Auspicious debuts for Hoffman, a short-story writer with, here, a
first novel, and Abbeville, an art-book publisher making an initial
entry into fiction. It's the first in a projected cycle about the
inhabitants of Krimsk, a Jewish village on the Polish-Russian
border, and their dispersal through the world in the 20th century.
The action begins in 1903 on Tisha B'Av, the commemoration of the
destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Counterpointing the
somberness of the observances is a series of interlinking plot
elements often descending even to bedroom farce (naked people
hiding under bedspreads). Krimsk is one of those miserable little
villages immortalized by Sholom Aleichem, Isaac Babel, and Isaac
Bashevis Singer, home to pious Jews like the legendary Krimsker
Rebbe, Yaakov Moshe Finebaum, and his Hasidic followers. The rebbe
has not emerged from his study for five years, and has spoken to no
one. This Tisha B'Av, however, he walks into his shul to lead the
service as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world. The
community he reenters is rife with undercurrents that have been
created in no small part by his absence: His wife has taken it upon
herself to set up a match for their daughter, an only child, with
the son of the richest man in Krimsk; Yechiel Katzman, the premier
student and teacher at the local yeshiva, is undergoing a crisis of
belief; Boruch Levi, the town's junkdealer, is getting secret
messages from above on the rear-end of his aging horse, Thunder;
and the Poles in neighboring Krimichak are gearing up for a pogrom.
Hoffman sorts out all in sprightly fashion and high style,
resorting to only one credulity-straining coincidence, and that
late enough as to seem completely logical. A highly entertaining,
affectionate glance back at the Old World, inflected by a
refreshing intellectual clarity that is most refreshing. (Kirkus
Reviews)
Small Worlds, the first volume in Allen Hoffman's critically
acclaimed series Small Worlds, takes place in 1903 and introduces
the wondrous rebbe of Krimsk--a small Hasidic settlement in Eastern
Europe. Secluded in his study for the past five years, the beloved
rebbe suddenly emerges on the eve of Tisha B'Av, the holiday for
commemorating the destruction of the holy temple in Jerusalem. His
congregants are overjoyed to see him, but their joy is to be
short-lived, for this holiday at the dawn of the twentieth century
will be marked by strange and momentous events that will change
their lives forever. Small Worlds is the first in a series of
novels concerning the people of Krimsk and their descendants in
America, Poland, Russia, and Israel. In each volume Allen Hoffman
draws on his deep knowledge of Jewish religion and history to evoke
the "small worlds" his characters inhabit. Echoes of Jewish
literary tradition can be heard in Small Worlds, especially the
mystical realism of Isaac Bashevis Singer and the poignant humor of
Sholom Aleichem, on whose tales Fiddler on the Roof is based.
General
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