Customer Reviews

Blooms of Darkness: A Novel

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I began with Badenheim 1939 when it first came out and over the years I have read every one of his novels. Sometimes the Holocaust is a central character and the people are aware, or sometimes not. We, the readers, know what is coming and even where it is going, but the characters are often lost to fear, despair, wild hopes, incredulity, denial. They are history happening and at the same time, they are off to the side of history. Footnotes almost. This distancing, this gap, this chasm is what makes Appelfeld unlike all others who write fiction about the Holocaust.

Blooms of Darkness takes place within a 2-year period so mid-1943 to mid-1945 when the Russians marched westward into central Europe. Hugo is the tall-for-his-age 11-year-old son of pharmacists in Ukraine. They speak German at home but there was a Ukrainian servant girl and he picked up a lot from her--speaking Ukrainian and becoming more fluent later in the novel is considered essential if Hugo is to survive.

The deportation net has shrunk their lives; Papa was picked up for labor. Really? Was it really labor? Mama keeps them going materially and spiritually. They are not religious or observant but consider themselves Jews. A hiding place must be found for Hugo--they cannot postpone it any longer. Mama tells Hugo she has a place for herself but only for herself and not safe for Hugo. Hugo will be better off with Mama's dear friend, Mariana, who works as a whore in a brothel and who has agreed wholeheartedly to protect and care for Hugo. The customers are German military.

The bulk of the novel takes place in the brothel and inside Hugo's head. He dreams, he has visions, he remembers the past, he remembers his mother's words, and he writes to her in his diary to ease his longing.
I don't want to detail any more of the story--it should be discovered by the reader. Until the last few pages, we don't know what will become of Hugo. This is a stunning novel.

Blooms of Darkness is a profound, and genuinely profoundly moving, novel. Appelfeld's voice is quiet, as always, but his work emotionally resonates like no other writer's. In this novel he situates you squarely, day by day, in the life of Hugo, in hiding from the Nazis. Hugo's protector is Mariana, a prostitute. You will not soon forget these characters, or this novel. It aches, and leaves the reader aching, with so many powerful emotions. This isn't a good novel, it's a great novel. It seems criminal to me that Appelfeld isn't celebrated worldwide. He should already have earned the Nobel Prize for literature. He has written so many incredible novels. Start with Blooms of Darkness, and then relish the rest of his tantalizing body of work. No matter where you go next, you can't go wrong.

This book is an easy read and difficult to put down. Everything is from the view of a young Jewish boy who is hidden in a brothel to escape the Nazis. Beautiful, mesmerizing writing. I highly recommend it.

Aharon Appelfeld, Blooms of Darkness

Translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M Green

This story of an eleven-year old Jewish boy who finds shelter with a Christian prostitute who is obliged to entertain German soldiers is captivating and moving. The boy, Hugo, is entrusted by his mother to Mariana, her old school friend `working' as a sex-slave in The Residence, an occupation she detests but which gives her the means of survival in German-speaking Ukraine. As with the Diaries of Anne Frank, the reader is ever-conscious of the horrors lying in wait for all those found guilty of harbouring Jews, who are routinely rounded up and transported. The tension of a knock on the door, the rumours, and the hopes and fears of the residents keep Hugo and the reader on tenterhooks throughout. We see only as much as Hugo sees of the outside world, as he is hidden in a closet, while nightly Mariana entertains her clients. As the days turn into weeks and years, Hugo gradually comes to realise the nature of his adoptive mother's work. Each comes to depend on the other for solace and support and eventually they become lovers, much to the scorn of the other residents. The threat of exposure to the enemy is ever-present.

As the tide of battle outside moves in favour of the Russians, the threat increases. All the women are now jumpy, many falling back on their Christian belief for succor. Collaborating whores are likely to be severely dealt with when the Russians arrive, and this indeed happens to all those who are later interrogated by the new occupiers of the city, one never mentioned by name, but clearly not far from the Carpathian mountains that Hugo and his family used to visit before the war. The mountains in fact become a symbol of hope for both Hugo and Mariana, one sadly without any substance. Both learn to endure the hardships of hunger and displacement, the loss of family and the contempt of neighbours.

