fascinating story, and a good hard look at people who inhabit the earth...
Isaac has a good job repairing bashed in cars. He does not make much money, but his hyperactivity is put to good use. Living in South Africa presents problems for Isaac. He sees the African black people as lower than himself. The way South Africa was set up at the time, Isaac was always the "superior" worker when black men worked with him. Isaac was white, and felt superior, like Afrikaaners, but Isaac was Jewish, and he realized as he grew up, that he lost his girlfriend because he was Jewish, and the workers he liked, beat him to a pulp when he was framed by a racist Nazi sympathizer. Before WWII began, and at the beginning of the war, the hatred of Jews in Lithuania and South Africa was at its apogee.
This is Isaac's story, his coming of age story. His youthful innocence prevented him from seeing the racism that was at its peak in South Africa, of both blacks and Jews. Isaac trusted the wrong people and was duped over and over again, even at the job he loved when the Nazi sympathizer taunted him, played hateful tricks on him, and even got him fired.
Isaac's mother and father loved Isaac and always took care of him at his worst moments. When Isaac finally learned the whole truth about his mother, that she always hid from him, he began to understand life for what it was, but one dreadful decision alienated him from his parents...
This was a fascinating story, and a good hard look at people who inhabit the earth...
July 29, 2013
4.5 stars
Sprawling historical saga of a Jewish family that emigrates from Lithuania to South Africa in the early 1900s. Energetic writing, vivid characters, lots of conflict made the pages of this book fly by.
Sprawling historical saga of a Jewish family that emigrates from Lithuania to South Africa in the early 1900s. Energetic writing, vivid characters, lots of conflict made the pages of this book fly by.
March 9, 2019
Not the easiest book to read. It’s over 500 pages with strong character development. The story revolves around the “anointed” son of a Jewish immigrant family living in South Africa with all its problems from pre and post WW II. He is a flawed character looking to find himself. It’s a story filled with hopes, fears, dreams, rage and guilt. The author beautifully involves the reader in the action and relationships with vibrant dialogue.
May 1, 2015
Im ersten Teil erfahren wir, dass Isaac mit Mutter und Schwester aus einem kleinen Dorf in Lettland zu seinem Vater, der in Südafrika lebt und dort bereits eine Uhrmacherwerkstatt betreibt, auswandert. Was dazu geführt hat erfahren wir nach und nach im Lauf der Geschichte.
Isaacs Mutter Gitelle ist sehr ehrgeizig und will für ihren Sohn alles erreichen. So verbietet sie ihm Kontakt mit den Einheimischen Schwarzen, denn Weiße haben diese zu verachten um anerkannt zu werden.
Energisch vertreibt sie die in ihren Augen faulen nichtsnutzigen Freunde ihres Mannes, die sich täglich in der Werkstatt auf dem Sofa breit machen und trinken.
Isaac kommt mehr schlecht als recht durch die Schulzeit, muss mehrmals wechseln da er sich nicht anpasst und landet nach ein paar Ausflügen in die fliegende Händlerszene von Hugo Bleznik in einer Werkstatt als Karrosseriebauerlehrling.
Issac muss immer wieder Rückschläge hinnehmen, da auch in Südafrika und mit aufkommen des Nationalsozialismus verstärkt die Juden diskriminiert werden.
Durch Intrigen verliert er seine Lehrstele und geht, nachdem er noch mit Hugo eine Recyclingfirma gegründet hat aus Enttäuschung über seine erfolglosen Versuche anerkannt zu werden in den Krieg.
Kenneth Bonert hat mich mit seiner Schilderung über das Leben eingewanderter Juden und da speziell Isaacs Familie völlig überzeugt.
Er nimmt kein Blatt vor den Mund, schildert alles sehr deutlich, manchmal brutal aber so ist das Leben und vor allem das Leben als Außenseiter der Gesellschaft.
Bonert hat mit diesem Buch seinem Großvater, der aus der gleichen kleinen Gemeinde, nämlich Dusat, stammt wie die Helgers, ein Denkmal gesetzt. Wir erfahren die Gräuel, der Pogrome, die auch in Lettland schon vor den Nazis an der Tagesordnung waren aber auch von der Auslöschung der Familien auf grausamste Weise.
Das Buch ist keines, das man an einem Nachmittag am Strand lesen kann oder sollte sondern eines das zum Nachdenken und nachforschen anregt. Der Stil ist nie langweilig, Orts- oder Landschaftsbeschreibungen werden en passant mit eingeflochten, dass man sich die Gegend gut vorstellen kann.
Die Personen sind charakteristisch ob man sie mag oder nicht, man kann sie sich bildlich vorstellen und auch ihr Handeln sehr gut nachvollziehen, wenn auch nicht immer verstehen.
