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La figlia unica
Siamo in una città del Nord Italia, durante le feste di fine anno a cavallo del millennio. Rachele Luzzatto è la figlia unica di una facoltosa famiglia ebraica. Curiosa e irrequieta, spiazzante osservatrice capace con i suoi commenti di ribaltare i luoghi comuni degli adulti, Rachele è però piuttosto confusa riguardo alla propria identità. Da un lato, per prepararsi alla cerimonia del suo Bat Mitzvah, deve impegnarsi nello studio della lingua ebraica, delle preghiere e dei precetti. Dall'altro, i suoi insegnanti la reputano adatta a interpretare il ruolo della Vergine Maria nella recita di Natale. A Rachele piacerebbe partecipare con i suoi compagni di scuola alla rappresentazione, peccato che il padre la pensi diversamente. Convinto della sua fede e dei suoi principî, il padre di Rachele non può accettare che la ragazzina impersoni proprio «la madre di Dio». Ma le ferme idee del padre non sono le uniche ad affollare (e disorientare) i pensieri di Rachele negli anni cruciali per la sua formazione. Ci sono i racconti, avventurosi e terribili insieme, del nonno paterno, spacciatosi per prete in un paesino di mare, per sopravvivere alle persecuzioni durante la seconda guerra mondiale; le convinzioni della nonna materna, atea dichiarata, o la fervente fede di suo marito, cattolico devoto. Quando poi, in quegli stessi giorni di festa e confusione, viene diagnosticata al padre una grave malattia, le inquietudini e le domande di Rachele diventano gli universali interrogativi di ogni essere umano di fronte al mistero. Con "La figlia unica" Yehoshua ci conduce con brio e freschezza a una protagonista e a un luogo insoliti per la sua produzione letteraria. È la prima volta che il grande scrittore israeliano ambienta una storia in Italia, un paese con cui ha una relazione speciale, e di cui si sente quasi «cittadino onorario». E come sempre, le sue parole sono le chiavi giuste per spalancare le gabbie dell'identità e dell'appartenenza.
168 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2021
38 people are currently reading
3203 people want to read
About the author
A.B. Yehoshua
97 books283 followersAbraham B. Yehoshua (Hebrew: א.ב. יהושע also: אברהם ב. יהושע) is one of Israel's preeminent writers. His novels include A Journey to the End of the Millenium, The Liberated Bride, and A Woman in Jerusalem, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2007.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 139 reviews
July 28, 2022
The tenderness, influence, and strife within the Lazzatto family, and community was genuinely moving. The personal family issues and history between the Jews and non-Jews encapsulated both the promises and perils of humanity.
Rachele Luzzatto is Jewish. She’s the only daughter of a Jewish family in northern Italy. At twelve years of age, preparing for her Bat Mitzvah, is a ‘given’ — but at the moment the Bat Mitzvah is not the only thing pressing on her mind.
She wanted to be in a school play. She got a great leading part — but because the play would be held inside a church (nothing religious about the event), Rachele’s father flatly refused.
At the same time — Rachel learns her father is seriously sick. He has a brain tumor.
The book itself is short — (I suppose it could be classified as a novella) — so I’m being careful not to give many details away….
but Rachele is a spunky-bright-curious-young girl.
She has a full range of interests. She rather be a judge than a lawyer like her father when she grows up — or heck maybe work with fish—or ‘whatever’. She’s twelve — she can change her mind many times.
Rachele’s Jewish grandfather is larger-than-life irresistible and charismatic. He told her story about the way he survived the Holocaust—(he became a Priest), that he was sure his son, Rachel’s dad, did not want her to know.
The story was helpful to Rachel—but also added complexity —as Rachele was grappling with her own religious identity—her desires, loneliness, her father’s morality, her fear, worry, and grief that her father was sick…..
and weighing in values that she learns from her maternal Catholic grandparents —and even a teacher at her school — (who believed she might find solace in a nineteenth-century novel).
“The Only Daughter”, (with its collective colorful supporting characters)….is a novel to admire and adore….for its ‘coming-of-age’ character study of young Rachele Luzzatto.
And now some sad news….news I just learned.
A.B. Yehoshua died last month - in June 2022. He was 85.
He was an outspoken critic for both Israeli and Palestinian policies. He continued to speak out and search of solutions to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
He wrote 12 models, I got to know sure stories, and several plays and volumes of essays. He win prizes worldwide at his work has been translated into 28 languages and adapted for found an opera.
David Grossman, another Israeli author (one of my favorite authors), wrote a beautiful article about HIS FRIEND…. A.B. Yehoshua (Buli) …..
It can be found on LIT HUB
A few things David Grossman said about his friend:
“He was able to show us how ‘grand’ history seeps into the soul of the individual, at times bursting forth from within”.
David wrote when he first met *Buli*.
David was a twenty-something novice writer.
David said….
“His seniority and status were completely irrelevant to the conversation. What are you the wondrous force that moved and attracted us both—the writing, the work, the inspiration”.
By the end of the ‘full’ article — I felt so moved my eyes were watering.
Beautiful LAST book from A.B. Yehoshua…..beautiful man!!!
Rachele Luzzatto is Jewish. She’s the only daughter of a Jewish family in northern Italy. At twelve years of age, preparing for her Bat Mitzvah, is a ‘given’ — but at the moment the Bat Mitzvah is not the only thing pressing on her mind.
She wanted to be in a school play. She got a great leading part — but because the play would be held inside a church (nothing religious about the event), Rachele’s father flatly refused.
At the same time — Rachel learns her father is seriously sick. He has a brain tumor.
The book itself is short — (I suppose it could be classified as a novella) — so I’m being careful not to give many details away….
but Rachele is a spunky-bright-curious-young girl.
She has a full range of interests. She rather be a judge than a lawyer like her father when she grows up — or heck maybe work with fish—or ‘whatever’. She’s twelve — she can change her mind many times.
Rachele’s Jewish grandfather is larger-than-life irresistible and charismatic. He told her story about the way he survived the Holocaust—(he became a Priest), that he was sure his son, Rachel’s dad, did not want her to know.
The story was helpful to Rachel—but also added complexity —as Rachele was grappling with her own religious identity—her desires, loneliness, her father’s morality, her fear, worry, and grief that her father was sick…..
and weighing in values that she learns from her maternal Catholic grandparents —and even a teacher at her school — (who believed she might find solace in a nineteenth-century novel).
“The Only Daughter”, (with its collective colorful supporting characters)….is a novel to admire and adore….for its ‘coming-of-age’ character study of young Rachele Luzzatto.
And now some sad news….news I just learned.
A.B. Yehoshua died last month - in June 2022. He was 85.
He was an outspoken critic for both Israeli and Palestinian policies. He continued to speak out and search of solutions to the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
He wrote 12 models, I got to know sure stories, and several plays and volumes of essays. He win prizes worldwide at his work has been translated into 28 languages and adapted for found an opera.
David Grossman, another Israeli author (one of my favorite authors), wrote a beautiful article about HIS FRIEND…. A.B. Yehoshua (Buli) …..
It can be found on LIT HUB
A few things David Grossman said about his friend:
“He was able to show us how ‘grand’ history seeps into the soul of the individual, at times bursting forth from within”.
David wrote when he first met *Buli*.
David was a twenty-something novice writer.
David said….
“His seniority and status were completely irrelevant to the conversation. What are you the wondrous force that moved and attracted us both—the writing, the work, the inspiration”.
