האיש שלא פסק לישון

by Aharon Appelfeld, אהרון אפלפלד

עלילת האיש שלא פסק לישון, הרומן החדש של אהרן אפלפלד, מתרחשת רובה ככולה בארץ ישראל בזמן מלחמת השחרור. כמה נערים ניצולי שואה קובצו יחד והם בונים טרסות בהרי יהודה, לומדים עברית ומתאמנים לקראת הקרבות שיבואו. אך המשימה הקשה יותר הניצבת בפניהם היא המפגש עם עולמם הפנימי: הזיכרונות הבהירים, הכורח להתמודד עם מה שאירע להם והרצון העז להעניק משמעות לחייהם החדשים.

גיבור הרומן, ארווין־אהרן, שרוי מאז תום המלחמה באירופה בשינה. שינה רצופה, עיקשת, שאינה מרפה ממנו גם כשהוא ער. בשנתו הוא חי את חייו שנחמסו ממנו: הוא פוגש את אביו, סופר מודרניסט שנאבק על הביטוי הנכון, ואת אמו, שהורישה לו את רגישותה הדקה. הוא פוגש גם כמה מקרוביו וחוזר לעירו ולאחוזת סבו בהרי הקרפטים.

מחוז השינה שאליו נצמד ארווין־אהרן, בן דמותו של הסופר, הוא גם מרחב של הסרת כבלים והשתחררות ממושגים רווחים ומדעות קדומות. זהו אזור דמדומים המשמש עבורו רחם המאפשר לו למות ולהיוולד מחדש. לבסוף, במהלך מדהים ביופיו ובעוצמתו, הוא מחליט, בניגוד לכל הציפיות, ללכת בדרכו של אביו ולהיות סופר.

בהאיש שלא פסק לישון מספק לנו אהרן אפלפלד חרך הצצה נדיר לקטעים עלומים בסיפור חייו. אנו מתוודעים כאן לסיפור דיוקנו כאיש צעיר, אמן, בארץ ישראל. זהו סיפור של צמיחה אישית דרמטית, המתנהל במקביל - וזוהי תבנית ספרותית חדשה ומפתיעה ביצירתו -
לאירועי ראשית צמיחתה של מדינת ישראל.

האיש שלא פסק לישון הוא ספר חובה לאוהבי יצירתו של אפלפלד. זו יצירה בשלה ומרשימה בפני עצמה ובה בעת פיסה חשובה בפאזל האמנותי־הגותי הענק שעליו שוקד, כבר למעלה מחמישים שנה, הסופר הדגול, חתן פרס ישראל ומי שצוין לא מכבר בכתב עת יוקרתי בארה"ב כ"אחד מחמישים הסופרים מעוררי ההשראה הגדולים בעולם".

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Jewish, Holocaust, Israel, Historical, War

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2010

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

[Joy D · Rating 3 out of 5]

As the story opens, World War II has just ended. Sixteen-year-old protagonist Erwin, a Ukrainian of Jewish heritage, is joining a group of refugees on the way to Palestine. He learns Hebrew and is asked to change his name. In the fighting in Palestine, prior to Israel’s independence, he is wounded. While he heals, he contemplates life and copies biblical texts.

This is a low-key book. The journey is over quickly, and he is quickly wounded in the fighting. The vast majority of time is spent in recuperation. During this period, Erwin, renamed Aharon discusses many deep topics with doctors and visitors. He attempts to heal both emotionally and physically. He remembers his parents, who were killed in the Holocaust, and interacts with them in his dreams.

It is a different take on themes we often find in Holocaust literature. It portrays the anguish suffered by young adults who lost their parents and are not prepared to face life alone. The author explores the healing power of sleep, the importance of a name, and the desire to connect with the past.

[Sharon Hart-Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel is a beautifully rendered story of a young Holocaust survivor who tries to reconcile his painful past through the "subterranean" life he lives while sleeping. Hovering on the edge of allegory (yet not quite an allegory), this novel has two distinct strands: the young man's everyday life and his dream life. Indeed, the life he lives in his dreams is told as if it is almost more real than his waking life. The writing is simple, accessible, and at times, painfully beautiful. It is a book to be savoured.

