Hoffman's latest and bleakest work - the third in his Small Worlds
cycle (Small Worlds, 1996; Big League Dreams, 1997) - continues the
saga of the disciples of the Krimsker Rebbe in the darkening years
of the '30s and '40s. The duo of the title are a pair of offstage
characters whose depredations can spell only disaster for the
now-scattered Jews of Krimsk. In the first of the novel's two
parts, it is Rosh Hashanah 1936, and Rabbi Finebaum's own
son-in-law, Hershel Shwartzman, is a worker in the sinister arts, a
colonel in the NKVD whose primary duty is the torturing of
political prisoners. But Grisha, as he's known, begins to suffer
his own loss of faith as it dawns on him that the wheels of death
he helps to run will inevitably grind him up also. As fear
displaces zeal, he is drawn into the kind of self-examination that
can't help but lead to his demise. The second (and shorter)
narrative is set on Yom Kippur 1942 and reintroduces two of the
major characters from Small Worlds: Yechiel Katzman, once the
Rebbe's prize pupil, banished for apparent heresy, and Itzik
Dribble, the sweet-natured retarded boy who was an integral part of
that earlier novel's climax. Now, both are in the clutches of the
Nazi killing machine: Katzman, an inhabitant of the Warsaw Ghetto,
is on a train to Treblinka; Itzik, who has grown to immense size
and strength, is an uncomprehending tool of the SS. A master of the
art of getting into his characters' heads, Hoffman creates
intricate and thoroughly convincing monologues. And he hasn't lost
his taste for the miraculous nature of the everyday, a fascination
that makes him one of the logical heirs to the legacy of Isaac
Bashevis Singer. (Kirkus Reviews)
It is Rosh Hashanah -- the Jewish New Year and Day of Judgment --
in Moscow during the Stalinist purges of 1936. In the Lubyanka
secret police prison, senior investigator Grisha Shwartzman
masterfully pursues the rigorous logic and obsessive legalism of
the Soviet witch-hunt. Facing an extraordinary prisoner, Grisha
realizes that the Soviet system he has faithfully served is
murderously corrupt and that he himself will be the next victim --
but not an innocent one. In despair, he flees to his home, where
his deranged wife and an unexpected Rosh Hashanah letter from his
father-in-law, the enigmatic Krimsker Rebbe in America, await him.
The Day of Judgment proves to be a startling experience as Grisha,
the once idealistic radical, judges himself, accepts his
responsibilities, and is guided to sublime passion and possible
redemption by his mad wife, who for twenty years has been patiently
awaiting him in a closed wardrobe.
In 1942 a train of imprisoned Jews leaves the Warsaw ghetto for
"resettlement in the East". It is Yom Kippur -- the Day of
Atonement and the holiest day of the Jewish year. In a crowded
cattle car stands a lonely, defeated individual who is ashamed that
he cannot even remember his own name. During the tortuous journey
Yechiel Katzman will overhear a talmudic debate and meet a
dull-witted giant who turns out to be none other than Itzik
Dribble, also from Krimsk. As they arrive in the death camp of
Treblinka, Yechiel remembers not only his name but also the
Krimsker Rebbe's prophetic curse that exiled him from Krimsk forty
years earlier. Yet as death approaches, that curse will prove a
blessing.
Stalin and Hitler decree certain death, but Grisha and Yechiel
discoverJewish fates. The devil incites loneliness, degradation,
despair, and even complicity; through memory, the victims elicit
community, dignity, and the awareness of sanctity. Grisha's
"Soviet" Rosh Hashanah and Yechiel's "Nazi" Yom Kippur are truly
"Days of Awe". Even when death is certain, life can be lived.
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