By the end of the ‘full’ article — I felt so moved my eyes were watering.
Beautiful LAST book from A.B. Yehoshua…..beautiful man!!!
June 12, 2023
A perceptive little girl is at the heart of this novel. She sees everything and yet she understands so little. Telling a story from a child's point of view gives an author the chance to blend wisdom and naivité in the narrative voice and it can lead to such powerful outcomes. So few authors get it right, though. Either the child sounds like a wizened tiny old person (Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close) or the voice sounds hopelessly baby-talk-artificial (Room).
The Only Daughter gets it perfectly right. It's the most beautiful rendering of a child's viewpoint, adopted for fictional ends, that I've read since The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.
The Only Daughter gets it perfectly right. It's the most beautiful rendering of a child's viewpoint, adopted for fictional ends, that I've read since The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers.
June 19, 2023
A.B. Yehoshua's The Only Daughter is what I think of as a "stealth read." A good stealth read has two characteristics:
1. The reader understands more than the narrator does due to historical or cultural knowledge.
2. The narrator recounts difficulties that have depths the she herself doesn't recognize.
Our narrator, Rachele Luzzato, is growing up Jewish in post-WWII Italy. Her family is diverse in its approaches to faith, to whether Judaism is a cultural of religious identity, to whether or not there is a G-d, to the extent to which one should be limited by conventional morality. Her paternal grandparents, the Jewish side of the family, were separated during WWII. Her grandfather survived by passing as Catholic. Her grandmother fled to Austria, where she gave birth to Rachele's father.
Rachele's father's is shaped in many ways by a war he is too young to remember, and he can't or won't explain to Rachele why she isn't allowed, for example, to participate in her school's nativity play. Rachele, knows she's Jewish, not Christian, but doesn't understand why this fact would prevent her from taking on a role as part of a dramatic production. Pretending to be someone won't change who she really is.
Rachele's father is also ill with a potentially terminal condition that he refuses to speak of—at least to her.
In a way, Rachele is wise beyond her years: she's asking and attempting to answer questions about identity and faith and mortality that have become lifetime quests for some very remarkable thinkers. She doesn't realize that her questions are remarkable. She just knows that she not being told everything and can't understand why what seems like basic information should be withheld from her.
Because we know more about the history of World War II and Italy's role in it and know more about about processes of illness and death, we understand her dilemma in ways she doesn't. He telling of her story is straight forward, occurring along the timeline of her own life. We see the complex web underlying that apparent simplicity, so we both share Rachele's journey and can see with some clarity what has come before it and what is apt to come after it.
The Only Daughter is an oddly gentle book despite all that it deals with. It's a book that demands readers deal with historical forces, but does this without cruelty. It's a book one can read in a single sitting, but because we both see what Rachele sees and see well beyond her own range of vision, that brief reading will leave lots to mull over afterward. I strongly recommend this title for anyone of a reflective bent. If you ask questions about the why and the how of our world, The Only Daughter will help you understand those questions in a variety of ways.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
1. The reader understands more than the narrator does due to historical or cultural knowledge.
2. The narrator recounts difficulties that have depths the she herself doesn't recognize.
Our narrator, Rachele Luzzato, is growing up Jewish in post-WWII Italy. Her family is diverse in its approaches to faith, to whether Judaism is a cultural of religious identity, to whether or not there is a G-d, to the extent to which one should be limited by conventional morality. Her paternal grandparents, the Jewish side of the family, were separated during WWII. Her grandfather survived by passing as Catholic. Her grandmother fled to Austria, where she gave birth to Rachele's father.
Rachele's father's is shaped in many ways by a war he is too young to remember, and he can't or won't explain to Rachele why she isn't allowed, for example, to participate in her school's nativity play. Rachele, knows she's Jewish, not Christian, but doesn't understand why this fact would prevent her from taking on a role as part of a dramatic production. Pretending to be someone won't change who she really is.
Rachele's father is also ill with a potentially terminal condition that he refuses to speak of—at least to her.
In a way, Rachele is wise beyond her years: she's asking and attempting to answer questions about identity and faith and mortality that have become lifetime quests for some very remarkable thinkers. She doesn't realize that her questions are remarkable. She just knows that she not being told everything and can't understand why what seems like basic information should be withheld from her.
Because we know more about the history of World War II and Italy's role in it and know more about about processes of illness and death, we understand her dilemma in ways she doesn't. He telling of her story is straight forward, occurring along the timeline of her own life. We see the complex web underlying that apparent simplicity, so we both share Rachele's journey and can see with some clarity what has come before it and what is apt to come after it.
The Only Daughter is an oddly gentle book despite all that it deals with. It's a book that demands readers deal with historical forces, but does this without cruelty. It's a book one can read in a single sitting, but because we both see what Rachele sees and see well beyond her own range of vision, that brief reading will leave lots to mull over afterward. I strongly recommend this title for anyone of a reflective bent. If you ask questions about the why and the how of our world, The Only Daughter will help you understand those questions in a variety of ways.
I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via NetGalley; the opinions are my own.
January 2, 2022
Tra 2 e 3 stelle.
Commento di mia madre: “Che brutto come è finito.”
Commento di mia madre: “Che brutto come è finito.”
July 5, 2023
Reviewed in April 2023 and edited today (7-5-2023)
This is a gentle novella featuring a 12 year old girl named Rachele Luzatto. She lives with her parents in northern Italy and is the much loved "only daughter" (and only child). She is doted on not only by her parents, but by her two sets of grandparents. The family is blended religiously. Her maternal grandparents (Nonno and Nonna) are Catholic. Nonna is an atheist and takes part in Catholic traditions. Rachele's paternal grandparents are Jewish - what I would call Reform Jews. Rachele herself is being brought up as a Jewish Italian.
I read a translation of the story. It was written in Hebrew by a well-known Israeli author. For reasons of his own, he chose to write a story centered in Italy. There were some Israeli characters - an Orthodox Rabbi and a veterinarian. The author also included people of other nationalities (ie. Ethiopian and Austrian).
Rachele herself, is lively and precocious. At times, she seemed too young for her 12 years. Rachele is grappling with two different things: making sense of the differing religious views she encounters AND learning that her father has a brain tumor.
The novel's action flows gently. Day to day events in Rachele's life are discussed. It is somewhat of a mish-mash in the way it is written. I did like the discussion of religious views and identities.
Additional: There is one scene where Rachale's grandmother insists upon bathing her, which was way too intimate and wrong. It was jarring and should have been edited out.
This is a gentle novella featuring a 12 year old girl named Rachele Luzatto. She lives with her parents in northern Italy and is the much loved "only daughter" (and only child). She is doted on not only by her parents, but by her two sets of grandparents. The family is blended religiously. Her maternal grandparents (Nonno and Nonna) are Catholic. Nonna is an atheist and takes part in Catholic traditions. Rachele's paternal grandparents are Jewish - what I would call Reform Jews. Rachele herself is being brought up as a Jewish Italian.
I read a translation of the story. It was written in Hebrew by a well-known Israeli author. For reasons of his own, he chose to write a story centered in Italy. There were some Israeli characters - an Orthodox Rabbi and a veterinarian. The author also included people of other nationalities (ie. Ethiopian and Austrian).
Rachele herself, is lively and precocious. At times, she seemed too young for her 12 years. Rachele is grappling with two different things: making sense of the differing religious views she encounters AND learning that her father has a brain tumor.