[Barb H · Rating 5 out of 5]

I confess that initially I did not think I would like this book. Yet, I was spellbound by Appelfeld's simple, but vivid style of writing which soon captivated me. In my quest to determine whether this was autobiographical, I delved into his lifestory which I must relate here.

He was born Ervin Appelfeld in 1932 in Czernowitz, Romania, where the family's language of choice was German. They lived under Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1941, when the German troops retook the territory , storming Jewish neighborhoods. His mother was shot in his presence and he and his father were transported to concentration camps. He escaped in 1941, hiding in forests, finding refuge among vagrants, criminals and peasants. He worked in fields and as a kitchen boy for the Soviet Army, among other things. At the conclusion of the war, he and other children were transported to a displaced persons camp where he learned French and Italian from Catholic monks. He immigrated to Palestine in 1946 and served in the Israeli Army from 1948 to 1950.Despite his meager education, Appelfeld passed the examination for admission to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Much more can be said about his impressive education, which resulted in MA degrees and more. One more remarkable fact to report is in 1960, he chanced to see his father’s name on a list of immigrants due to arrive from Eastern Europe and they reunited! Appelfeld died in Israel in 2018.

The novel mainly covered the post-war years for 17 year old, Erwin, with only occasional mention of the difficulties he endured during the war. Appelfeld wrote of how his character, homeless and alone, experienced rigorous training to improve his health and strength, along with other young people, in preparation for his eventual move to Palestine. The battles and achievements of his peers and himself, the effects of the war and the holocaust on the many survivors around him are deftly etched in this tale. The author focused throughout on Erwin's efforts to learn and excel in Hebrew, his new language. This was an important feature of the story as he strived to express himself as a writer. Much of the book was spent on his time spent (years) as an invalid, still as a young man, following battle injuries and his prolonged, laborious convalescence.

The sleep, alluded to in the title, descended upon Erwin as the war ended and he was carried by other survivors as they struggled and emerged from their hiding places. They all viewed him as “sleepy boy” and worked to help him sustain life. His somnolence continued frequently through the story. This aspect was devoted to his dreams, mainly of family and friends, with numerous multi-layered symbolisms and interpretations.

It would be accurate to state that I was transfixed by Appelfeld's powerful, impressive novel. How do I do justice to this enthralling work? Clearly this story had many features taken from his own life, yet one could not read this without a sense of heartrending respect and wonder.

[Kim Lockhart · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐ rounded up.

It took a while for the introspective nature of this narrative to carve a channel within me, like a river cutting through mountains. On the surface, there's not much to tell. The main characters, Holocaust survivors, are trying to find a way to live, without completely severing their foundational selves. The author, in this spare, semi-autobiographical story, expresses the spiritual pain of shaping a new identity. The protagonist learns to navigate, using his connections to the memories of the lost, to find his way.

Like the author, I understand the power of poetry and precise prose, the words which draw our focus, and give voice to our longing and despair. Expression is what saved him. Without expression, we disintegrate like dust. It's a hard lesson, and one that cannot be rushed. It's a new foundation for a new way to live.

[Lizzytish · Rating 2 out of 5]

I get the premise of this book. Somehow it felt flat. Two dimensional. Erwin annoyed me somehow. And the pacing was enough to put me to sleep. I felt for the other characters more and was silently cheering them on. Then there was the ending which felt so abrupt. This is just my opinion and I know other people love the book.

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Israeli author Appelfeld is a prolific writer who has drawn on his own extraordinary youth for material for his books. He was born Erwin Appelfeld in 1932 to a prosperous German-speaking Jewish family in Bukovina, a territory in current Ukraine. He was a 9-year-old boy when the Romanian Army retook the region from its Soviet occupiers in 1941, murdering his mother as he lay in bed sick with the mumps. He escaped, was discovered and deported to a Nazi concentration camp. He escaped again, and worked as a cook for the Soviet Army. At the end of the war, he spent time in a refugee camp in Italy before immigrating to British Mandate Palestine. He was 14 years old when he began to learn Hebrew.
Appelfeld has taken many of these aspects and woven them into his latest novel. This writer’s writer uses the tools of allegory and metaphor to convey the displacement that young Erwin feels as he travels with other refugees to Italy and then Palestine. These refugees consist of a polyglot of languages and cultures, so leaders from Palestine instill new ones. They take the young men (now orphans) and train them in a military fashion. They start teaching them Hebrew, and have them change their names to Hebrew ones. Once they arrive in Palestine, they house these boys in kibbutzs and set them to building and farming—and guarding against armed intruders. Erwin (now Aharon) is shot in the legs and has to undergo multiple surgeries over months and years to regain his ability to walk. He spends his days copying the Bible in Hebrew and his nights dreaming of his youth and talking with his parents. He is a man trying to find his way in this new world without forgetting his past. Loved this book.

