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The North of God
Here in a place dedicated to the manufacture of fear—a place that one ghoul of a Rebbe declared was located to the North of God, where his jurisdicition no longer held sway—Velvl found himself developing a certain resistance.
Through numerous books and stories, Steve Stern has become known for his fantastical (and often wildly comic) stories based on yiddish folklore—Harold Bloom has called him "a throwback to the Yiddish sublime." But with this novella, Stern matches his reverential understanding of that ancient story-telling's power against something he's never written about before: the Holocaust.
The result is a mesmerizing tour-de-force: In a boxcar crammed with Jews headed to a concentration camp, one man attempts to summon up a story vital enough to displace the horror.
The story that comes out is ultimately a swirling, sweeping saga about the stirring obstinacy of the human spirit. And by confronting the ultimate horror with the mythology he has long celebrated, it may also be the crowning achievement of Stern's career.
The Contemporary Art of the Novella series is designed to highlight work by major authors from around the world. In most instances, as with Imre Kertész, it showcases work never before published; in others, books are reprised that should never have gone out of print. It is intended that the series feature many well-known authors and some exciting new discoveries. And as with the original series, The Art of the Novella, each book is a beautifully packaged and inexpensive volume meant to celebrate the form and its practitioners.
Through numerous books and stories, Steve Stern has become known for his fantastical (and often wildly comic) stories based on yiddish folklore—Harold Bloom has called him "a throwback to the Yiddish sublime." But with this novella, Stern matches his reverential understanding of that ancient story-telling's power against something he's never written about before: the Holocaust.
The result is a mesmerizing tour-de-force: In a boxcar crammed with Jews headed to a concentration camp, one man attempts to summon up a story vital enough to displace the horror.
The story that comes out is ultimately a swirling, sweeping saga about the stirring obstinacy of the human spirit. And by confronting the ultimate horror with the mythology he has long celebrated, it may also be the crowning achievement of Stern's career.
The Contemporary Art of the Novella series is designed to highlight work by major authors from around the world. In most instances, as with Imre Kertész, it showcases work never before published; in others, books are reprised that should never have gone out of print. It is intended that the series feature many well-known authors and some exciting new discoveries. And as with the original series, The Art of the Novella, each book is a beautifully packaged and inexpensive volume meant to celebrate the form and its practitioners.
108 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2008
3 people are currently reading
120 people want to read
About the author
Steve Stern
29 books66 followersStern was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1947, the son of a grocer. He left Memphis in the 1960s to attend college, then to travel the US and Europe — living, as he told one interviewer, "the wayward life of my generation for about a decade," and ending on a hippie commune in the Ozarks. He went on to study writing in the graduate program at the University of Arkansas, at a time when it included several notable writers who've since become prominent, including poet C.D. Wright and fiction writers Ellen Gilchrist, Lewis Nordan, Lee K. Abbott and Jack Butler.
Stern subsequently moved to London, England, before returning to Memphis in his thirties to accept a job at a local folklore center. There he learned about the city's old Jewish ghetto, The Pinch, and began to steep himself in Yiddish folklore. He published his first book, the story collection Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter, which was based in The Pinch, in 1983. It won the Pushcart Writers' Choice Award and acclaim from some notable critics, including Susan Sontag, who praised the book's "brio ... whiplash sentences ... energy and charm," and observed that "Steve Stern may be a late practitioner of the genre [Yiddish folklore], but he is an expert one."
By decade's end Stern had won the O. Henry Award, two Pushcart Prize awards, published more collections, including Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven (which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction) and the novel Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground, and was being hailed by critics such as Cynthia Ozick as the successor to Isaac Bashevis Singer. Stern's 2000 collection The Wedding Jester won the National Jewish Book Award, and his novel The Angel of Forgetfulness was named one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post.
Stern, who teaches at Skidmore College, has also won some notable scholarly awards, including fellowships from the Fulbright and the Guggenheim foundations. He currently lives in Ballston Spa, New York, and his latest work, the novel The Frozen Rabbi, was published in 2010.
Stern subsequently moved to London, England, before returning to Memphis in his thirties to accept a job at a local folklore center. There he learned about the city's old Jewish ghetto, The Pinch, and began to steep himself in Yiddish folklore. He published his first book, the story collection Isaac and the Undertaker's Daughter, which was based in The Pinch, in 1983. It won the Pushcart Writers' Choice Award and acclaim from some notable critics, including Susan Sontag, who praised the book's "brio ... whiplash sentences ... energy and charm," and observed that "Steve Stern may be a late practitioner of the genre [Yiddish folklore], but he is an expert one."