Isaacs Mutter Gitelle ist sehr ehrgeizig und will für ihren Sohn alles erreichen. So verbietet sie ihm Kontakt mit den Einheimischen Schwarzen, denn Weiße haben diese zu verachten um anerkannt zu werden.
Energisch vertreibt sie die in ihren Augen faulen nichtsnutzigen Freunde ihres Mannes, die sich täglich in der Werkstatt auf dem Sofa breit machen und trinken.
Isaac kommt mehr schlecht als recht durch die Schulzeit, muss mehrmals wechseln da er sich nicht anpasst und landet nach ein paar Ausflügen in die fliegende Händlerszene von Hugo Bleznik in einer Werkstatt als Karrosseriebauerlehrling.
Issac muss immer wieder Rückschläge hinnehmen, da auch in Südafrika und mit aufkommen des Nationalsozialismus verstärkt die Juden diskriminiert werden.
Durch Intrigen verliert er seine Lehrstele und geht, nachdem er noch mit Hugo eine Recyclingfirma gegründet hat aus Enttäuschung über seine erfolglosen Versuche anerkannt zu werden in den Krieg.
Kenneth Bonert hat mich mit seiner Schilderung über das Leben eingewanderter Juden und da speziell Isaacs Familie völlig überzeugt.
Er nimmt kein Blatt vor den Mund, schildert alles sehr deutlich, manchmal brutal aber so ist das Leben und vor allem das Leben als Außenseiter der Gesellschaft.
Bonert hat mit diesem Buch seinem Großvater, der aus der gleichen kleinen Gemeinde, nämlich Dusat, stammt wie die Helgers, ein Denkmal gesetzt. Wir erfahren die Gräuel, der Pogrome, die auch in Lettland schon vor den Nazis an der Tagesordnung waren aber auch von der Auslöschung der Familien auf grausamste Weise.
Das Buch ist keines, das man an einem Nachmittag am Strand lesen kann oder sollte sondern eines das zum Nachdenken und nachforschen anregt. Der Stil ist nie langweilig, Orts- oder Landschaftsbeschreibungen werden en passant mit eingeflochten, dass man sich die Gegend gut vorstellen kann.
Die Personen sind charakteristisch ob man sie mag oder nicht, man kann sie sich bildlich vorstellen und auch ihr Handeln sehr gut nachvollziehen, wenn auch nicht immer verstehen.
February 5, 2013
This is from an ARC sent to me by the publisher.
It's amazing how many stories there still are from the time of World War II - so many different angles and perspectives, so many lives affected, all over the world. And how relevant and searing these stories still are today.
This one is about a young Jewish boy living in Johannesburg after emigrating there with his family from Lithuania. At a time when Jewish people the world over are about to be persecuted on the grandest scale, life for them in Johannesburg is low - but of course they are still not the lowest of society. Isaac Helger as a child mixes easily with other children in the streets, until his mother realizes and quickly puts an end to those early friendships. With little education and plenty of naivete, Isaac blindly fumbles his way into young adulthood, unable to figure out why he continually runs into brick walls. His mother wants one thing for him and his father another, and he is caught in the middle, unsure of his own path. Of course, he makes many mistakes along the way, and in the dramatic climate of the time and place, these mistakes are much more significant and dire than they perhaps would be otherwise.
Bonert crafts an incredible story. He brilliantly captures the dramatic beauty of the South African landscape juxtaposed with the seething heartbeat of city life. He seamlessly blends the vernacular and nuanced cadences of all the people we meet in his Johannesburg streets and beyond - Hebrew and Lithuanian Jewish, mixed in with Colonial English, Afrikaans and Black. The cast of characters is as vast and varied and enriching as the setting. And the story moves at a breathless, heartstopping pace - coming in at well over 500 pages, it reads as quickly as something half that size.
In the bottomless well of stories of one particular time in history, this one stands out as it grabs you by the heart right from the beginning and does not let go right to the very end. Stunningly rich and powerful.
It's amazing how many stories there still are from the time of World War II - so many different angles and perspectives, so many lives affected, all over the world. And how relevant and searing these stories still are today.
This one is about a young Jewish boy living in Johannesburg after emigrating there with his family from Lithuania. At a time when Jewish people the world over are about to be persecuted on the grandest scale, life for them in Johannesburg is low - but of course they are still not the lowest of society. Isaac Helger as a child mixes easily with other children in the streets, until his mother realizes and quickly puts an end to those early friendships. With little education and plenty of naivete, Isaac blindly fumbles his way into young adulthood, unable to figure out why he continually runs into brick walls. His mother wants one thing for him and his father another, and he is caught in the middle, unsure of his own path. Of course, he makes many mistakes along the way, and in the dramatic climate of the time and place, these mistakes are much more significant and dire than they perhaps would be otherwise.
