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Only Yesterday

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Agnon deserved his Nobel Prize. His most important work, Only Yesterday, casts an array of lights into the inner world of Judaism. Anyone who enjoys Bashevis Singer or Sholom Aleichem will kick themselves for the years they wasted without Agnon, who surpasses them. The translation itself is a wonder. It reproduces the Biblical style of narrative which Agnon brought to modern Hebrew literature. Agnon melds the traditional elements of Rabbinic parable and folkloric animal stories into the modern narrative of the turn-the-century Jewish settlers of Palestine. All in all, the appearance of the English translation is a great event, a must read for lovers of Jewish literature.

"Only Yesterday" is, perhaps, Agnon's greatest work. In it, he displays the skill of a consummate novelist with the sensibilities of a poet. For those who are familiar with Hebrew poetry, particularly Biblical poetry, "Only Yesterday" conveys in English the rhythms and structure of classic Hebrew poetry while transmitting a sensual and, ultimately, tragic story. It is really not comparable to Singer; it is something far above and beyond Singer's work.

Agnon's Only Yesterday requires a close and careful reader. But the benefits of reading this novel and finishing it far out weigh the effort.

First there is the problem of translation. Agnon's Hebrew was deeply layered and rich, mining much of the long tradition of Hebrew literature in every age. Of course, a translation does not covey this. But this translation gives a sense of the faux simplicity of Agnon's Hebrew prose. Beneath the deadpan delivery is a multi-layered work that taps into a three-thousand year history of Hebrew prose writing.

Second, Agnon has produced a work that is an invaluable document about the early days of the New Yishuv in Palestine. Rich in local color and detail, Agnon is not afraid to take the reader on carefully crafted detours into the lives of the odd characters of the early Zionist movement, men and women who would resurrect a language and create a state.

Finally, Only Yesterday belongs in the pantheon of large social novels that while exemplifying a certain time and place, capture human universals. The problems of human life, the pains, joys, loves, losses, are the ultimate subject of this book. Taken together, all these elements make for a masterful read.

I had only read one other SY Agnon book before embarking on Only Yesterday. I had read Two Tales, which as the name suggests consists of two short stories. Therefore, it was with some trepidation that I embarked on reading Only Yesterday at over 600 pages.

However despite its length, I enjoyed this book for a number of reasons. First, as some other reviewers have said, the language in the book is often like poetry. I found myself reading passages aloud to get the full effect of the poetic language. Second, I found it to be a quite humerous book. There are many passages and stories in the book which are quite funny, particularly the narrative by Balak. Finally, I enjoyed the multitude of characters which Agnon describes in the book.

The only criticism I have of the book is that I think it is a bit overlong. I think that the story got a bit bogged down in the middle before picking up again and ending in a strange and unpredictable way. I think the book's length will be too intimidating for most readers and as a result they will not experience the rich and rewarding experience which reading Only Yesterday provides.

Agnon is one of those writers who to be truly read needs to be read in the language he writes. The Hebrew of Agnon is a multi-layered language in which he employs many different kinds of traditional language and text. Part of his great ironic power is playing his own texts off against the tradition he is continually evoking and moving in out and away from. In this work he tells the story of a Second Aliyah pioneer to the Yishuv and in doing so makes a rich and complex commentary not only on the Zionist enterprise but on the role and place of the Jew in the modern world. This is work also fits the well- known theme of ' The Dreamer and his disappointments in meeting reality'. But Agnon is a writer who often tries to appear more simple than he is, and often the disappointments too give a kind of insight and meaning which makes having them valuable. The wanderings of Kumer, his search for dignity in building the land, his search for love, his wandering between the new world and the traditional world, between Tel Aviv of the secular pioneers and the Jerusalem of the Old Yishuv are all parts of the richness of this work.

It is however precisely Agnon's intellectual playfulness and irony which would seem to stand as barriers before the reader's direct identification and sympathy with the characters.

I in any case prefer some of Agnon's stories to this larger and more ambitious work.

I wanted to read a book that many consider to be Agnon's masterpiece, as well as others who claim it to be one of the finest examples of modern Hebrew literature. I was not disappointed at all. It took me quite a while to finish `Only Yesterday' as apart from being particularly busy in recent weeks, I found that I wanted to read each page quite slowly, savouring the folkloric language and making sure that I had fully absorbed what the author wanted to say.