The novel's action flows gently. Day to day events in Rachele's life are discussed. It is somewhat of a mish-mash in the way it is written. I did like the discussion of religious views and identities.
Additional: There is one scene where Rachale's grandmother insists upon bathing her, which was way too intimate and wrong. It was jarring and should have been edited out.
December 6, 2021
Questo romanzo è il mio primo incontro con Abraham B. Yehoshua e, pare, il suo primo ambientato in Italia. Leggendo la trama pensavo fosse la storia che ricercavo da tempo, quella di un’adolescente ebrea di oggi, la quale vive sulla propria pelle la ricerca di una propria identità in un paese cristiano cattolico, con un padre vigile e severo, preoccupato che la figlia possa perdere il legame con le proprie origini.
Invece no. O forse non del tutto.
La ricerca di una propria identità, insieme alla famiglia, è uno dei temi centrali del romanzo, ma non viene mai sviluppato del tutto. A Rachele, ebrea dodicenne di una cittadina non precisa dell’Italia del Nord, il padre vieta di impersonificare la Madonna in una recita a scuola, ma poi? Ma poi la ragazzina, che parla con un insistente tono da adulta (e che a tratti la fa diventare anche un po’ antipatica, perere mio) si divide le vacanze estive fra la casa dei nonni materni in montagna e quella della nonna materna al mare, persa tra domande vaghe e azioni abituali le quali, nel complesso, dicono poco.
Qual era l’intento dell’autore?
Lo stile semplice, quasi fanciullesco, accompagna una trama che sa di incompiuto e che appunto abbozza tanti temi importanti, senza mai andare a fondo. E’ come uno scheletro a cui manchi un po’ di carne e quindi alla fine non sappiamo bene esprimere un giudizio.
Eppure sento che in questo autore israeliano c’è tanto di buono da esplorare. Mi azzardo dunque ad assegnargli tre stelline e mi riservo di approfondirlo con qualche suo romanzo meno recente e più celebre.
Invece no. O forse non del tutto.
La ricerca di una propria identità, insieme alla famiglia, è uno dei temi centrali del romanzo, ma non viene mai sviluppato del tutto. A Rachele, ebrea dodicenne di una cittadina non precisa dell’Italia del Nord, il padre vieta di impersonificare la Madonna in una recita a scuola, ma poi? Ma poi la ragazzina, che parla con un insistente tono da adulta (e che a tratti la fa diventare anche un po’ antipatica, perere mio) si divide le vacanze estive fra la casa dei nonni materni in montagna e quella della nonna materna al mare, persa tra domande vaghe e azioni abituali le quali, nel complesso, dicono poco.
Qual era l’intento dell’autore?
Lo stile semplice, quasi fanciullesco, accompagna una trama che sa di incompiuto e che appunto abbozza tanti temi importanti, senza mai andare a fondo. E’ come uno scheletro a cui manchi un po’ di carne e quindi alla fine non sappiamo bene esprimere un giudizio.
Eppure sento che in questo autore israeliano c’è tanto di buono da esplorare. Mi azzardo dunque ad assegnargli tre stelline e mi riservo di approfondirlo con qualche suo romanzo meno recente e più celebre.
August 29, 2022
Imagine skating on a frozen lake -- skimming smoothy, effortlessly across the surface, but then noticing that while the ice is reassuringly solid, you can make out shapes in the water below. Some objects are more visible than others, but you definitely can recognize a good deal of what's down there. What's more, you find yourself hyper-aware that there's something deep and important going on beneath the surface.
That's what reading "The Only Daughter" is like. A short book, it skims along the surface telling what appears to be a straightforward story about Rachele, a young girl from a well-to-do part-Jewish/part-Christian family, who lives in Venice. As the book opens, she's been asked to perform the role of the Madonna in the school Christmas play but her father forbids it. ("You already destroyed enough of us Jews," he tells the school principal, "so don't try to steal one of the few left over," Rachele doesn't quite understand why he is so vehement in his objections: the parents of one of the other Jewish girls have no problem with their daughter being in the play ("It's not praying, it's only a play.") From this quiet beginning, everything else follows. There are twists and turns in the plot (such as it is), but mostly they don't draw a lot of attention to themselves... until they do.
From the moment Rachele leaves her school on the last day before the Christmas holiday and steps into the afternoon rain until the final pages, "The Only Daughter" unfolds like a kind of odyssey. She moves around Venice and interacts with numerous people -- teachers (one, who is retiring, is intent that Rachele reread a book called Cuore -- "Heart," but also core, essence, and even beloved -- or is the book something darker?), other students, nuns (Rachele helps them free a lamb from the thick branches of a Christmas tree), grandparents (Jewish and Catholic), her parents (her mother converted to Judaism; her father is seriously ill), the family driver, a young Israeli rabbi who is teaching Rachele and other Jewish girls Hebrew in preparation for their bat mitzvahs, a baker, and others. Levels of history reveal themselves as she walks Venice's streets and travels vaguely familiar roads in the countryside: her Jewish grandfather tells her how he survived the War by successfully pretending to be a priest in a small town near the sea; the words of a central Hebrew prayer suddenly expose uncomfortable fissures from the past and force her to make awkward decisions; a ratty old woolen beret Rachele wears to protect her from rain sparks a brief exchange between her and an abbot who is a client of her lawyer grandfather.
"Where did you find this beret, Signorina?"
"The principal gave it to me today, before I left school, because it started to rain..."
"Interesting." The abbot's blue eyes light up... "During the War, our partisans wore berets exactly like that one."
"The partisans?"
"Yes, and at the monasteries we still keep clothes and belongings of people who hid with us during the World War and never came back to get them."
"The Only Daughter" is the story of Rachele discovering the world as it is and starting to understand how it got this way. Through all this Yehoshua explores such weighty subjects as: the burden of history (especially the history of relations between Jews and Christians), identity, belief, what it means to be a Jew in a Christian country and to have both Christian (albeit atheist) and Jewish grandparents, what it means to be Jewish at all, assimilation and secularization, what leads people to make the decisions they do, classism...
I'm reluctant to go on with this list lest the seriousness of the topics Yehoshua examines make the book seem darker and more ponderous than it is. The book wears its seriousness lightly. Young Rachele's "education" into the world is our education as well, so we see things primarily through her eyes-- love, confusion, complexity. And there is humor throughout. This lengthy excerpt -- a conversation between Rachele and one of her grandmothers -- provides a good example. Rachele's remarks are delivered in the flood of words common to young adolescents and sprinkled through with language she has clearly taken from adults around her but doesn't quite fully understand.
We girls in Hebrew class promised our teacher... that at least untik bat mitzvah we'll keep kosher, and you, Grandma, even though you're a Jew the Germans wanted to kill, will never be able to tell tge difference between kosher and non-kosher, not that it's easy to tell, in taly even in a simple bread rol they sometimes use lard. Pig fat in a bread roll? The Grandma is shocked. Why? So it will taste better, that's what the rabbi said. Grandma laughs. You have an odd rabbi, if he knows the taste of a roll he never ate. No, he's not odd, just curious, and he was sent to Italy because they couldn't find him a bride in Jerusalem. But he's a nice rabbi and not too strict; for example, he doesn't care that Sabrina, who gets Christianized day after day by the nuns of Sacred Heart, is also in our Hebrew class.