Bonert crafts an incredible story. He brilliantly captures the dramatic beauty of the South African landscape juxtaposed with the seething heartbeat of city life. He seamlessly blends the vernacular and nuanced cadences of all the people we meet in his Johannesburg streets and beyond - Hebrew and Lithuanian Jewish, mixed in with Colonial English, Afrikaans and Black. The cast of characters is as vast and varied and enriching as the setting. And the story moves at a breathless, heartstopping pace - coming in at well over 500 pages, it reads as quickly as something half that size.
In the bottomless well of stories of one particular time in history, this one stands out as it grabs you by the heart right from the beginning and does not let go right to the very end. Stunningly rich and powerful.
July 4, 2016
Read my review on New York Journal of Books first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.
Jewish books: The Lion Seeker portrays South Africa's Jewish community
South African born and raised Jewish-Canadian writer Kenneth Bonert's debut novel The Lion Seeker, which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing today, is both a coming of age and an immigration story. In my New York Journal of Books review I write: "Most of Kenneth Bonert’s suspenseful, entertaining, and thought provoking epic debut novel—which follows the Helger family from turn of the century violent pogroms in Lithuania to immigration to South Africa in the early 1920s—focuses on Isaac’s adolescence and young adulthood in 1930s and 40s Johannesburg."
In that review I also describe Isaac as a "not always an admirable or even likable fellow." Imagine Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz set in the racially charged atmosphere of 1930s Johannesburg instead of 1950s Montreal, though analogies with other novels apply only in part.
In part because of Isaac's and other Jewish characters' moral complexity, in my NYJB review I recommend the book "to Jewish and philo-Semitic readers who enjoy family sagas, coming of age tales, long epic novels, and learning about a Jewish community with whom they might not be well acquainted." Anti-Semitic readers might see the characters' ethical shortcomings as confirmation of anti-Jewish stereotypes, but if writers worried about that their characters would not be as fully developed as those in The Lion Seeker. For a fuller discussion of the novel see my NYJB review.
Jewish books: The Lion Seeker portrays South Africa's Jewish community
South African born and raised Jewish-Canadian writer Kenneth Bonert's debut novel The Lion Seeker, which Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is publishing today, is both a coming of age and an immigration story. In my New York Journal of Books review I write: "Most of Kenneth Bonert’s suspenseful, entertaining, and thought provoking epic debut novel—which follows the Helger family from turn of the century violent pogroms in Lithuania to immigration to South Africa in the early 1920s—focuses on Isaac’s adolescence and young adulthood in 1930s and 40s Johannesburg."
In that review I also describe Isaac as a "not always an admirable or even likable fellow." Imagine Mordecai Richler's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz set in the racially charged atmosphere of 1930s Johannesburg instead of 1950s Montreal, though analogies with other novels apply only in part.
In part because of Isaac's and other Jewish characters' moral complexity, in my NYJB review I recommend the book "to Jewish and philo-Semitic readers who enjoy family sagas, coming of age tales, long epic novels, and learning about a Jewish community with whom they might not be well acquainted." Anti-Semitic readers might see the characters' ethical shortcomings as confirmation of anti-Jewish stereotypes, but if writers worried about that their characters would not be as fully developed as those in The Lion Seeker. For a fuller discussion of the novel see my NYJB review.
February 21, 2015
This is a first novel and it is one of the most, perhaps the most, wildly ambitious piece of fiction I have ever read. It's deep. It's about good and evil and sin and forgiveness in such a deep and honest way. The main character is deeply flawed and yet I loved him. That fact alone gave the whole work a tenderness, vulnerability, questioning, genuineness and humanity. But it was a tough gritty book as well. I haven't read a book in a long time that had me on the edge of my chair and that I simply could not put down. Plus it's profoundly interesting historically. It's the story of a Lithuanian Jewish family who leave Lithuania prior to World War I and go to Johannesburg. If you think about it, our view point now is very post Holocaust and in my case Western and also USer. The characters in this book have a very different view point. It's also interesting to see the relationship between whites, Jews, and blacks--nuanced and compassionate. I can't recommend this highly enough. I wish I could congratulate the author in person. I put this book up there with The Sound and the Fury, Light in August, and the Poisonwood Bible. It's that caliber.
December 15, 2013
Not sure if this book is for everyone but I totally enjoyed it. It is the European Jewish immigrant's story but this one is S Africa which might not be as know to Americans. I particularly enjoyed the use of Yiddish which was well translated.
It is a powerful book about love, family, sin and forgiveness.
It is a powerful book about love, family, sin and forgiveness.
July 25, 2022
South Africans were once legally divided into so many categories. One unofficial category that many of us in the US don't often think of is South African Jews. This book tells the story of Isaac Helger, a working-class Jewish man before, during, and after World War II whose main aspiration is to be a mechanic or an engineer.