On the surface this is a tale of one man's passage to the Land of Israel from his home village in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The pre-WWI Ottoman Palestine he arrives in is a world far removed from his naïve imaginings. Our `hero' - Isaac Kumer - is a young and impoverished Zionist of the Second Aliyah. This was the period of renewed zeal amongst the (mainly Russian) Jews of the pogrom and persecution-beset old country, and although relatively small in number, the wide-ranging influence of its pioneers on subsequent generations in the founding of the State of Israel is beyond compare. Agnon charmingly weaves into his plot many historic (and also the future historic) figures alongside the fictional cast of many. Initially finding his feet in the bustling port town of Jaffa, Isaac eventually makes the trip up to Jerusalem. At either end of this journey Agnon lavishly portrays the fascinating world of these two very different towns - the former being coastal, politicised, and predominantly secular, the latter being of the interior, traditional and overwhelmingly orthodox. If nothing else, this book serves as a wonderfully valuable portrayal of a world now gone. The co-mingling of European Jews and their indigenous brethren, the urban and the rural, the liberal and the conservative, at a time when the very soul of the future Jewish state was in gestation, is fascinating to behold.

After many early setbacks in his attempts to find the work on the land that he had dreamed of [One disappointment of `Only Yesterday' was the nearly complete absence of the Arabs of the country. An exception to this is in reference to those farmers preferring to employ the cheaper Arab labour to that of the Jewish immigrant. They're referred to in other places, but so scantily that I can only conclude that they did not figure largely in the day to day life at that time of either Agnon himself, or those contemporaries of the period that he is portraying.] - Isaac stumbles on another way to earn a living as a painter.

As his early years in the land are told - sometimes the narrator is from Isaac's point of view, sometimes detached from Isaac as an omnipotent observer, and sometimes in the lives of others altogether - the novel starts to develop simultaneously on several levels. As well as the tale of Isaac's days, the reader is aware of the question of being a stranger in a strange land. In Jaffa Isaac is a Galician among the Russians. In the fields he is a Jew among the Arabs. In Jerusalem he is a `modern', or a Zionist, among the Hasidim. And so on. Questions of identity and purpose are constantly in Isaac's mind as he is also caught between the only two women he has ever known outside of his family - one in Jaffa and the other in Jerusalem.

Agnon has a great sense of humour and mischief as well, as we discover mid-story when he introduces an almost magical or Kafkaesque element in the guise of a stray dog. Balak, the dog, suffers the misfortune to be the butt of Isaac's tomfoolery in a moment of boredom. The repercussions of the joke are so consequential to the story that I can't say more. Suffice to say, in every chapter when Balak takes the lead, the reader is treated to an alternate view of the universe from a lonesome dog's perspective.

Agnon's writing is soaring and beautiful in as many places depicting the mundane and the ugly of everyday life as it is the wondrous and mystical. The imagery of his tale is powerful and will stay with me for a long time to come. An unforgettable story.

PS:
A description of the artwork on the cover: "Pinwheel Vendor" by Reuven Rubin (1923). It is taken from a catalogue for a Rubin exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art entitled "Dreamland". I include it as it is of some interest considering the publisher's choice and that it seems to express with great subtlety something of the story itself:

An Arab of Sudanese descent sits facing the sea while a Jewish pioneer stands beside him. The Sudanese man's pose, his elevated chin and the fixed gaze focused on a faraway point on the horizon create the sense of a character operating within the dimensions of "inexhaustible time" - time which is not measured in the units of "here and now" but by means of an hourglass in which the sand grains do not run out. The Sudanese man has so much time that he does not even bother to blow at his pinwheels. Sooner or later, the wind will come. If not sooner, then later. And if not later, then after later. The pioneer at his side stands barefoot like the natives and carries a hoe - a symbol of Zionist activism - on his shoulder, his back turned to the sea. The Sudanese man looks as if he could keep crouching on his heels for a long time. He is in no hurry, and patience is the trait ensuring his survival. He operates in another temporal sphere. By contrast, the "New Jew" - bearded and wearing a European hat - is full of movement and impetuosity. He has no time, and must begin his task.

S.Y. Agnon is a terrific writer. Having read the book in Hebrew, I find this English translatgion to be very accurate. The book describes the experiences of a young man who decided to leave Russia and settle in Palestine in the early 1900's. Gives you great insight as to the problems they faced and their daily life.

A tremendous work of fiction that dazzles the imagination. It builds as it goes along, and has great moments of humor and tragedy. There is a great subplot in which Agnon writes from the point of view of a wild dog who runs loose through Jerusalem. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of what Jaffa was like in the twenties and thirties. Considered the greatest Hebrew novel ever written by multiple critics.