Mariana is a beautifully realized character. Strong-willed, compassionate and self-absorbed she admires Jews for their intelligence, sensitivity and stoicism. Nevertheless she is puzzled that so many of them are virtual unbelievers and never attend synagogue. Hugo's family, too, it seems are far from orthodox, one bohemian uncle being a declared atheist. Mariana herself is muted in her Christianity and, like Hugo's Uncle Sigmond she is addicted to the bottle. She imagines that she should have married Sigmond, but when they had spoken of it, he had made `a dismissive gesture with his right hand as if to say, I've already tried that. There's no point to it.'

This is a sad but totally absorbing novel, in which dreams of the past mix with and alternately cloud and brighten the miseries of the present. Gradually Mariana reveals her past to Hugo in fragments such as this: At first I thought that he didn't want to marry me because I'm a simple woman. Later I understood that he was a lost person. I was willing to marry him as he was, to cook his meals and wash his clothes, but then the hard days came, the persecution and the ghetto, and he told me something I'll never forget: `I can't be saved any longer. Save yourself. The Jews have been condemned to death. You're still young.' Well, not so young now but still to Hugo beautiful as ever, his first love, her last love.

In 1941, Axis forces invaded the part of modern-day Ukraine in which the city of Chernivtsi is situated, holding it until its "liberation" by the Red Army in 1944. As was the case throughout Poland, the Baltic States and the Soviet republics that were invaded, the many Jews living in the region were prime victims, and the great majority were killed. Aharon Appelfeld, born in Chernivtsi, was nine years old at the time of the invasion. He was placed in a labour camp with his father, but they became separated and he succeeded in fleeing to hide in the woods, ultimately surviving. Blooms of Darkness is not closely autobiographical, but the fictional story of 11 year old Hugo Mansfeld clearly reflects parts of Appelfeld's own story.

The novel opens some months into the occupation, in what we may take to be early 1942. The Jews of Chernivtsi have been concentrated in a ghetto; some, including Hugo's father, have been deported to labor camps; many children have been snatched to be asphyxiated in mobile gas chambers; all those remaining in the ghetto, adults and children, are being systematically removed to an unknown destination (in fact Transnistria). In a desperate attempt to preserve his life, Hugo's mother finds a hiding place for him in a brothel, in the custody of one of the whores, a one-time school friend, Mariana. Despite Mariana's profession, Hugo's mother has never renounced her friendship; her steadfastness will now be repaid.

Hugo has to spend most of his time in an unheated closet off Mariana's room. German soldiers, "entertained" by Mariana, regularly come within a few feet of him. He overhears all. One by one, the other whores learn of his presence, increasing the danger both to him and to Mariana as the Germans hunt down every last Jew and their protectors. Totally innocent at the outset, Hugo gradually comes to understand the nature of Mariana's work, her self-disgust, depression and resort to alcohol. Despite the haphazard nature of her provision for him, Hugo and Mariana become emotionally important to each other. He hears absolutely nothing of his parents, but realistic scenarios of what might have happened to them occur in his dreams.

As the tide of war turns, the business of the whorehouse falls off and it closes. Hugo and Mariana are then obliged to face the dangers of life on the outside.

With short, simple sentences and a brisk pace, the effect of this novel is reminiscent of a movie, except that a movie would place greater emphasis on dramatic incident and the horror of the situation. As readers, we are left to reflect on such matters for ourselves. Measures of Aharon Appelfeld's success with his story are regret that it is not more extended, and a hope that perhaps there might be a sequel.

I was thrilled to see this book was available on Kindle, no matter what the price. I pre-ordered it without hesitation, based on the strength of the author's previous work. I am so glad to see the best of current world literature available on Kindle, and not just bestsellers and pop fiction. I was not disappointed in the least; it was another great novel by Appelfeld. I was totally engaged in Hugo's story from page one on(what is the Kindle parlance for page one?). Other's have described the plot very well; I am left with sharing my impressions - the horror of having to leave one's child behind with an old friend who lives as a prostitute in order to save his life, the agony of living one's innocent years of childhood within the confines of a room, and the even more dreadful confinement of a closet, and the destructive self-loathing and simple bravery of Hugo's benefactor. All of these things add up to a thoughtful and evocative novel.

$14.27 for the Kindle edition of a book that's only 288 pages? Why is this priced so high?? Lower the price and I'll consider it...I'll also delete this review.