His father is an artisan who loves his work. His wife, Isaac's mother, longs for a house in a more middle-class neighborhood and pushes Isaac to aspire to that. She also begins to worry about her sisters in Lithuania.
Isaac gets a job in a large auto repair shop where he is the only Jew, and is viewed skeptically. He loves his work.
His mother's goal shifts to bringing her sisters to South Africa, though the South African government has decreed that it doesn't want any more Jews.
Isaac's story plays out in the midst of South Africa's racism and increasingly visible anti-Semitism. Isaac respects some Black Africans as workers but thinks of them as different. He becomes obsessed with a young, gentile woman from a wealthy family.
The story is powerful and complicated.
His father is an artisan who loves his work. His wife, Isaac's mother, longs for a house in a more middle-class neighborhood and pushes Isaac to aspire to that. She also begins to worry about her sisters in Lithuania.
Isaac gets a job in a large auto repair shop where he is the only Jew, and is viewed skeptically. He loves his work.
His mother's goal shifts to bringing her sisters to South Africa, though the South African government has decreed that it doesn't want any more Jews.
Isaac's story plays out in the midst of South Africa's racism and increasingly visible anti-Semitism. Isaac respects some Black Africans as workers but thinks of them as different. He becomes obsessed with a young, gentile woman from a wealthy family.
The story is powerful and complicated.
August 18, 2015
Occasionally lyrical, often gritty, this is a big, angry story about a tough, resourceful young man growing up in a chaotic world populated by deeply damaged refugees, abused native tribesmen, crafty charlatans, brutal Nazi-influenced bullies and roughnecks of all kinds. What fascinating characters Bonert is able to portray and how complex, real and deeply human they are, with all their foibles, contradictions, self-delusions!
Plagued by misfortune and betrayal, Isaac pursues desperate dreams of personal success far beyond his reach -- a Don Quixote tilting at windmills while having no illusions that they are anything other than windmills, and knowing full well that they will knock him down.
A totally absorbing story; yet I have a few quibbles:
Dialogue made up of a mixture of Afrikaans, Yiddish, Zulu and English, much of it semi-literate to the point of gibberish, all without a single quotation mark to separate speech from narrative will certainly present a challenge to most readers. A bit of familiarity with the expressions and cadence of Yiddish was helpful, but on the whole, Bonert's style often made for hard going even though it was very effective in immersing the reader into the milieu, as was clearly his intent.
I also got the feeling that toward the end, Bonert began to realize that the book was getting too long and he began to lose interest in details and tried to speed things up, skipping over large time sequences to bring the story to a conclusion. After all the tempestuousness that characterized most of the story, the quiet, rather sad ending struck me as anticlimactic.
Despite all of that, highly recommended.
Plagued by misfortune and betrayal, Isaac pursues desperate dreams of personal success far beyond his reach -- a Don Quixote tilting at windmills while having no illusions that they are anything other than windmills, and knowing full well that they will knock him down.
A totally absorbing story; yet I have a few quibbles:
Dialogue made up of a mixture of Afrikaans, Yiddish, Zulu and English, much of it semi-literate to the point of gibberish, all without a single quotation mark to separate speech from narrative will certainly present a challenge to most readers. A bit of familiarity with the expressions and cadence of Yiddish was helpful, but on the whole, Bonert's style often made for hard going even though it was very effective in immersing the reader into the milieu, as was clearly his intent.
I also got the feeling that toward the end, Bonert began to realize that the book was getting too long and he began to lose interest in details and tried to speed things up, skipping over large time sequences to bring the story to a conclusion. After all the tempestuousness that characterized most of the story, the quiet, rather sad ending struck me as anticlimactic.
Despite all of that, highly recommended.
October 25, 2016
I rated "The Lion Seeker" with four stars but would have preferred 3 1/2 because I often didn't care for Bonert's dark graphic details. The novel gave me an idea of South Africa's prejudice against Jews and its involvement in WWII. I knew of the racial and power divide of SF's Whites and the Blacks, but I had no idea beforehand of the tension over religion in SF and the Nazi loving Greyshirts who bullied and mistreated Jews. Additionally, the author sheds light on Lithuania's lessons of the past and weaves it into the characters' motivations.
This is a coming-of-age story of our protagonist Isaac Helger, the red-headed son of Lithuanian parents who are settled in Johannesburg. Each of the characters (Gitelle, Abel, Rively, Hugo, Avrom) is seeking a better life and to advance in society; each must endure against the "twist" and the powers of bullies like Oberholzer. Isaac's mother's dream of having a beautiful house is motivation for Isaac's schemes to make money and to learn a trade. Likewise, Aroma's advice of "be a lion or be a mare" plays into Isaac's decisions and actions. I hurt when Isaac hurt, whether it was from his relationship with Yvonne, falling for Hugo's "business sense" or his interaction with other characters.
