לילות קיץ ארוכים

by Aharon Appelfeld, אהרון אפלפלד

יאנק וסבא סרגיי הם גיבורי לילות קיץ ארוכים, הרומן החדש של אהרן אפלפלד. יאנק הוא נער יהודי שאביו הפקיד בידיו של סבא סרגיי בעיצומה של המלחמה. בצעירותו היה סבא סרגיי חייל ומפקד מצטיין ביחידה מובחרת. אחרי השחרור עבד שנים במחסן העצים של האב, גם לאחר שהתעוור. לימים פשט האב את הרגל והמחסן הגדול הולאם. סבא סרגיי יצא לנדוד על פני השדות ומכפר לכפר.
יאנק וסבא סרגיי נודדים ממקום למקום. יאנק מוליך את סבא
סרגיי על פני השדות וביערות, וסבא סרגיי מלמד את יאנק לחיות חיים של משמעות.

Genres: Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2015

About the author

AHARON APPELFELD is the author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including Until the Dawn's Light and The Iron Tracks (both winners of the National Jewish Book Award) and The Story of a Life (winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger). Other honors he has received include the Giovanni Bocaccio Literary Prize, the Nelly Sachs Prize, the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and the MLA Commonwealth Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received honorary degrees from the Jewish Theological Seminary, Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, and Yeshiva University.

Reviews

[Skiboltskie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and poignant.

[Leisy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was full of important thoughts and words of wisdom but it was 200 pages too long. It felt like the sane few pages over and over again.

[Hallie Cantor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lyrical novel about two wanderers, one young the other old, through wartime Eastern Europe. The older one, a former Ukrainian officer -- now blind -- relies on the aid and companionship of the younger, a Jew and son of the officer's former employer. Disguised as a Ukrainian peasant, the boy is forced to flee after his family is rounded up. He learns to stop at the various villages and ask for food. He also trains athletically, under the old man's encouragement. The old man dispenses wisdom and inspiration wherever he goes; like our forefather Abraham, he radiates kindness and inspires others to bless the Al-mighty.

Throughout their journeys, hints of the Holocaust abound. Why the author, a Holocaust survivor, decided to make the protagonist a non-Jew is puzzling. Presumably the old man represents the universal need for kindness -- a trait he ironically acquired through interactions with Jews. Perhaps, given the horrors that are slowly revealed, only a gentile would retain any mercy toward his landsmen, who treated the Jews with extreme brutality.

The plot dragged a little; their peripatetic existence could have been either described more briefly or ended sooner. Nevertheless, the effect is haunting; I wondered what would become of the boy who, at the end, sheds his peasant attire for the more Western look of fellow Jewish survivors and refugees, with whom he has joined up. While uplifted by his mentor, he in turn had sustained the latter spiritually through the bitter years. The ultimate message might be Jacob vs. Esau, both despising yet needing each other and in the end reconciling.