To the Land of Cattails (Appelfeld, Aharon) [Paperback]

Aharon Appelfeld (Author), Jeffrey H. Green (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In another aspect of this author's painful foreshadowing of the destiny of European Jews (The Age of Wonders, the land of the cattails is the homeland, toward which they are all struggling to return and which, like Kafka's castle, is always several leagues farther on. In fact, for Toni and her son Rudi, the journey from Vienna is so pleasant that they linger at the inns along their way, Toni's beauty and Rudi's teenage charms eliciting response from everyone. Only Toni's fear that Rudi, whose father is Christian, may resent or deny his Judaism, mars their passage homeward. When his mother develops typhus and is quarantined, Rudi starts to drink and to sleep with a girl from town. His carousing tragically delays their arrival at his grandparents' house. When at last they reach the village, Toni goes forth alone, and vanishes. Appelfeld's blend of fantasy and realism is again enormously effective in evoking the darkening shadows of the Holocaust.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

It is 1938 and Toni Strauss, a Jewish woman living in Vienna, longs to return to her homeland along the river Prut. Accompanying her on the long journey home is her adolescent son, Rudi. Rudi, whose father was gentile, has never been particularly religious and "does not look Jewish." Yet as they travel eastward into the face of increasing anti-Semitism, Rudi is forced to come to terms with his heritage. Following his mother's disappearance aboard a mysterious train, he wanders like a lost lamb until he, too, decides to cast his lot with another group of Jews waiting passively, almost eagerly, for their own train. A depressing tale, but one that hauntingly captures the plightand the apparent fatalismof Eastern European Jewry before the outbreak of World War II. Recommended.David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 148 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (April 14, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802133592
• ISBN-13: 978-0802133595
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,588,247 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Final Trip Home, March 13, 2001

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: To the Land of Cattails (Appelfeld, Aharon) (Paperback)

Most of the books I have read by Mr. Aharon Appelfeld have dealt with movement, the movement of an individual, or in this case, a Mother and her Son. This work differs as it is at the beginning of The Holocaust, and we read not of survivors attempting to travel and regain their previous life, but of individuals heading straight into the Genocide.

This is one of the briefer of this Author's novels, however it does not lack depth in plot, or in its characters. The story takes place in the summer of 1938, the infamous trains have been transporting the Reich's victims, and this is one of the more interesting pieces of the story to unravel. The Country that was their home was an early entrant into the Nazi Sphere, and their travels took them not away from, but rather toward the planned insanity that was taking place. The circumstances are also more complex as the Mother has left an abusive marriage to a Gentile. The only child is a Son, who though Jewish by Religious and Nazi Law, appears not to be, and their reception along the way demonstrates this. As they approach their ultimate destination the Mother also wavers from proclaiming her Son a Jew or a Christian.

The return trip without the waiting trains is still destined to be a painful conflict. This first return home after marrying outside her faith guarantees conflict with her Family at a minimum. As the trip progresses the mood darkens, however the Mother seems much more aware than her Son.

When the final approach to her hometown is all that is left after weeks of travel, the Son wakes to find he has been left, his Mother has gone on without him. And from this point on the story seems to pose the question of whether or not the Mother was having her Son deliver her to this danger she could not have been ignorant of, as she states that Jews are not well-liked as they get closer to her birthplace.

The Son pursues his Mother, and meets many others on their way to the trains, or others that wait for them. I am confident that many will interpret the story differently, but it seemed that the Mother knew what the future held, and wanted her Son to deliver her believing he would not be suspected of being Jewish.

Like all his books the storylines are not shallow or simplistic. Even when Mr. Appelfeld writes about the Holocaust that the he survived and his Mother did not; it still is not just about that instant of tragedy. Read a work of his twice and interpretations can change,

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars To the Land of the Cattails, June 21, 2006

By 

Chattan Gordon - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: To the Land of Cattails (Appelfeld, Aharon) (Paperback)

To the Land of the Cattails (earlier published as To the Land of the Reeds) tells the story of a single mother's journey with her son across Europe from 1938 to 1940. Toni Strauss is a 34 year-old, divorced, non-observant Jewish woman living in Vienna with her 15 year-old son, Rudi. Toni is strikingly beautiful and has sufficient resources to lead a comfortable and perhaps even luxurious life.