This is a coming-of-age story of our protagonist Isaac Helger, the red-headed son of Lithuanian parents who are settled in Johannesburg. Each of the characters (Gitelle, Abel, Rively, Hugo, Avrom) is seeking a better life and to advance in society; each must endure against the "twist" and the powers of bullies like Oberholzer. Isaac's mother's dream of having a beautiful house is motivation for Isaac's schemes to make money and to learn a trade. Likewise, Aroma's advice of "be a lion or be a mare" plays into Isaac's decisions and actions. I hurt when Isaac hurt, whether it was from his relationship with Yvonne, falling for Hugo's "business sense" or his interaction with other characters.
October 15, 2014
Even though I thought this novel was too long (561-pages); it was a page-turner for me. The Lion Seeker is both a coming-of-age novel and an emigrant saga set in Jewish Johannesburg between the two world wars. The protagonist, Isaac Hegler, is the son of a working-class Lithuanian Jewish family. He is a rough redheaded boy fueled by a shameless audacity. Isaac cheats and claws he way out of poverty urged on by his demanding mother. Isaac is not a pleasant character, but you feel empathy and horror when Isaac encounters anti-Semitism that makes your blood run cold. This novel is Bonert’s first. He captivated me with his skillful, vivid, and energetic prose. While not perfect, this novel is a strong debut.
January 18, 2019
I read this in preparation for a trip to South Africa-- to get a feel for the history of at least some of the Jewish community there. I found it to be very engrossing. It's about a family that moved to South Africa in the early 1900s from Lithuania, where their town had experienced a brutal pogram. They left with the hope that the rest of the family would eventually follow-and promises that they would find money to send for them. When they arrived, they hoped to live as equals in society and to prosper. None of their hopes were so easy to attain. Interesting characters.
May 21, 2014
Well..now I feel empty.
To think that this world..the humans of this planet..continue the atrocities year after year..decade after decade.
What things the human being is capable of is the scariest and most overwhelmingly frightening of all the animal kingdom.
I do have family from Lithuania..will I pass this book to my daughters to read?..YES yes yes. Though it is a 'story'..the realities are still there.
Thank you Kenneth Bonert.
To think that this world..the humans of this planet..continue the atrocities year after year..decade after decade.
What things the human being is capable of is the scariest and most overwhelmingly frightening of all the animal kingdom.
I do have family from Lithuania..will I pass this book to my daughters to read?..YES yes yes. Though it is a 'story'..the realities are still there.
Thank you Kenneth Bonert.
March 19, 2013
Wow. WOW. Epic. The language will blow you away, of a time and a place you've never been to, but trust me, you want to go to. It's brutal. It will tear you up. But now that I'm done I miss it. I want to go back and I'm sad that I'll never again get to have a first time there. So if you read this (and you should, now, please), savor it.
August 1, 2020
This is a beautifully written book. It reminds me of Cutting for Stone (Abraham Verghese) and The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitiz (Mordecai Richler). A man’s role in history: are we our own person or is our person shaped by those before us?
October 20, 2013
I have to sit on this one for a bit before I can clearly give my thoughts. The evil that human kind can produce and participate in is saddening.
May 1, 2018
Kenneth Bonert's new novel, "The Lion Seeker", will garner Amazon reviews that'll run the gamut between 5 star and 1 star. And all the reviewers will have the right reasons for either being repelled by the book, or as in my case, finding it brilliantly written.
"The Lion Seeker" tells the story of the Jewish Helger family - parents and two children - who were fortunate to flee from Lithuania in the 1920's to South Africa. The father - Abel - had emigrated first and then sent for his wife - Gitelle - and his children, Rively and Isaac. Their village in Lithuania - Dusat - had been the scene of many pogroms and Gitelle had been seriously injured in one in the early 1900's. Gitelle, or "Mame" as her children called her, was able to get plastic surgery on her damaged face, enabling her to discard the veil she had worn since she had been badly injured.
Bonert makes Isaac Helger the main character in the book, but around him revolve a large cast of secondary characters. Life in Johannesburg in the 1930's and 1940's for Jewish immigrants was hard; getting a start in business and making a life for themselves in the repressive society of South Africa was often very difficult. But at least the Jews of South Africa were considered "white" and were much better off than the "colored" and the "blacks" in society. Bonert makes no bones about the disadvantaged "blacks"; often condemned to life-long poverty, living in their own bleak "sections". But if the blacks are at the bottom of society, then the English and Dutch who have gotten wealthy off the work of others, rest at the top. Their coin has made their lives - hidden away behind gates in large houses in well-protected enclaves - one of ease and acceptance. In Bonert's only example of cliched writing, he gives Isaac - the young, poor Jewish man - a hopeless romance with Yvonne - the young Protestant well-born woman. Pu-leeze...