[Am · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read, a bit long towards the end. It's probably in the writing style, but it kind of felt very flat and I had trouble to focus on it.

[Michelle Ungar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the writing style of this book - I found it similar to "the buried giant" by Ishiguro
I liked the way the story unfolded but found it a little slow in the middle

[Caren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This beautifully poignant novel (loosely autobiographical, certainly) blew me away with its portrayal of the two conflicting worlds of teenaged Holocaust survivor, Erwin. The author presented with such sensitivity the inner world of Erwin's pain, his dreams, his guilt, and his urgent need to hold on to the memories of his past, which lived in him while he slept. In contrast was the dynamic physical world of the present as Erwin, later to change his name to the Hebrew, Aharon, struggled to find his place first in Naples, in Atlit and on a kibbutz in the "Land", Palestine under the British Mandate, among the others who had survived.

Appelfeld brilliantly captured the tone and the division between the refugees who held onto their native languages and victimhood, and those who, learning the new behaviours and language, wished to abandon the image of the Jews as victims and adopt that of the "warriors." For Erwin, this choice was initially soul-destroying, as he "[didn't] know how to live without [his whole family]." He struggled to comprehend why he had "remained" and "What [was] the meaning of [his] survival?"

As the teenager began to rebuild a life in Palestine, he firmly dedicated himself to become a writer, following his father's somewhat failed devotion. The most touching aspects of the novel were the scenes that replayed in Aharon's mind of his childhood with his parents, surrounded by their wisdom and love, emphasising to the reader the devastation of their loss during the Holocaust. Appelfeld poetically drew these scenes throughout the novel as the teenager consistently spoke to each of his parents, particularly to his beloved mother. As Erwin became more of Aharon, his love of Hebrew obsessed him, but also frightened him when he realised that it would distance him further from his parents and their native language.

The psychological struggles of the Holocaust survivors are revealed most poignantly, yet unique from the many other similarly themed fiction I've read. I could not help but relate to Erwin/Aharon as the author himself, trusting the reader with the most intimate glimpses into his survival.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Appelfeld died recently in his 90’s. He wrote about the Holocaust in all his novels. This book is about a young man after liberation and how he makes his way to Naples and then on to Israel. He is guided, in his mind, by his parents, predominately his mother, who encourages his every step.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aharon Appelfeld’s loosely autobiographical novel, The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping, charts the gruelling and pain-filled rite of passage of a teenage Holocaust survivor named Erwin, a passage that encompasses a lengthy physical journey as well as a process of convalescence and self-discovery. Like the author, Erwin, a Jew, grew up in Czernowitz, in Bukovina, a mountainous region that straddles modern day Romania and Ukraine. Erwin survived WWII by hiding in the cellar of a neighbour, who, after agreeing to shelter him, instead held him captive and forced him to perform slave labour, making articles of clothing that the neighbour would sell. Having escaped, he joined the flow of refugees and ended up in Naples. But Erwin’s case is unusual. Overwhelmed by a profound weariness, he cannot recall the journey because he slept most of the time and was conveyed along by the more tolerant and generous of his fellow travelers. In Naples he is recruited out of the refugee camp, and along with other young Jewish men is given military training and instruction in Hebrew by the charismatic Ephraim, who tells them that they will fight for their new country when they get to Palestine. Again, though, he is compelled to request days off from training to sleep. As part of the ritual of emigrating to Palestine, he is also expected to renounce his given name and adopt a new name. He chooses Aharon. Erwin/Aharon is devoted to his calling, to fight for the new Jewish state, but in his team’s first manoeuvre he is gravely injured (his leg is shattered), and he spends the next couple of years (and the rest of the novel) recuperating and undergoing a series of painful surgeries. Though disappointed, he comes to realize over time that, like his father, he was meant to be a writer, and he trains himself for this by copying passages from the Hebrew Bible (in order to internalize the language and its cadences) and the works of famous Jewish writers. As well, in his dreams from this period he connects with his parents and other relatives, who advise him on the most honest and truthful way to live his life. The novel ends with the still very young Aharon living by himself in an apartment in Tel Aviv pursuing the vocation of his father. The action of this novel builds gradually, and is often slowed by Aharon’s dreams, which he recounts in detail. Throughout the novel’s 70 very short chapters, the reader is kept off balance, wondering what’s next for Aharon, where life will take him, and how the pressures brought to bear on him will be resolved. A chief allure of The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping is the prose: Appelfeld’s unadorned but stunningly evocative writing provides an unsentimental and sometimes surreal rendering of the struggle to establish a Jewish state and homeland, a pivotal event in world history. Central to the story are themes of healing and survival, and young Aharon’s attitude toward his past is emblematic of this: pragmatic acceptance of what has befallen him and an equal resolve to not let it define or limit him. Despite his tribulations, Aharon remains cautiously hopeful for the future. Appelfeld does not dwell on the horrors of the Holocaust in this novel, instead focusing on the aftermath as experienced by one young man whose determination to live a worthy life and achieve something meaningful gives him the strength to move forward.