(Rachele will later think, "If everyone says I resemble my Jewish Grandma... and not my Nonna who believes in nothing, I'll end up wrinkled like her, even though she was once beautiful.")
I'm not certain whether "The Only Daughter" is Yehoshua's last book (he died in June of this year) or there is another coming posthumously. Last or next-to-last, it is the most accessible of all his books I've read and yet it is marked by his keen intellect and empathy.
My thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweis for providing med with a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
That's what reading "The Only Daughter" is like. A short book, it skims along the surface telling what appears to be a straightforward story about Rachele, a young girl from a well-to-do part-Jewish/part-Christian family, who lives in Venice. As the book opens, she's been asked to perform the role of the Madonna in the school Christmas play but her father forbids it. ("You already destroyed enough of us Jews," he tells the school principal, "so don't try to steal one of the few left over," Rachele doesn't quite understand why he is so vehement in his objections: the parents of one of the other Jewish girls have no problem with their daughter being in the play ("It's not praying, it's only a play.") From this quiet beginning, everything else follows. There are twists and turns in the plot (such as it is), but mostly they don't draw a lot of attention to themselves... until they do.
From the moment Rachele leaves her school on the last day before the Christmas holiday and steps into the afternoon rain until the final pages, "The Only Daughter" unfolds like a kind of odyssey. She moves around Venice and interacts with numerous people -- teachers (one, who is retiring, is intent that Rachele reread a book called Cuore -- "Heart," but also core, essence, and even beloved -- or is the book something darker?), other students, nuns (Rachele helps them free a lamb from the thick branches of a Christmas tree), grandparents (Jewish and Catholic), her parents (her mother converted to Judaism; her father is seriously ill), the family driver, a young Israeli rabbi who is teaching Rachele and other Jewish girls Hebrew in preparation for their bat mitzvahs, a baker, and others. Levels of history reveal themselves as she walks Venice's streets and travels vaguely familiar roads in the countryside: her Jewish grandfather tells her how he survived the War by successfully pretending to be a priest in a small town near the sea; the words of a central Hebrew prayer suddenly expose uncomfortable fissures from the past and force her to make awkward decisions; a ratty old woolen beret Rachele wears to protect her from rain sparks a brief exchange between her and an abbot who is a client of her lawyer grandfather.
"Where did you find this beret, Signorina?"
"The principal gave it to me today, before I left school, because it started to rain..."
"Interesting." The abbot's blue eyes light up... "During the War, our partisans wore berets exactly like that one."
"The partisans?"
"Yes, and at the monasteries we still keep clothes and belongings of people who hid with us during the World War and never came back to get them."
"The Only Daughter" is the story of Rachele discovering the world as it is and starting to understand how it got this way. Through all this Yehoshua explores such weighty subjects as: the burden of history (especially the history of relations between Jews and Christians), identity, belief, what it means to be a Jew in a Christian country and to have both Christian (albeit atheist) and Jewish grandparents, what it means to be Jewish at all, assimilation and secularization, what leads people to make the decisions they do, classism...
I'm reluctant to go on with this list lest the seriousness of the topics Yehoshua examines make the book seem darker and more ponderous than it is. The book wears its seriousness lightly. Young Rachele's "education" into the world is our education as well, so we see things primarily through her eyes-- love, confusion, complexity. And there is humor throughout. This lengthy excerpt -- a conversation between Rachele and one of her grandmothers -- provides a good example. Rachele's remarks are delivered in the flood of words common to young adolescents and sprinkled through with language she has clearly taken from adults around her but doesn't quite fully understand.
We girls in Hebrew class promised our teacher... that at least untik bat mitzvah we'll keep kosher, and you, Grandma, even though you're a Jew the Germans wanted to kill, will never be able to tell tge difference between kosher and non-kosher, not that it's easy to tell, in taly even in a simple bread rol they sometimes use lard. Pig fat in a bread roll? The Grandma is shocked. Why? So it will taste better, that's what the rabbi said. Grandma laughs. You have an odd rabbi, if he knows the taste of a roll he never ate. No, he's not odd, just curious, and he was sent to Italy because they couldn't find him a bride in Jerusalem. But he's a nice rabbi and not too strict; for example, he doesn't care that Sabrina, who gets Christianized day after day by the nuns of Sacred Heart, is also in our Hebrew class.
(Rachele will later think, "If everyone says I resemble my Jewish Grandma... and not my Nonna who believes in nothing, I'll end up wrinkled like her, even though she was once beautiful.")
I'm not certain whether "The Only Daughter" is Yehoshua's last book (he died in June of this year) or there is another coming posthumously. Last or next-to-last, it is the most accessible of all his books I've read and yet it is marked by his keen intellect and empathy.
My thanks to HarperCollins and Edelweis for providing med with a digital ARC in return for an honest review.
March 25, 2023
A straightforward and warm story about a smart 12 year old Jewish girl growing up in Northern Italy in the late 1990s.
It was a bit too simple for my taste (and the conversations felt so outdated that until the final chapter I thought it was set in the 1950s...).
It was a bit too simple for my taste (and the conversations felt so outdated that until the final chapter I thought it was set in the 1950s...).
December 6, 2022
I didn’t really love this book although I no longer care for books centered around kids. Especially rich, overindulged kids. Perhaps if I were 11-15, I might appreciate it better. Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.
November 29, 2022
E con questo piccolo ed elegante libriccino Abraham Jehoshua ci saluta, vecchio stanco e malato ma sempre lucido e gentile come un vecchio nonno. "La figlia unica" riesce ad essere un libro prezioso, perchè a mio avviso è l'esempio perfetto di come un libro che non vuole essere sostenuto da un intreccio roboante dovrebbe essere: guardino e imparino i tanti autori nostrani che affrontano temi di questo tipo.
Il romanzo si ambienta in Italia (e dovremmo essere orgogliosi del tributo che il grande scrittore di Haifa offre alla sua seconda patria) ed è il ritratto della classe media borghese dei grandi tessuti urbani del nostro nord, vista con gli occhi di una bambina ebrea.
Gli ebrei italiani di oggi.
Perfettamente integrati, mediamente ricchi, istruiti professionisti di alto livello ma allo stesso tempo saldamente, ossessivamente ancorati alla loro cultura di appartenenza e col sogno ancora molto diffuso di raggiungere la terra santa. Per la loro ricchezza e per questo loro voler essere comunque italiani ma anche diversi, odiati da molti.
Già solo così si capisce che "La figlia unica" è un libro leggero solo in apparenza perchè di tematiche eccome se ce ne sono. Il rapporto faticoso vissuto da ogni ebreo tra patria e cultura, la morte del padre della bambina, il peso di un ruolo nella società di una famiglia potente, peso che nei pensieri di una dodicenne diventa difficile da portare, la solitudine di una figlia unica, ultima arrivata in un mondo in cui sono tutti troppo occupati per stare con lei (tema quanto mai frequente in tempi di denatalità...)
Un libro così denso, con una ambientazione che non incide (i panorami urbani del Nord Italia non sono la Sicilia, per capirsi) e non sostenuto da un intreccio forte, nelle mani di uno scrittore medio sarebbe diventato la solita insipida pappetta, magari insaporita da qualche tirata di coca o da qualche scopata magari omosessuale, come se ne incontrano tante tra gli scrittori italiani attuali. Ma il vecchio di Haifa non è (dovrei dire non era, ma non ci riesco) uno scrittore medio, e ha capito alla perfezione come va scritto un libro di questo tipo.