But the rest of the book is free from cliched plots and characters. Isaac, the poor boy-on-the-make, is helped along in his money-making schemes by his mother. She is desperate to bring her five younger sisters and their families from Lithuania to safety in South Africa as the 1930's and the increasing scare from Nazi Germany turns into the Holocaust in Europe in the '40's and millions are murdered. As Isaac makes his way in the world of Johannesburg, Mame asks him, "are you a stupid or a clever?" Clearly, being a "clever" is the way to be. And IS Isaac a "clever"? Mostly...
Kenneth Bonert's book is very violent. But the story he tells of a young man - and his family - making their way in the relative safety of South Africa, has violent aspects that cannot be colored or made pretty. And life in a Lithuanian village in the 1900's and later is also wracked by the physical destruction that we can barely stand reading about. But along with violence, the story is also about love and betrayal. Often "love" and "betrayal" are hopelessly intertwined as Isaac grows up.
"The Lion Seeker" is not for the faint-of-heart. Make sure you read all the reviews before buying this book. It's long and some reviewers have commented on the dialect being difficult to follow - I didn't find it so - and the lack of "quotation marks" for the dialog. Again, I felt it was marked well enough to read and wasn't troubled by the "dashes" which indicated the dialog. I thought it was a brilliant masterpiece of a young man and his troubled world.
"The Lion Seeker" tells the story of the Jewish Helger family - parents and two children - who were fortunate to flee from Lithuania in the 1920's to South Africa. The father - Abel - had emigrated first and then sent for his wife - Gitelle - and his children, Rively and Isaac. Their village in Lithuania - Dusat - had been the scene of many pogroms and Gitelle had been seriously injured in one in the early 1900's. Gitelle, or "Mame" as her children called her, was able to get plastic surgery on her damaged face, enabling her to discard the veil she had worn since she had been badly injured.
Bonert makes Isaac Helger the main character in the book, but around him revolve a large cast of secondary characters. Life in Johannesburg in the 1930's and 1940's for Jewish immigrants was hard; getting a start in business and making a life for themselves in the repressive society of South Africa was often very difficult. But at least the Jews of South Africa were considered "white" and were much better off than the "colored" and the "blacks" in society. Bonert makes no bones about the disadvantaged "blacks"; often condemned to life-long poverty, living in their own bleak "sections". But if the blacks are at the bottom of society, then the English and Dutch who have gotten wealthy off the work of others, rest at the top. Their coin has made their lives - hidden away behind gates in large houses in well-protected enclaves - one of ease and acceptance. In Bonert's only example of cliched writing, he gives Isaac - the young, poor Jewish man - a hopeless romance with Yvonne - the young Protestant well-born woman. Pu-leeze...
But the rest of the book is free from cliched plots and characters. Isaac, the poor boy-on-the-make, is helped along in his money-making schemes by his mother. She is desperate to bring her five younger sisters and their families from Lithuania to safety in South Africa as the 1930's and the increasing scare from Nazi Germany turns into the Holocaust in Europe in the '40's and millions are murdered. As Isaac makes his way in the world of Johannesburg, Mame asks him, "are you a stupid or a clever?" Clearly, being a "clever" is the way to be. And IS Isaac a "clever"? Mostly...
Kenneth Bonert's book is very violent. But the story he tells of a young man - and his family - making their way in the relative safety of South Africa, has violent aspects that cannot be colored or made pretty. And life in a Lithuanian village in the 1900's and later is also wracked by the physical destruction that we can barely stand reading about. But along with violence, the story is also about love and betrayal. Often "love" and "betrayal" are hopelessly intertwined as Isaac grows up.
"The Lion Seeker" is not for the faint-of-heart. Make sure you read all the reviews before buying this book. It's long and some reviewers have commented on the dialect being difficult to follow - I didn't find it so - and the lack of "quotation marks" for the dialog. Again, I felt it was marked well enough to read and wasn't troubled by the "dashes" which indicated the dialog. I thought it was a brilliant masterpiece of a young man and his troubled world.
February 28, 2024
I started out not wanting to review this book. It was painful to read, and it took me forever to get through it. Then weeks later, I realized the book was still haunting me and that I really needed to review it.