By decade's end Stern had won the O. Henry Award, two Pushcart Prize awards, published more collections, including Lazar Malkin Enters Heaven (which won the Edward Lewis Wallant Award for Jewish American Fiction) and the novel Harry Kaplan's Adventures Underground, and was being hailed by critics such as Cynthia Ozick as the successor to Isaac Bashevis Singer. Stern's 2000 collection The Wedding Jester won the National Jewish Book Award, and his novel The Angel of Forgetfulness was named one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post.
Stern, who teaches at Skidmore College, has also won some notable scholarly awards, including fellowships from the Fulbright and the Guggenheim foundations. He currently lives in Ballston Spa, New York, and his latest work, the novel The Frozen Rabbi, was published in 2010.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
May 2, 2009
Yiddish folktale based stories / novels never seem to do me wrong. Magical and depressing, and a great way to spend an hour and half being paid overtime with nothing else to do at work. Thanks Barnes and Noble!!!
May 7, 2022
Strange and Terrible
Terrible in the sense of extremely formidable or intense. When you are north of God you are in a place beyond his sight and bereft the hope of divine intervention. That is as far as I am going to go in what could be a spoiler about Steve Stern’s The North of God. Much of the book is in the form of traditional Yiddish literature. The content can be confusing for any reader and not a likely a choice for family bed time stories. This is one of those books where to say: “I liked it” or “it was great” is insufficient, if not peculiar by the fact that this book will address deeply disturbing facts and difficult situations.
On page one we are introduced to a very: gifted, devout young Tulmudic Scholar, Hershel Khevreman. On the night before he is to be married to a very rich, but otherwise unattractive girl he is magically placed in the thrall of a succubus. This wraith envelopes him in a world of sexuality against which he has no defense and into which he is totally immersed, in one case, literally. If the author is travelling in the literary lead of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stern is making heavy use of both graphic sex and magical realism to a degree Singer never used. Hershel will become a wandering Jew, driven not so much by the usual forces of Eastern European Antisemitism, but by his own inner daemons. However North of God is not really about Hershel.
Hershel Khevreman is the unlikely hero of an increasing unlikely story being told by our narrator. Much of it being made up in the moment. Some parts of this story in a story demand much of the reader, and indeed much of the story exterior to the story is emotional, just as hard to discuss and all tied to the larger purpose of this story and of storytelling itself. I will be reading more by Steve Stern.
Yes, I am being obscure. This is a story I had to finish not because I liked it, or the author’s particular style. I am generally leery of magical realism, but reaching the end of this novella became more important than those more typical considerations.
Terrible in the sense of extremely formidable or intense. When you are north of God you are in a place beyond his sight and bereft the hope of divine intervention. That is as far as I am going to go in what could be a spoiler about Steve Stern’s The North of God. Much of the book is in the form of traditional Yiddish literature. The content can be confusing for any reader and not a likely a choice for family bed time stories. This is one of those books where to say: “I liked it” or “it was great” is insufficient, if not peculiar by the fact that this book will address deeply disturbing facts and difficult situations.
On page one we are introduced to a very: gifted, devout young Tulmudic Scholar, Hershel Khevreman. On the night before he is to be married to a very rich, but otherwise unattractive girl he is magically placed in the thrall of a succubus. This wraith envelopes him in a world of sexuality against which he has no defense and into which he is totally immersed, in one case, literally. If the author is travelling in the literary lead of Isaac Bashevis Singer, Stern is making heavy use of both graphic sex and magical realism to a degree Singer never used. Hershel will become a wandering Jew, driven not so much by the usual forces of Eastern European Antisemitism, but by his own inner daemons. However North of God is not really about Hershel.
Hershel Khevreman is the unlikely hero of an increasing unlikely story being told by our narrator. Much of it being made up in the moment. Some parts of this story in a story demand much of the reader, and indeed much of the story exterior to the story is emotional, just as hard to discuss and all tied to the larger purpose of this story and of storytelling itself. I will be reading more by Steve Stern.
Yes, I am being obscure. This is a story I had to finish not because I liked it, or the author’s particular style. I am generally leery of magical realism, but reaching the end of this novella became more important than those more typical considerations.
