tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post4777636360000443808..comments2023-10-21T07:44:20.549-04:00Comments on The Existence Machine: Notes on Aharon AppelfeldRichardhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-40056372921281654112007-12-19T14:49:00.000-05:002007-12-19T14:49:00.000-05:00Thanks for the comment, Mr. Waggish. I was unaware...Thanks for the comment, Mr. Waggish. I was unaware of Appelfeld's "post" narratives. I'll have to look for them.<BR/><BR/>I agree with you that his "pre" books do seem heavily determined. I was struggling with that. I find his worlds believable, but I found myself wondering how a hypothetical reader who was somehow completely ignorant of the Holocaust would read them.<BR/><BR/>In your <I>Badenheim 1939</I> review, I was pleased to see that you suggested that the Jews in the novel are "portrayed as unsympathetic victims". I was a bit tentative on this point, I think. It seemed to me that Appelfeld could be seen to be arguing in his fiction that the Jews in them, as you say, "were wrong", but I backed off from making that particular argument explicit.<BR/><BR/>"Appelfeld writes as though he is not just impatient with his own characters, but furious at them. He has internalized the material so deeply that these people can only be portrayed as fatally misled suckers, who have bought into the notion of civilized Germany so deeply that they have forsaken the roots and the only other people whom they can really trust: their own." <BR/><BR/>I think this passage in your post is to the point. As I said, I was tentative on this, in part because my readings of <I>Badenheim</I> and <I>Age of Wonders</I> are not fresh in my mind, and also, I think, because I rebel against the idea that these characters were <I>necessarily</I> wrong. This is why, in my next post, I brought up the seeming inevitability of the Holocaust. Appelfeld writes as if there was no chance that any such disaster could have been avoided, and that the Jews who bought into European civilization were simply fools for doing so. I have a hard time with this. I certainly do not wish to deny the history of European anti-Semitism, but I think it removes human agency from the equation, messy things like politics and economics and history.Richardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08014014605639738887noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23471801.post-71490173833828975082007-12-19T13:50:00.000-05:002007-12-19T13:50:00.000-05:00Appelfeld's books seem about split between pre and...Appelfeld's books seem about split between pre and post-Holocaust narratives. (The answer to your initial question is certainly "no" for me.) I personally find the post- books much more effective than the pre- books. The morbid, anticipatory curtain seems to work against him in the pre- books, placing an artificial interpretation on events that seems too determined to be compelling. (I said this about <A HREF="http://www.waggish.org/2004/12/aharon_appelfeld_badenheim_1939.html" REL="nofollow">Badenheim 1919 a while back</A>.)Mr. Waggishhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16094362436252232313noreply@blogger.com