The Lion Seeker is a Jewish family saga in which Isaac Helger, the son of Lithuanian Jews who immigrated to South Africa before World War II when pogroms begin in Lithuania. They settle in a working class neighborhood near African slums. Isaac’s mother has ambitions for her son and hopes he can leave the poverty his family has endured behind, to have a better life, and to help bring her family from Lithuania. He’s more interested in running around his neighborhood, a young delinquent. He wants to do well, but like many young men, doesn’t have patience or the ability to think fully on his actions before he leaps into them. He first works moving furniture, and that job takes him into the suburbs and his first love with a Gentile girl. His next foray is working in a garage where he is undermined by a gray shirt, the Afrikaner version of a Fascist. Finally, he works with Hugo Bleznick, the quintessential con man.
His mother holds several secrets: the cause of the cut in the corner of her mouth that keeps her from speaking well and causes her to drool and the full extent of damage to her family during the pogroms. When she withholds this knowledge from her son, she sets into motion the ultimate tragedy of this book.
The Lion Seeker is a Jewish family saga in which Isaac Helger, the son of Lithuanian Jews who immigrated to South Africa before World War II when pogroms begin in Lithuania. They settle in a working class neighborhood near African slums. Isaac’s mother has ambitions for her son and hopes he can leave the poverty his family has endured behind, to have a better life, and to help bring her family from Lithuania. He’s more interested in running around his neighborhood, a young delinquent. He wants to do well, but like many young men, doesn’t have patience or the ability to think fully on his actions before he leaps into them. He first works moving furniture, and that job takes him into the suburbs and his first love with a Gentile girl. His next foray is working in a garage where he is undermined by a gray shirt, the Afrikaner version of a Fascist. Finally, he works with Hugo Bleznick, the quintessential con man.
His mother holds several secrets: the cause of the cut in the corner of her mouth that keeps her from speaking well and causes her to drool and the full extent of damage to her family during the pogroms. When she withholds this knowledge from her son, she sets into motion the ultimate tragedy of this book.
April 14, 2018
Bonert’s GG finalist novel, The Lion Seeker, was compelling right to the end. His ambitious protagonist of the title, while neither all that clever or nor all that likeable, was nevertheless very interesting, grappling with abuse and racism that of course is nightly news now as much as it has been since we evolved. The violence is stomach-turning, but no one is going to say the Holocaust or pre-Apartheid SA deserves a kinder, gentler filter. Stories once upon a time used to fall into patterns (a la Frye): one person seeks another and after a book-full of frustration finally achieves some kind of union, a heroic person overcomes a lot of evil to solve some sort of problem, person or persons simply flounder and accomplish nothing in end, or a person makes some big mistakes, harms others, and is severely punished, often killed. That last one was where I thought we were going. Or. Gitelle was going to emerge as the hero. Alas, if it fits any pattern at all, irony prevails; not much, compared to the devastation caused, is accomplished by Issac. Or. The whole book is really more of a memoire or a tribute. Those aren’t necessarily bad things, of course, but the writing was worthy of Fiction.
November 12, 2019
Tough stuff. Not easy reading, not because of style and flow in the story - that is outstanding, but because of the difficult stories it tells. Not just the history of the Jews in Dusat (Dusetos) in Lithuania, but also their story in the SA Union. It's a tough story for a young Jew, who doesn't go the usual route through school and academics, but leaves prematurely i.e. is expelled from school and enters the rough world of mechanics and panel beaters. Isaac gets to know roughnecks, crooks, turncoats and just plain losers. They fight him fairly and not so fairly. They hurt and get at him again and again - until he finally lands up in the 2WW and ends up in a SS prison camp. It's a miracle that he survives, but his mother never gives up on him - until the very end. He seems so close to achieving his high goals before all crumbles and falls apart. It's a tough story - no question. Some casualties are never to be restored - rehabilitated. It's an ongoing burden - and the Jewish faith in the God of the OT as is vocalized in the Psalms cries out the lament. It's a tough story, but definitely another piece of the South African puzzle - well worth reading and definitely recommendable highest accolades. Strong stuff!
July 19, 2023
Viele jüdische Familienromane scheinen sich hauptsächlich mit dem persönlichen Elend zu beschäftigen, 'Der Löwensucher' bildet hier keine Ausnahme.
Wir begleiten in diesem Buch den Protagonisten nicht nur beim verzweifelten Versuch, zu beruflichem Erfolg zu kommen, sondern auch mit einem schrecklichen Familiengeheimnis. Wirklich sympathisch ist niemand in diesem Buch, das Südafrika vor dem zweiten Weltkrieg ein gespaltener, trostloser Ort und über einen sehr langen Zeitraum weiß man nicht, in welche Richtung sich das Buch und die Charaktere entwickeln. Es ist ein deprimierendes Buch, an dessen Schreibstil man sich erst gewöhnen muss, und wer sich unwohl fühlt mit detaillierten Gewaltbeschreibungen, ist hier fehl am Platz.