Un grande romanzo non necessariamente deve essere un romanzo lungo. Per scrivere un romanzo lungo bisogna dire più cose, non si può allungare il brodo: e Yehoshua il brodo non lo allunga, le pagine sono esattamente quelle che servono, non una riga in più e non una riga in meno. Tutto fila via in modo tranquillo e tenue, niente è troppo caricato, neppure la scoperta della malattia mortale del padre, senza ricercare effetti facili che alla fine sono aglio di bassa cucina. Anche la scrittura è paratattica, semplice e piana, e ben si addice ad un libro dai toni ovattati come questo.
E' bello leggere una pagina di nonno Abraham.
E dire che uno dei suoi libri giovanili ("ritorno dall'India") non mi era piaciuto. Troppo lungo, con eventi forzataamente ripetitivi, poco chiaro, grasso e ridondante da leggere. E' una scoperta, per chi volesse approfondire questo scrittore (fatelo), vedere come la sua penna si sia evoluta e sia migliorata nel tempo, nella direzione della leggerezza, della snellezza, della rimozione di appesantimenti e di effetti troppo facili pur rimanendo efficaci.
Grazie di tutto, nonno Abraham. Quando ci vediamo di là, magari ti chiederò di raccontarmi una delle tue favole.
Il romanzo si ambienta in Italia (e dovremmo essere orgogliosi del tributo che il grande scrittore di Haifa offre alla sua seconda patria) ed è il ritratto della classe media borghese dei grandi tessuti urbani del nostro nord, vista con gli occhi di una bambina ebrea.
Gli ebrei italiani di oggi.
Perfettamente integrati, mediamente ricchi, istruiti professionisti di alto livello ma allo stesso tempo saldamente, ossessivamente ancorati alla loro cultura di appartenenza e col sogno ancora molto diffuso di raggiungere la terra santa. Per la loro ricchezza e per questo loro voler essere comunque italiani ma anche diversi, odiati da molti.
Già solo così si capisce che "La figlia unica" è un libro leggero solo in apparenza perchè di tematiche eccome se ce ne sono. Il rapporto faticoso vissuto da ogni ebreo tra patria e cultura, la morte del padre della bambina, il peso di un ruolo nella società di una famiglia potente, peso che nei pensieri di una dodicenne diventa difficile da portare, la solitudine di una figlia unica, ultima arrivata in un mondo in cui sono tutti troppo occupati per stare con lei (tema quanto mai frequente in tempi di denatalità...)
Un libro così denso, con una ambientazione che non incide (i panorami urbani del Nord Italia non sono la Sicilia, per capirsi) e non sostenuto da un intreccio forte, nelle mani di uno scrittore medio sarebbe diventato la solita insipida pappetta, magari insaporita da qualche tirata di coca o da qualche scopata magari omosessuale, come se ne incontrano tante tra gli scrittori italiani attuali. Ma il vecchio di Haifa non è (dovrei dire non era, ma non ci riesco) uno scrittore medio, e ha capito alla perfezione come va scritto un libro di questo tipo.
Un grande romanzo non necessariamente deve essere un romanzo lungo. Per scrivere un romanzo lungo bisogna dire più cose, non si può allungare il brodo: e Yehoshua il brodo non lo allunga, le pagine sono esattamente quelle che servono, non una riga in più e non una riga in meno. Tutto fila via in modo tranquillo e tenue, niente è troppo caricato, neppure la scoperta della malattia mortale del padre, senza ricercare effetti facili che alla fine sono aglio di bassa cucina. Anche la scrittura è paratattica, semplice e piana, e ben si addice ad un libro dai toni ovattati come questo.
E' bello leggere una pagina di nonno Abraham.
E dire che uno dei suoi libri giovanili ("ritorno dall'India") non mi era piaciuto. Troppo lungo, con eventi forzataamente ripetitivi, poco chiaro, grasso e ridondante da leggere. E' una scoperta, per chi volesse approfondire questo scrittore (fatelo), vedere come la sua penna si sia evoluta e sia migliorata nel tempo, nella direzione della leggerezza, della snellezza, della rimozione di appesantimenti e di effetti troppo facili pur rimanendo efficaci.
Grazie di tutto, nonno Abraham. Quando ci vediamo di là, magari ti chiederò di raccontarmi una delle tue favole.
October 19, 2024
לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/הבת-...
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/הבת-...
March 7, 2024
Ultimo libro scritto da Yehoshua, ultimo letto da me di questo autore, fosse stato il primo non avrei letto nient'altro di lui.
Prosa piatta e noiosa, storia banale stiracchiata e senza senso. Niente a che vedere con gli altri suoi romanzi, forse si è fatto aiutare dalla badante.
Prosa piatta e noiosa, storia banale stiracchiata e senza senso. Niente a che vedere con gli altri suoi romanzi, forse si è fatto aiutare dalla badante.
January 5, 2022
Non voglio essere severo né ingrato nei confronti di un autore di cui ho letto tutto e che da oltre vent’anni occupa una posizione stabile sul podio degli scrittori viventi che amo di più, quindi me la prendo con l’editore che sulla quarta di copertina non specifica che questo è un libro per bambini: lo dimostrano lo stile, il linguaggio utilizzato, la semplicità della trama, la brevità del romanzo, tutti i personaggi appena tratteggiati e così facili da comprendere.
Io non ho niente contro la letteratura per bambini, anzi ancora adesso a volte (ri)leggo volentieri qualcosa di Astrid Lindgren o di Gianni Rodari: spesso, quando torno a casa dei miei, rileggo qualche pagina delle avventure di Cipollino di Gianni Rodari e pochi mesi fa mi sono rigoduto “C’era due volte il barone Lamberto”. Ho anche scoperto di recente la bravissima scrittrice greca Alki Zei, ma voglio saperlo prima cosa sto per leggere, non lo voglio scoprire mentre credo di avere tutt’altro tra le mani. (La terza stella è il mio bonus personale al caro Yehoshua, a cui sarò eternamente riconoscente per i tanti capolavori che ci ha regalato).
Io non ho niente contro la letteratura per bambini, anzi ancora adesso a volte (ri)leggo volentieri qualcosa di Astrid Lindgren o di Gianni Rodari: spesso, quando torno a casa dei miei, rileggo qualche pagina delle avventure di Cipollino di Gianni Rodari e pochi mesi fa mi sono rigoduto “C’era due volte il barone Lamberto”. Ho anche scoperto di recente la bravissima scrittrice greca Alki Zei, ma voglio saperlo prima cosa sto per leggere, non lo voglio scoprire mentre credo di avere tutt’altro tra le mani. (La terza stella è il mio bonus personale al caro Yehoshua, a cui sarò eternamente riconoscente per i tanti capolavori che ci ha regalato).
January 2, 2023
Israeli literary giant A.B. Yehoshua died in June and his final book, published in Hebrew in 2021 will be released in English translation in April 2023. I received an advanced review copy from Edelweiss. Most (all?) of Yehoshua's previous novels were set in Israel but The Only Daughter takes place in Venice, Italy. But I had trouble getting a sense for the setting or time period. This was a bizarre story of a 12-year-old girl over the course of a couple of days around Christmas time. The only reason I finished it was because it was short and I was curious to see if it would make sense in the end. It didn't.
February 7, 2025
« A dire la verità, è strano che voi abbiate un cane.Di solito gli ebrei non allevano cani. »
« Dipende da quali ebrei tu abbia in mente.