[Leora Wenger · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was particularly drawn in by some of the details of the book. For example, names. Holocaust survivors are urged to change their birth-given names to Hebrew ones. But Ephraim, the leader of the teenage boys, does not have to change *his* birth name, as he was born in the land and given a Hebrew name at birth. Another example - what and how the teenage boys are taught on the kibbutz. Slobotsky, described as a genius when he lived in Berlin, gives a lesson on Hannah’s prayer and compares her to Penina. The reaction of one of the boys: Why are we studying the Bible and not biology? And (in response to a suggestion to the main character getting an office job) here is a favorite line of mine: “Office work destroys the soul.”

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so beautifully written, woven between cruel reality and dream-like beauty. It is easily one I will put on my list to read again and again.

[Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Then the man bent down to my face and spoke in a soft voice.
"What happened to you, my friend?"
"I was wounded."
"Where?"
"That's not important."
"You were our secret. We carried you from place to place, and we were sure that when you woke up, you'd tell us marvelous things. We sensed that you were linked to worlds that were sealed off from us. You were dear to us all. True, we didn't always watch over you properly. In any event, you persisted in your sleep. Our repeated efforts to pull you out of it were in vain. Are you normal now?"
I didn't know how to reply. Finally, I said, "Like everybody."
"Too bad."
The man rose to his feet and stood alongside me, as though words had failed him.

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m not sure how to review this book. It’s interesting and about the time period right after the Holocaust, which is not one I’ve read much about even though I would consider myself fairly well-read in Holocaust literature. I could see how this wouldn’t be the book for everyone because of the way the narrative is set up. Much of it is him inside his dreams talking to his parents. I have insanely real dreams that make me mix up what actually happened and what I dreamed, so I found the life he led while asleep relatable and poignant.

[Dlmrose · Rating 3 out of 5]

3+

[Antonio Marrero Jr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good story that I thought was very interesting with really thoughtful, maybe even beautiful writing. Unfortunately those things are not the only ingredients that make for a great book. I never like writing bad things about books and this one disturbs me a little more than it should because of the thought that went into it.

The story itself was interesting like I said, a young refugee after the war slowly wakes from a long self inflicted slumber only to be trained into learning a new language and for military service. On his first mission he is wounded and for the second half of the book he is recovering not only from his wounds but from the loss of his mother language. Aside from the main character I think the author did a good job getting me involved in the other characters, I couldn't help but root for their success. The character development was masterfully done, for a short book with much going on this is not a small accomplishment. The emotion that was used in this young man's recovery and in his struggle to continue his father's work was amazing, I really enjoyed it, but it's too bad it didn't absorb into everything.