Spaß macht dieses Buch nicht, trotzdem konnte ich es nur schwer aus der Hand legen und das Ende der Geschichte stimmt ein wenig versöhnlicher. Trotzdem ist das hier schwere Kost und dieser über alle Seiten anhaltende Trübsinn und Frust lassen keine rechte Freude aufkommen.
Wir begleiten in diesem Buch den Protagonisten nicht nur beim verzweifelten Versuch, zu beruflichem Erfolg zu kommen, sondern auch mit einem schrecklichen Familiengeheimnis. Wirklich sympathisch ist niemand in diesem Buch, das Südafrika vor dem zweiten Weltkrieg ein gespaltener, trostloser Ort und über einen sehr langen Zeitraum weiß man nicht, in welche Richtung sich das Buch und die Charaktere entwickeln. Es ist ein deprimierendes Buch, an dessen Schreibstil man sich erst gewöhnen muss, und wer sich unwohl fühlt mit detaillierten Gewaltbeschreibungen, ist hier fehl am Platz.
Spaß macht dieses Buch nicht, trotzdem konnte ich es nur schwer aus der Hand legen und das Ende der Geschichte stimmt ein wenig versöhnlicher. Trotzdem ist das hier schwere Kost und dieser über alle Seiten anhaltende Trübsinn und Frust lassen keine rechte Freude aufkommen.
April 24, 2018
This is a beautiful but heart-wrenching book about a Lithuanian family that immigrates to South Africa, fleeing the violence of the pogroms. They arrive in a world where Jews are grouped with whites, ahead of the coloreds and of course the blacks in South Africa's racial hierarchy. But as the situation in Europe worsens at the outset of World War II, anti-semitism lives in South Africa as well, our protagonist, Isaac, a young boy at the time they immigrate who tries to make his way in an unraveling South Africa, is faced with life and death decisions that will haunt him forever and also change the course of his family's life. This is a very well-realized coming of age story that is combined with the heartbreaking background of the Holocaust and the racial tensions of early 20th century South Africa.
Highly recommended!
Highly recommended!
April 15, 2021
I would love to say that even though this book was difficult to read, it had a great story and makes the reward worth the effort. Unfortunately, I cannot say that. I will always give a book 100 pages to set the story and draw me in. I read 114 pages in this book and could not go any further. Other reviewers have written about how difficult this book is to read, and I agree with them. I don't mind so much when an author throws in other languages from time to time. This book seems to be written in about 4 different ones. It doesn't help that the typeset does not include quotation marks. You're just reading a sentence and all of a sudden random letters appear. I swear I thought I was having a stroke. Nope, just Yiddish, Zulu, pidgin, or a combination of all three.
I really wanted to like this book.
I really wanted to like this book.
September 5, 2024
This is the story of Isaac Helger, a young jewish boy who immigrated to Africa from Lithuana just before the outbreak of World War II. We meet Isaac as a young boy and go with him to young adulthood. The ups and downs of growing up in one country while your parents remember another one.
This book took me forever to finish. Not because of the length, I have read books twice as long in half the time. The story is powerful and I would put it down for a day or two before I could pick it back up again. I would get so frustrated with different characters and the things they did. As you read on, you realize the characters themselves were very much away of their own errors, but also realized they were human. The ended was both sad and happy. Bad things happen, life goes on.
This book took me forever to finish. Not because of the length, I have read books twice as long in half the time. The story is powerful and I would put it down for a day or two before I could pick it back up again. I would get so frustrated with different characters and the things they did. As you read on, you realize the characters themselves were very much away of their own errors, but also realized they were human. The ended was both sad and happy. Bad things happen, life goes on.
May 31, 2017
More accurately, I would give it 3.5 starts. It was hard to get into at first because of the different dialects used in the book. There also some stages of time that didn't weave together well. I felt that his father's character could have been a little more developed as well as his sisters. However at some point I just about forgot those idiosyncrasies of time, place and dialects and enjoyed the story of Isaac, his plight as a Jew in South Africa, and the evolution of the nation of South Africa and its' people.
June 2, 2019
Very hard to read
I kept hoping for something good in this book, but the protagonist is so flawed, and he tries to do the right thing but can’t get past himself and the place that he is in. This is a part of Jewish history that I was completely unfamiliar with, so I learned some things, and the detail in the story is amazig, but ultimately I am not sure if I am glad that I read it. It is horrifying and engaging all at once. You love the protagonist, with his flaws, but you want to throttle him at the same time.
I kept hoping for something good in this book, but the protagonist is so flawed, and he tries to do the right thing but can’t get past himself and the place that he is in. This is a part of Jewish history that I was completely unfamiliar with, so I learned some things, and the detail in the story is amazig, but ultimately I am not sure if I am glad that I read it. It is horrifying and engaging all at once. You love the protagonist, with his flaws, but you want to throttle him at the same time.
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