Some years earlier, she left her homeland, Bukovina in Eastern Europe, in order to marry Rudi's father, an Austrian gentile. As a result of that marriage, she is estranged from her observant Jewish parents from whom she has not heard since her marriage. When an elderly admirer bequeaths his entire estate to Toni, she pulls Rudi out of school, buys a wagon and two horses, packs up their belongings and heads east for Bukovina, the land of the cattails.

They travel leisurely, lingering for weeks and sometimes months at a time at stops along the way. Meanwhile Toni tries to introduce Rudi to Judaism and the Eastern-European Jewish culture. Their journey from Vienna to Bukovina (a distance of roughly 600 miles) is seemingly endless. One is reminded of the biblical Exodus story where the children of Israel take forty years to travel from Egypt to the promised land. The tone of the novel becomes increasingly dark and ominous as their journey progresses. At the beginning of the journey, passers-by, fellow travelers and innkeepers are friendly, welcoming and courteous. Toni extravagantly overpays and overtips with large bills. The atmosphere is lighthearted and pleasant. As they near their destination, passers-by insult Toni, innkeepers refuse to serve her and she is reduced to paying with her jewelry. It is clear that Jews are not well-liked in Bukovina.

Just 15 miles short of Toni's hometown, the conflicted and depressed Rudi goes on a drinking binge, passes out and awakes to find that Toni has disappeared. The rest of the novel is devoted to Rudi's search for his mother and his struggle to cope with his increasingly mystifying and dangerous situation.

Aharon Appelfeld's novels are often compared to Kafka's and rightly so. This novel is dreamlike and is full of imagery and symbolism. It is a difficult book, but is well worth the time and effort it takes to understand it. I found that I had a much better grasp of the novel after referring to a Holocaust timeline and a map of Europe circa 1939. What I found most remarkable is what the author left unsaid. The hints and clues of what is going on around Toni and Rudi are so subtle that the book's climax comes as quite a surprise and blindsides the reader. The reader finds himself in Rudi's situation -- confused and wondering why he didn't see it coming. The reader gains a sense of how Hitler's Final Solution could have blindsided millions. There is more to this novel than can be summed up in a short review. It is an outstanding book that deserves to be read and re-read.

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb, Memorable Novel, December 1, 2011

By 

FYI (The West) - See all my reviews

This review is from: To the Land of Cattails (Appelfeld, Aharon) (Paperback)

I read this work years ago, and it still haunts me. The simply complex nature of Jewish identity is explored, the sensuous and spiritually-seeking mother, and the exodus with her son into the West are exquisitely drawn. Toni and Rudi begin to crave their Viennese coffee as they drift deeper into dangerous territory, this longing becomes a recurring, effective note; we take daily pleasures for granted. Towards the end, Rudi realizes the world he sought too late is completely annihilated, and that his life is now limned by guilt and grief; it's one of the most devastating depictions of loss I've ever read. Not only is his mother lost, and all his relatives, but so is a world. I highly recommend this as well: There Once Was a World: A 900-Year Chronicle of the Shtetl of Eishyshok.

I'll now digress to the short, true story of "Dinner With Carl," as follows: Last night we met up for burgers with Carl, a retired physicist. A bizarre conversation commenced after I described that my grandfather, Karl, served in the Pacific as an Naval Officer during WWII, as a surgeon on a battleship. Then Carl began ruminating that there's always two sides to an argument. He said cultural diversity makes nations weaker, and derided multiple languages on forms (English and Spanish), even Canada, with two official languages, irked. We grew more disgusted as crackpot blather emitted from this supposedly brilliant physicist. Shockingly, he then speculated that there were "virtues of Aryan ideology" in "the Nazi solution to the Jewish Problem." I told him to tell it to the people with the numbers on their arms, and we left him at the table. The next day, he had the gall to try to say he was misunderstood. We told him, in no uncertain terms, that his ideas were repellent, and to cease and desist from any further communication. Soothed the soul by listening to the bluesy guitar and gospel lyrics of the Staple Singers on Freedom Highway; Papa (Roebuck) Staples and Mavis sharing their pure, shimmering harmony. For their later, funkier groove, try Best of the Staple Singers. The gifted Staple Singers are to music what Appelfeld is to writing, the opposite of dealing with "-isms" regarding race, gender, age, and/or religion.

There can never be too many writers like Aharon Appelfeld, reminding people of truth.