The most obvious affliction this book had for me was the dialogue, it seemed stiff and mechanical. The flow that the story had in the dream sequences and in the thoughts of the character didn't crossover into characters interacting with each other. They spoke to each other in a very uncomfortable way even when they knew each other for years, this even extended to the main character's interaction with family members in his dreams.

The more subtle negative was that the beautiful writing was sometimes a distraction, getting lost in the thoughtful words sometimes took me too far away from the story to the point where I was wondering what was going on. Some may see this as a good thing, artful, but to me if you are going to write in a prolific way then keep it contained with the story. There would be sections of where the character would rant on about a certain subject that held very little significance to the story as a whole, though it was very thoughtful it just seemed to stray from what was going on.

With a great story and philosophical writing, the odd mechanical dialogue and detour rants were too conspicuous. The negatives took me out of the story too many times, I had to make an effort and assert my attention to continue, more than I should have. Like I said in the beginning, writing a review containing bad aspects with a book as reflective and emotionally invested as this gives me no pleasure, maybe I will check out Aharon Appelfeld's other works, in the hopes this was a one time occurrence.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

"With its universal themes of healing, recovery, creativity, and finding one’s vocation The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping should engage the wide readership Appelfeld’s prose deserves. Readers may want to buy extra copies and donate them to VA hospitals." -- from my review in New York Journal of Books.

[Lorri · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found I had to reread a few sections, due to Erwin's/Aharon's stream of consciousness overtaking some of them. It didn't interfere with my liking the novel. I just had to make sure I was understanding reality from dreams, thought processes, and stream of consciousness moments.

I thought the book was a masterful way of illuminating healing in all of its varied forms (physical, mental and emotional).

[Robyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

love. sleep. dreams. parents. love. broken limbs. missing limbs. searching. waiting. search. love. doctors. writing. aspirations. mountains. breakthrough. i loved this book. i discovered a new - to me- author. divine.

[Jennifer Paton Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not a huge fan of Appelfeld. I liked this book more than Badenheim 1939. The idea of the book is interesting, as is the topic, of a Holocaust survivor's journey to Israel, but ultimately I didn't find this book particularly compelling.

[Mollie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is Art.

[Umair Muhajir · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful, moving book, at once coming-of-age novel as elegy (for family and a world lost in the Holocaust, but also for language, and the loss entailed by being re-born in a new nation-state).

[Avi Aharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appelfeld knows how to tell a story.

[Juli · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this gem while wandering through the stacks of my newly opened library. It was haunting, emotional, and beautifully written. A master at both the carefully chosen words and space in between.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dreamy and really a lovely tale. Not a lot really happens unless you stick with the author's nighttime conversations in his dreams.

[Pascale · Rating 3 out of 5]

In French, this book is called "Le garçon qui voulait dormir", which is more accurate in the sense that at the beginning, the central character, Erwin, is just a teenager, who's been carried for hundred of miles all the way to Naples by fellow survivors of the Holocaust. The only son of a loving and cultured family, Erwin can only escape from his grief at the loss of his parents by sleeping all day long, for days and weeks on end. Even when he starts training for life on a kibbutz, he has to ask for special permission to have "sleep days". I was very interested by Appelfeld's description of the tensions between refugees unable to let go of the past and young zionists willing to have a go at colonizing Palestine. Not all of them make it: Mark, a strong and quiet boy, commits suicide without warning. Other boys with artistic talents find it very hard to sacrifice any hopes of cultivating them because zionist discipline is focused on practical skills and military training. Erwin, in the end, doesn't have to make any choices because he is seriously wounded on his very first armed assignment, and has to undergo surgery several times to regain some mobility. During his long convalescence, he starts copying verses of the Bible in the Hebrew alphabet, and slowly turns himself into a writer, thereby following in his father's footsteps. Although he is fond of his comrades, Erwin craves solitude and insists on moving to an apartment in Tel-Aviv instead of returning to the kibbutz. At the end of the novel, he announces to his mother in a dream his intention of going back to his hometown, but his mother advises him to remain in Israel and let his memories of the past fuel his writing. Appelfeld is a fine storyteller but the characters aren't particularly memorable and it's mostly as a document about the atmosphere surrounding the birth of the state of Israel that this book kept my interest.

[Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Appelfeld (b. 1932) walks us through the layers of memory, peeling back what are surely his own memories of youth, of refugee status after World War Two, of fighting and being wounded while still a child in the years before 1947 in Palestine, and of his (or his character's) long painful process of physical recuperation. This is the story of how one writer gave birth to himself.

This is also a story of European refugees desperate to become sabras, desperate to graft themselves to Hebrew, and yet struggling with the reality of an emotional life that was born in Yiddish.

The book is a long walk back to his lost parents, lovingly portrayed, lovingly embraced, lovingly seanced. He seeks their blessing. He seeks their truth. He seeks to connect to the reality of their lives, and in his dreams he finds them, and grafts his future as a writer onto his father's literary aspirations and his mother's unending encouragement.

There were parts of the book that were somewhat tedious and mute. While the muteness of the characters no doubt reflects the author's own early adolescent muteness and the emotional limitations of his refugee/warrior friends, it is difficult to make such silence engaging.

But as a document of the interiority of the fighting generation of refugees of 1947 and 1948, and likely as a fictionalized but experience-based story of the author's own adolescence, the book was worth reading.

The book was written in 2010 and translated to English in 2017. I would have guessed it was written 50 or more years ago. It is very much in the voice of a long-ago generation, Applefeld's generation of founders, for whom the cause was pure and the need beyond doubt.

[Elena · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read many WWII novels but this was entirely different for a few reasons. It is actually not technically set in WWII but in the months and years after the main character, Jewish teenager Erwin/Aharon, is liberated in Czechoslovakia and makes the pilgrimage to Israel (what then was called Palestine). He has lost everything including his identity, which is the main theme of the book. Flashbacks to the pre-Holocaust years surrounded by loving family as well as devastating circumstances during the Holocaust appear in dreams, with his mother speaking wisdom to him along the journey. The odd thing about Erwin is that he spends the majority of the long trek to Palestine asleep. Various refugees he traveled with moved him from place to place as his brain shut down to recover after the traumatic years he’d barely survived. As he awakens to reality and his new life, he joins a band of young men to live in a kibbutz and fight an unnamed enemy, getting seriously injured soon after training. This causes a second sleep season because of the anesthesia required for various surgeries he undergoes. He processes his past and plans for his future as a prospective writer as he recovers not only his body but also his mind. Some of the book is intentionally hazy, lacking details I felt were crucial, which gave a slightly confused feeling you get when you are right between asleep and awake, wondering what is reality and what is imagined. His conversations with his deceased mother and other links to his past (he continually meets people who resemble family members) and the search for an identity (which includes a name change) add to the unique narrative that made this more of an intricately woven literary fiction rather than plot-driven novel.

[Richard Thompson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many years ago when I quit smoking, I was only able to get through the first two weeks by sleeping all of the time. I don't mean to suggest that quitting smoking was anything like the experience of surviving the Holocaust, but it gave me a visceral feeling for how we can use sleep for healing and as a refuge and an escape when a normal simple life is more than we can face.

This story starts in a refugee camp in Italy where the hero is a displaced person on his way to Israel. On his journey to the camp he is cared for as he constantly sleeps by kind people who remember him even years later as the sleeping boy. Upon his arrival, he begins to spend more time awake, but still returns from time to time to his life of sleep. He joins in the training offered to the young men in the camp to bring their weakened bodies back to health, to teach them Hebrew and to prepare them to serve in the Jewish militia in the era before Israeli statehood. Sleep remains a theme throughout the book. It's more than a place of refuge and escape. It is also a gateway back to the lost world of the hero's youth, where he can visit his family and childhood places that have been destroyed. It is an embodiment of the porous boundary between the real and supernatural that has been a fixture in Eastern European fiction going back to the stories of ETA Hoffman and Goethe's Elf King. This lost dream world has a deep sadness about it, but there is also a comfort there that allows our hero to build a new life for himself and to reimagine himself as writer with a future in an independent Israel. In some ways his waking life as a writer takes over from his world of sleeping and dreaming and provides the same comfort and support with a different form of dreams.