Ce ne sono di tutti i tipi. I rabbini, per esempio, non sono grandi allevatori di cani. Ma siccome i miei genitori non potevano darmi un fratellino, mi hanno regalato questa cagna. »
« E cosí sei rimasta figlia unica, viziata e felice. »
« Per niente viziata e per niente felice. È triste essere figlia unica…».
« Sei davvero una ragazza molto intelligente, alla fine sarai come tuo padre e tuo nonno, che si arricchiscono facendo uscire dei delinquenti di prigione. »
« Io sarò giudice e non libererò nessuno solo per via di un bel discorso. »
4 ⭐️ mi sto appassionando tantissimo ai libri di Yehoshua, davvero mi trasportano in quegli anni e mi fanno capire molto di più sull’ebraismo che, anche se non è la mia religione, è sempre un bagaglio culturale che mi porto a casa
« Dipende da quali ebrei tu abbia in mente.
Ce ne sono di tutti i tipi. I rabbini, per esempio, non sono grandi allevatori di cani. Ma siccome i miei genitori non potevano darmi un fratellino, mi hanno regalato questa cagna. »
« E cosí sei rimasta figlia unica, viziata e felice. »
« Per niente viziata e per niente felice. È triste essere figlia unica…».
« Sei davvero una ragazza molto intelligente, alla fine sarai come tuo padre e tuo nonno, che si arricchiscono facendo uscire dei delinquenti di prigione. »
« Io sarò giudice e non libererò nessuno solo per via di un bel discorso. »
4 ⭐️ mi sto appassionando tantissimo ai libri di Yehoshua, davvero mi trasportano in quegli anni e mi fanno capire molto di più sull’ebraismo che, anche se non è la mia religione, è sempre un bagaglio culturale che mi porto a casa
July 14, 2021
הספר הראשון של א.ב. יהושע שאני קוראת, במסגרת השלמת השכלתי בכל הנוגע לספרות ישראלית... הבנתי שזה לא אחד מהספרים הקלאסיים ו/או המומלצים שלו, אבל הוא קצר יחסית ותקציר העלילה היה נראה לי מעניין :-)
הסיפור מתרחש באיטליה בתקופה של כמה שנים לאחר מלחמת העולם השנייה, לקראת חג המולד. רקלה לוצאטו, בת כמעט 12, היא בת יחידה ומפונקת לאבא יהודי ולאמא קתולית שהתגיירה. בחייה גם נוכחים מאוד הסבים והסבתות משני הצדדים. רקלה מתמודדת ומתחבטת בשאלות של זהות, וספציפית זהות יהודית , כולל השאיפה להגיע לישראל, מול זהות נוצרית ואיטלקית-מקומית. בנוסף לכך, היותה בגיל שלפני בת מצווה, וכן מצבו הבריאותי של אביה, מעלים סוגיות של התבגרות, דאגה למשפחה, ואינדיבידואליות (שמירה ודאגה ל"אני") מול הקרבה לטובת המשפחה.
בספר יש עיסוק רב בשאלת הדת והאמונה של הדמויות השונות ובהשתתפות בטקסים דתיים. אצל הרבה דמויות, כולל רקלה בעצמה, יש מעין "ערבוב" של דתות שונות, ואני לקחתי את זה כמסר אוניברסלי על חוסר הטעם בהפרדה דתית או בקטלוג של אדם לפי דתו, וכן על חוסר הטעם בטקסים הדתיים ובסממנים החיצוניים של הדת, כי "זו רק הצגה ולא תפילה" כמו שנאמר בספר פעמים רבות.
אהבתי את הכתיבה ואת הרמזים, הפרטים הקטנים והמטאפורות השונות שמעצימות ונוגעות בשאלות ובמסרים שהספר עוסק בהם. ספר מוצלח מאוד בעיניי ובהחלט עשה לי חשק לקרוא עוד מיצירתו של הסופר.
הסיפור מתרחש באיטליה בתקופה של כמה שנים לאחר מלחמת העולם השנייה, לקראת חג המולד. רקלה לוצאטו, בת כמעט 12, היא בת יחידה ומפונקת לאבא יהודי ולאמא קתולית שהתגיירה. בחייה גם נוכחים מאוד הסבים והסבתות משני הצדדים. רקלה מתמודדת ומתחבטת בשאלות של זהות, וספציפית זהות יהודית , כולל השאיפה להגיע לישראל, מול זהות נוצרית ואיטלקית-מקומית. בנוסף לכך, היותה בגיל שלפני בת מצווה, וכן מצבו הבריאותי של אביה, מעלים סוגיות של התבגרות, דאגה למשפחה, ואינדיבידואליות (שמירה ודאגה ל"אני") מול הקרבה לטובת המשפחה.
בספר יש עיסוק רב בשאלת הדת והאמונה של הדמויות השונות ובהשתתפות בטקסים דתיים. אצל הרבה דמויות, כולל רקלה בעצמה, יש מעין "ערבוב" של דתות שונות, ואני לקחתי את זה כמסר אוניברסלי על חוסר הטעם בהפרדה דתית או בקטלוג של אדם לפי דתו, וכן על חוסר הטעם בטקסים הדתיים ובסממנים החיצוניים של הדת, כי "זו רק הצגה ולא תפילה" כמו שנאמר בספר פעמים רבות.
אהבתי את הכתיבה ואת הרמזים, הפרטים הקטנים והמטאפורות השונות שמעצימות ונוגעות בשאלות ובמסרים שהספר עוסק בהם. ספר מוצלח מאוד בעיניי ובהחלט עשה לי חשק לקרוא עוד מיצירתו של הסופר.
December 27, 2024
3,5 estrellas.
Interesante acercamiento al choque entre judaísmo y cristianismo desde los ojos de una niña judía de 12 años criada en Italia.
Interesante acercamiento al choque entre judaísmo y cristianismo desde los ojos de una niña judía de 12 años criada en Italia.
January 7, 2024
Siamo in una città non specificata del Nord Italia, la protagonista Rachele è una dodicenne molto arguta e curiosa, figlia unica di un avvocato ebreo che le vieta di accettare la proposta dell'insegnante di impersonare la Madonna nella recita natalizia della sua scuola. Da quel momento seguiamo un po' le vicende di questa famiglia mista, tra le tante domande e osservazioni molto intelligenti di Rachele che mettono in difficoltà tutti gli adulti con cui si interfaccia. Le differenze tra culture, religioni e abitudini che si incontrano e si scontrano credo sia il grande tema del libro, a cui si aggiunge una sottile ironia per il provincialismo e l'ipocrisia italiani. Sarebbe stato ancora più interessante se fosse stato sviluppato meglio, sembra un racconto per ragazzi non ampiamente approfondito.
November 19, 2022
This was a short and intimate glimpse into a Jewish-Italian girl's life, as she grapples with her father's illness and their shared faith.
Plot?
Whatever you interpret from the synopsis, I can say with confidence that this book has no plot.
But, that's not a bad thing. The length of the book paired with the narrative style worked for me. It didn't feel slow nor boring, perhaps a bit simplistic, but I want to believe that that was kind of the point.
Rachele is twelve years old. She is an only child and is curious about the differences between Jews and Christians, especially after she discovers her father would not allow her to play the Virgin Mary in a school play. Her father is also sick and in need of medical attention. We follow Rachele and several adult figures in her life as they all divulge their opinions on faith, tradition, class, and illness. This story is more about what Rachele is told, rather than what she thinks. Or, perhaps, it's about the questions she forms with the different perspectives she encounters—questions that are answered differently by those around her.
Subtly brilliant, or simply mediocre?
Well, I think it's both.
There is something to be admired about the gentleness this book exuded. It had a calming tone; I felt as if time had stopped. The atmosphere was rich, one I could feel around me.
Then there was Rachele herself. Much like the Virgin Mary, whom we shroud with holiness, Rachele was covered in a glow of innocence. But, this "innocence" sometimes came off as immaturity. I would find myself picturing Rachele as a seven-year-old girl rather than twelve. I believe this served a purpose to the objective of the novel, but it wasn't something I enjoyed.
There isn't much to say other than I didn't hate it, nor was I super impressed by it. When I finished, it felt like the story was over before it started, but enough of me was satisfied to let go.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and HarperVia for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
Plot?
Whatever you interpret from the synopsis, I can say with confidence that this book has no plot.
But, that's not a bad thing. The length of the book paired with the narrative style worked for me. It didn't feel slow nor boring, perhaps a bit simplistic, but I want to believe that that was kind of the point.
Rachele is twelve years old. She is an only child and is curious about the differences between Jews and Christians, especially after she discovers her father would not allow her to play the Virgin Mary in a school play. Her father is also sick and in need of medical attention. We follow Rachele and several adult figures in her life as they all divulge their opinions on faith, tradition, class, and illness. This story is more about what Rachele is told, rather than what she thinks. Or, perhaps, it's about the questions she forms with the different perspectives she encounters—questions that are answered differently by those around her.
Subtly brilliant, or simply mediocre?
Well, I think it's both.
There is something to be admired about the gentleness this book exuded. It had a calming tone; I felt as if time had stopped. The atmosphere was rich, one I could feel around me.
Then there was Rachele herself. Much like the Virgin Mary, whom we shroud with holiness, Rachele was covered in a glow of innocence. But, this "innocence" sometimes came off as immaturity. I would find myself picturing Rachele as a seven-year-old girl rather than twelve. I believe this served a purpose to the objective of the novel, but it wasn't something I enjoyed.
There isn't much to say other than I didn't hate it, nor was I super impressed by it. When I finished, it felt like the story was over before it started, but enough of me was satisfied to let go.
Thanks so much to NetGalley and HarperVia for an ARC in exchange for my honest review.
February 12, 2022
Un romanzetto veramente inconsistente, opera assai minore di un autore discontinuo. Le tematiche abbastanza convenzionali, il rapporto fra identità culturali e religiose, le relazioni fra la protagonista dodicenne e il mondo degli adulti, sono attraversate da una scrittura piuttosto superficiale. L'ambientazione italiana poi è da cartolina, un presepe coi suoi panettieri gentili con le ragazzine, le guglie che appaiono fra le vie del borgo, pare modellata su cliché cinematografici.
June 12, 2022
Libro decisamente poco bello. Scritto male e pieno di frasi fatte. Racconta di un 'Italia da barzelletta dove gli ebrei sono ricchissimi e hanno domestici etiopi. Nessun approfondimento dei personaggi. Sembra una storiella per bambini, scritta male
November 9, 2025
נובלה נחמדה ונעימה לקריאה, פשוט סיפור על משפחה איטלקית או אם רוצים: סיפור על זהויות וחיפוש איך בני אדם נקשרים זה לזה. הספר כתוב כמובן היטב. אולי מתאים יותר לבני נוער...
August 22, 2022
(3.5 stars) Rachele Luzzato is an only daughter in a mixed Jewish household in Italy. She’s also the only grandchild of both sets of her parents’ parents. Being the only daughter and only grandchild means that Rachele gets a lot of attention, but she doesn’t always get her way. Rachele struggles in particular to live within the Jewish rules her father applies. For instance, Rachele has been offered the cherished part of Mary, Jesus’ mother in the Christmas play held at the local Catholic cathedral, but her father forbids her to take the role. At the same time, Rachele’s father suffers a serious illness (brain tumor) that puts his life at risk and Rachele’s care in question. Despite the various forces that are at work in the girl’s life, including her charismatic Jewish grandfather and her Catholic grandparents on her mother’s side, Rachele longs to not be an “only” anymore.
I did not know before I read this book that its author – A.B. Yehoshua – has been called the “Italian Faulkner” and that he recently died, at the age of 85. These facts made me feel more deeply the portrait of this young girl. When judged as a novella or a short story, this book offers a rich portrayal of a lonely girl who is coming of age. It suffers in comparison with novels, however, which was what I expected.
Thanks to HarperVia and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book.
I did not know before I read this book that its author – A.B. Yehoshua – has been called the “Italian Faulkner” and that he recently died, at the age of 85. These facts made me feel more deeply the portrait of this young girl. When judged as a novella or a short story, this book offers a rich portrayal of a lonely girl who is coming of age. It suffers in comparison with novels, however, which was what I expected.
Thanks to HarperVia and NetGalley for an e-ARC of this book.
May 16, 2023
THE ONLY DAUGHTER
A. B. Yehoshua
Wow, I thought this was a big disappointment for me. I was looking forward to the book because it is set in Italy, which I thought would be interesting, but had little to do with the story. I was good with the mixed religious aspects, but parts of the book were really creepy. For example, when the Grandmother bathes the 12-year-old Rachele.
I thought that Rachele was written too young for her age, but maybe because of the health issues with her father. I thought the book was clunky in the way it was written with big sections of information sort of mashed together. For me it barely was a finish and I rated it 2.5 and rounded up.
3 stars
Happy REading!
A. B. Yehoshua
Wow, I thought this was a big disappointment for me. I was looking forward to the book because it is set in Italy, which I thought would be interesting, but had little to do with the story. I was good with the mixed religious aspects, but parts of the book were really creepy. For example, when the Grandmother bathes the 12-year-old Rachele.
I thought that Rachele was written too young for her age, but maybe because of the health issues with her father. I thought the book was clunky in the way it was written with big sections of information sort of mashed together. For me it barely was a finish and I rated it 2.5 and rounded up.
3 stars
Happy REading!
July 2, 2023
E' un anno che Yehoshua ci ha lasciato ma la sua voce è presente, eccome, in questo suo ultimo libro.
Ambientato in Italia (un vero onore!) da qualche parte al Nord, racconta degli ebrei italiani di oggi. Di una ragazzina ebrea in particolare, la dodicenne Rachele, che vive in una casa di liberi professionisti (avvocati sono nonno e padre) e frequenta una scuola italiana ma anche un rabbino per imparare l'ebraico. Sono tutti perfettamente integrati ma allo stesso tempo c'è un ancoraggio disperato alla propria cultura e un'idea vaga di andare a vivere in Israele.
Ho letto commenti in cui ci si lamenta della leggerezza del romanzo, del poter essere considerato al massimo "letteratura per l'infanzia", ma la difficoltà di stare in mezzo a due culture (dove non necessariamente una delle due è quella ebraica), la malattia di un padre, la solitudine di una ragazzina (figlia unica che viene sballottata perché nessuno ha davvero tempo per lei) che trova soffocante il futuro che, apparentemente, è già stato deciso per lei... tutto sono tranne dei temi leggeri.
Lunga vita alla voce di Yehoshua.
