Set in post second world war in Newyork, this novel is about the lives of people who have been nearly destroyed in the war. Almost everyone suffered tremendously during the war, first in the concentration camps in Germany and then in Soviet labor camps. These Jewish ex-pats from Europe now find themselves living in Newyork. Most of them have lost their family, they have lost their belief in gods and the religious way of life that had defined their lives back in Poland. How do they find meaning, and continue to live a life of hope? After undergoing such trauma and suffering can they ever come back to living normal lives? Does the experience completely alter them, were people who died in a sense lucky that they don’t have to grapple with all of that had happened to their people.
Herman Broder, the central character had escaped the Nazi death camps by hiding for two years in a hayloft by gentile women in Poland. He had married the peasant woman who saved his life, she used to be a servant in Herman’s household in Poland. He was married and had two children back in Warsaw before everything was destroyed by the wars. His life in the present still feels like he is hiding from Nazis, there is so much duplicity and dishonesty that characterizes his life. Yadwiga the Polish peasant with whom he lives is an uneducated simple peasant woman from Poland. She worships him and believes the countless lies that he says to her. Herman is not satisfied with a regular life, the innocence and simplicity of Yadwiga are boring to Herman, he shares a secret love life with Masha a fellow jew from Poland who also had suffered incredibly in the past. Herman and Masha’s relationship is characterized by feisty love that is sometimes characterized by more hatred than love. Herman cannot seem to separate himself from her even though he wants desperately to untangle himself. This aspect of the novel was fascinating to me, is it the holocaust experience that has altered Herman’s and Masha’s life. They seem to be yearning for trouble, the regular life that had ancestors lived they are unable to. Herman writes commentary on Jewish religious texts like the Torah but his life lacks those virtues that these texts speak about. In a sense, he is a modern man unable to define a moral compass for himself or to follow a moral compass handed to him through tradition.
Herman’s life gets complicated when his wife from Poland, Tamara comes back, she is more-dead than alive. She feels the loss of her children, and she sees in Herman the same duplicity that used to characterize his life even in Warsaw. Herman seems to see in Tamara a memory of his children, he is guilty before their memories, he asks her whether his children ask about him when they visit him in her dreams. We also see Tamara suggesting to Herman that he needs someone to give instructions for him to lead his life. She takes over his life for a brief period, instructing him to follow her in leading his life. This shows what Herman lacks in his life, a sense of direction in a meaningless life. He constantly looks at the universe around him, the stars, and the moon are they all random or is there some unknown principle behind all of it. If so how does this cosmic principle allow for such cruel acts to happen? This contradiction is central to both Herman’s and Masha’s life. Tamara is just looking for a purpose but she will eventually find it. Yadwiga on the other hand does not seem to bother about it, she is pure and simple. When she comes to know about Tamara, she is even ready to leave Herman and move back to Poland. She feels she has wronged Tamara by marrying her husband even though she always thought to be dead. Her morality is something passed on to her by tradition, something that Herman or Masha lack.
The novel ends tragically, with Masha killing herself and Herman disappearing from everyone. Tamara taking care of Masha and her child. In a sense, the central question that novel seems to raise is, in the midst of such cruelty and randomness, and absurdity governing life how does one live?
Ashok 