November 4, 2011
I started reading this little novella not really knowing what to expect. Melville House, the publisher, sent me this book back in August as part of a prize pack for participating in the Art of the Novella challenge. This is part of their (defunct? I can’t find anything on their website) Contemporary Art of the Novella series. It’s the third one that I’ve read, and all three have made me want to do their authors’ taxes, at least for the year. I remember briefly glancing at the blurb – something about Stern writing fantastical Yiddish based tales – and figured I’d like it. I didn't know it was going to morph into a Holocaust tale. Nothing wrong with that, but I wish I'd had a little warning (so I'm making sure you get one).
And I did like it. The first part was definitely a tale like none I’d read before. A “marriage” to a piece of furniture leads Herschel, a gifted Talmudic scholar, to abandon his studies and his intended bride to immerse himself in the earthly (or other-worldly) pleasures of an insatiable succubus.
The second part took a sickeningly horrific turn, to the area “to the North of God, where his jurisdiction no longer held sway.”
See the complete review on the blog: Wandering in the Stacks.
And I did like it. The first part was definitely a tale like none I’d read before. A “marriage” to a piece of furniture leads Herschel, a gifted Talmudic scholar, to abandon his studies and his intended bride to immerse himself in the earthly (or other-worldly) pleasures of an insatiable succubus.
The second part took a sickeningly horrific turn, to the area “to the North of God, where his jurisdiction no longer held sway.”
See the complete review on the blog: Wandering in the Stacks.
January 13, 2016
This was a weird book. The plot was fantastic but the content was questionable.
This is actually two stories, both of which are connected fables or folktales. The plot of the first revolves around a young man getting seduced by a female sexual demon (in this case, a rusalka,). This story is fantastic and a joy to read. It reads like a classic fairy tale with magic, intrigue, and a sharply written plot. The second story is a man telling the story of the continued like of the man who got seduced by the Rusalka in the first story. This story-within-the-story meanders slightly and does not really ever reach a conclusion of any sort. Supposedly, it is somehow made powerful because he is telling the story to a woman while they share a cramped train car to a concentration camp. Personally, I found the concentration camp sort of unnecessary and it sort of fizzled out by the end.
Now all this is marred by a strange phenomenon that I have actually failed to understand. Stern is supposedly crafting tales in the vein of traditional Yiddish folktales. And this makes me afraid to ever touch Yiddish folktales again. I have never read a book that had more disgusting imagery. We are talking South Park levels (if not worse) of bodily function humor. From graphic ejaculation and blood, to feces, urine, and vomit. Everything made an appearance. A prophet farts on people and sells them feces as food to get money. A man has sex while in an outhouse simultaneously ejaculating and defecating in uproarious pleasure. A play had has a bacchanal of people happily drinking the fake blood of a freshly circumcised paper-mache penis. I REALLY hope this is not classic Yiddish folklore. These stories were great but they were so marred by the frequent times I was simply revolted by the things I was reading about.
It is hard to say if I would read more Steve Stern. His writing has great potential but I am not sure if I can put up with this amount of body humor.
This is actually two stories, both of which are connected fables or folktales. The plot of the first revolves around a young man getting seduced by a female sexual demon (in this case, a rusalka,). This story is fantastic and a joy to read. It reads like a classic fairy tale with magic, intrigue, and a sharply written plot. The second story is a man telling the story of the continued like of the man who got seduced by the Rusalka in the first story. This story-within-the-story meanders slightly and does not really ever reach a conclusion of any sort. Supposedly, it is somehow made powerful because he is telling the story to a woman while they share a cramped train car to a concentration camp. Personally, I found the concentration camp sort of unnecessary and it sort of fizzled out by the end.
Now all this is marred by a strange phenomenon that I have actually failed to understand. Stern is supposedly crafting tales in the vein of traditional Yiddish folktales. And this makes me afraid to ever touch Yiddish folktales again. I have never read a book that had more disgusting imagery. We are talking South Park levels (if not worse) of bodily function humor. From graphic ejaculation and blood, to feces, urine, and vomit. Everything made an appearance. A prophet farts on people and sells them feces as food to get money. A man has sex while in an outhouse simultaneously ejaculating and defecating in uproarious pleasure. A play had has a bacchanal of people happily drinking the fake blood of a freshly circumcised paper-mache penis. I REALLY hope this is not classic Yiddish folklore. These stories were great but they were so marred by the frequent times I was simply revolted by the things I was reading about.