Ambientato in Italia (un vero onore!) da qualche parte al Nord, racconta degli ebrei italiani di oggi. Di una ragazzina ebrea in particolare, la dodicenne Rachele, che vive in una casa di liberi professionisti (avvocati sono nonno e padre) e frequenta una scuola italiana ma anche un rabbino per imparare l'ebraico. Sono tutti perfettamente integrati ma allo stesso tempo c'è un ancoraggio disperato alla propria cultura e un'idea vaga di andare a vivere in Israele.
Ho letto commenti in cui ci si lamenta della leggerezza del romanzo, del poter essere considerato al massimo "letteratura per l'infanzia", ma la difficoltà di stare in mezzo a due culture (dove non necessariamente una delle due è quella ebraica), la malattia di un padre, la solitudine di una ragazzina (figlia unica che viene sballottata perché nessuno ha davvero tempo per lei) che trova soffocante il futuro che, apparentemente, è già stato deciso per lei... tutto sono tranne dei temi leggeri.
Lunga vita alla voce di Yehoshua.
December 30, 2022
Pieno di idee assurde! Dopo pagina 70 non sono riuscita ad andare avanti, pesante prolisso e ancora non capivo il significato di tutto quello che avevo letto
July 5, 2023
I was 165 pages into Yehoshua's final novel before the year 2000 appeared in the text. And I was surprised. The writing, the descriptions, I thought it was set sometime post WW II, and it rejiggered everything I'd read up until that point. There is no reference to cellphones, or the internet, or Google, etc, and the setting, mostly Venice, Italy, seems a throwback to a different time, when the Holocaust was still very close in time, and though decades have passed, the Holocaust and how to retain one's Judaism are very much the themes. The main character is Rachele, from a wealthy Northern Italian family, with mixed marriages. Her father and his parents are Jewish, her mother and her parents are not, but Rachele is being raised Jewish, is, at 12, bright and beautiful, curious and inquisitive, studying for her Bat Mitzvah. She sees things, makes connections, interacts on a level more adult that her years. There are drawers within drawers in this short lovely novel, objects turn out to have deeper meanings, there are clues and secrets and masks and disguises, and threaded delicately with Judaism, the war, the Holocaust, assimilation, the longstanding hatred towards Jews, and more. It has all of Yehoshua's themes but it's Venice setting was new for him, and it felt to me like the kind of place that is outside of time. Quite beautiful.
Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Via for an ARC.
Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Via for an ARC.
August 3, 2022
3.5 rounded up for the unique Jewish experience it brought.
Overall I enjoyed this book. It captures a slice of life for an interfaith Jewish family in northern Italy in the 1990s. I really appreciate how it captures the Jewish experience post-WWII via the adults in our 12 year old protagonist Rachele’s life, but she is mostly concerned with her father’s brain tumor and upcoming bat mitzvah.
Rachele is a very privileged girl, as her grandfather and father are both lawyers. They have servants and drivers and her grandmother lives in a huge mansion in Venice. They do face antisemitism, mostly in passing, but overall the family lives a good life in Italy, despite the constantly presence of Catholicism, and I really enjoyed reading about how Jews took care to preserve their culture in such a Catholic place. Rachele is learning Hebrew for her bat mitzvah and takes pride in telling everyone she meets.
We also see Rachele learn from her grandmother and teacher how to stay strong when dealing with her father’s illness. Overall, it’s a nice coming of age story.
My only gripe is that the author felt the need to describe the body of a 12 year old child in intimate detail in one scene. I found this disturbing and unnecessary for an otherwise well done novel.
Overall I enjoyed this book. It captures a slice of life for an interfaith Jewish family in northern Italy in the 1990s. I really appreciate how it captures the Jewish experience post-WWII via the adults in our 12 year old protagonist Rachele’s life, but she is mostly concerned with her father’s brain tumor and upcoming bat mitzvah.
Rachele is a very privileged girl, as her grandfather and father are both lawyers. They have servants and drivers and her grandmother lives in a huge mansion in Venice. They do face antisemitism, mostly in passing, but overall the family lives a good life in Italy, despite the constantly presence of Catholicism, and I really enjoyed reading about how Jews took care to preserve their culture in such a Catholic place. Rachele is learning Hebrew for her bat mitzvah and takes pride in telling everyone she meets.
We also see Rachele learn from her grandmother and teacher how to stay strong when dealing with her father’s illness. Overall, it’s a nice coming of age story.
My only gripe is that the author felt the need to describe the body of a 12 year old child in intimate detail in one scene. I found this disturbing and unnecessary for an otherwise well done novel.
August 30, 2022
The Only Daughter, Rachele, is used to getting her way and being doted on by her parents and grandparents. Now at 11, she is asserting her independence and confronted with many decisions -- from the beginning where she has to find her way to her father's office from school and encounters twists and turns, to additional decisions around whether or not to follow numerous directives from her family and retiring teacher, to the most important of how to handle her father's "appendage" -- likely a brain tumor, and how to navigate being a Jew surrounded by (mostly sympathetic but ignorant) Catholics in Italy.
Although set in modern times, much about the tone felt very old-fashioned, including some creepy nakedness for the young girl with older women, and numerous cases where she tries to make a decision but ends up going along with what others want for her and being more or less fine with it.
Overall, there was some very good dialogue and endearing characters and situations, but on the surface it was a pretty light tale in line with Rachele's age and maturity, and I missed the amazing depth I typically associate with Yehoshua.
Although set in modern times, much about the tone felt very old-fashioned, including some creepy nakedness for the young girl with older women, and numerous cases where she tries to make a decision but ends up going along with what others want for her and being more or less fine with it.
Overall, there was some very good dialogue and endearing characters and situations, but on the surface it was a pretty light tale in line with Rachele's age and maturity, and I missed the amazing depth I typically associate with Yehoshua.
January 2, 2023
Oh, un Einaudi a cinque euro al mercatino dell’usato, che grande colpo di fortuna, ho pensato.
Ma a volte le cose sono troppo belle per essere vere.
Il libro ha rivelato ben presto i propri difetti, da una scrittura fredda, distaccata e favolistica che forse voleva prendere a modello De Amicis – citato svariate volte nel libro – ma che non riesce nemmeno a simularne i toni patetici e affettati. I personaggi che restano figurine di cartone sullo sfondo altrettanto bidimensionale di un'Italia da cartolina, con fornai generosi, maestre sentimentali e cime innevate.
Cosa ci voleva comunicare l’autore? Resta un mistero. Ogni scena è un'occasione sprecata per addentrarsi nella psicologia della protagonista e indagare il suo rapporto con il mondo degli adulti e le sue contraddizioni. Un libro che dimenticherò molto presto.
Ma a volte le cose sono troppo belle per essere vere.
Il libro ha rivelato ben presto i propri difetti, da una scrittura fredda, distaccata e favolistica che forse voleva prendere a modello De Amicis – citato svariate volte nel libro – ma che non riesce nemmeno a simularne i toni patetici e affettati. I personaggi che restano figurine di cartone sullo sfondo altrettanto bidimensionale di un'Italia da cartolina, con fornai generosi, maestre sentimentali e cime innevate.
Cosa ci voleva comunicare l’autore? Resta un mistero. Ogni scena è un'occasione sprecata per addentrarsi nella psicologia della protagonista e indagare il suo rapporto con il mondo degli adulti e le sue contraddizioni. Un libro che dimenticherò molto presto.
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