It is hard to say if I would read more Steve Stern. His writing has great potential but I am not sure if I can put up with this amount of body humor.
May 23, 2012
Novella’s are wonderful things, not quite long enough to be deemed a novel and not quite short enough to be a short story. My ideal sort of book. I always find a lot of short stories too short, funnily enough, and when being introduced to a new author I like to get a feel of their writing and short stories don’t allow you to do this. Novella’s do.
Melville House Publishing recentley did a collection of contemporay art novella’s from various authors that included the likes of Leo Tolstoy, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling to name a few. You can purchase the whole collection of these Novella’s on Amazon.
I found this one on it’s own in the second hand section in Waterstones and was intrigued by its brief synopsis. In a box crammed with Jews headed to a concentration camp, one man attempts to summon up enchanting and vital enough to displace the horror.
The novella cuts between the story being told back to the story narrative of the guy telling the story, it’s an odd story with enchanting elements and I guess people take different things from it. For me it opened my eyes, again, to the sadness and horror of the concentration camps. I wasn’t completely blown away by the Novella and not too sure whether it was the style of writing as the story was very charming. I would be interested to check out more of Steve Stern’s work
Melville House Publishing recentley did a collection of contemporay art novella’s from various authors that included the likes of Leo Tolstoy, Robert Louis Stevenson and Rudyard Kipling to name a few. You can purchase the whole collection of these Novella’s on Amazon.
I found this one on it’s own in the second hand section in Waterstones and was intrigued by its brief synopsis. In a box crammed with Jews headed to a concentration camp, one man attempts to summon up enchanting and vital enough to displace the horror.
The novella cuts between the story being told back to the story narrative of the guy telling the story, it’s an odd story with enchanting elements and I guess people take different things from it. For me it opened my eyes, again, to the sadness and horror of the concentration camps. I wasn’t completely blown away by the Novella and not too sure whether it was the style of writing as the story was very charming. I would be interested to check out more of Steve Stern’s work
January 15, 2017
This book was my first (conscious) touch to North American Jewish literature, and I will now be reading five novels in this category as part of a course that I am taking. The book was set in two parts, starting on a lighter basis as a story of a young man's wedding preparations that turn wrong. In teh middle a second, darker storyline beging, when it is revealed that actually the story is told by a man in a cattle car on its way to a concentration camp.
Mixed feeling about th ebook, as I did not appreciate the chosen structure - I have to continue thinking why the book was designed so. The langauge was vivid and enjoyable, but as a non-Jew I had some difficulties in tking in all the Yiddish (?) terms that were regualrly inserted there.
Mixed feeling about th ebook, as I did not appreciate the chosen structure - I have to continue thinking why the book was designed so. The langauge was vivid and enjoyable, but as a non-Jew I had some difficulties in tking in all the Yiddish (?) terms that were regualrly inserted there.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 26, 2014
A weird little novella built out of Yiddish folklore and storytelling, and an impending sense of extermination and doom. Stern has obviously made himself an expert of this world, of shtetl life with its singular blend of sheltered yeshiva pupils, halakhic/talmudic rules and ancient, almost paganistic superstitions of a shockingly involved spirit world. Like other writers about Europe's past, W.G. Sebald and Patrick Leigh Fermor etc, Stern is interested in giving us a small glimpse at the ghosts of a world that has been irrevocably lost.
December 22, 2010
An earthy and fantastical story, told by his schoolmate, of a young prodigy of Talmudic learning who is bereft of his ordained place in life and who sets out on the road like a Jewish Candide, in search of love and meaning. If a she-devil and an ersatz Elijah enter the picture, well, I did say "earthy and fantastical." The story is told, as I said, by a fellow student, decades later, in a cattle-car on the way to a concentration camp, in scenes, if brief, as harrowing as any in literature.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 19, 2008
"A throwback to the Yiddish sublime." -- Harold Bloom
August 27, 2008
A mature work of genius by one of our best writers. Highly recommended.
July 10, 2011
A really cool magical Yiddish story, and a taste of what used to be a rich genre.
May 11, 2012
This book is excellent. You ought to read it without knowing anything about it.
(I want to see a performance of Herschel's plays.)
(I want to see a performance of Herschel's plays.)
February 18, 2015
Lust, love, magic, soul - the storyteller takes on the world and its relentless rules and logic, whether the source be the Talmud or Nazis. Imagination and creativity will set you free.
July 26, 2016
The biggest little story in Auschwitz.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews