The Retreat [Hardcover]

Aharon Appelfeld (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 18, 1984

The year is 1937. On a remote hilltop some distance from Vienna stands a hotel called The Retreat. Founded by a man who is determined to cleanse himself and his guests of all "Jewish traits," it is a resort of assimilation, with daily activities that include lessons in how to look, talk, act--in short, how to pass--as a gentile. But with Hitler on the march, the possibilities of both assimilation and retreat are quickly fading for the hotel's patrons, men and women who are necessarily--and horrifically--blind to their fate. Mordant, shrewd, and elegantly written, The Retreat is a moving story of people forbidden to retreat from themselves, by the writer whom Irving Howe called "one of the best novelists alive."

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Appelfeld in one of the greatest writers of the age."
—The Guardian (London)

"With his stark, swift prose, Appelfeld creates a vision that is both disturbing and elegiac . . . a devastating new classic in Holocause literature."
—Vogue --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English, Hebrew (translation)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 164 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; 1st edition (April 18, 1984)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525242376
• ISBN-13: 978-0525242376
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 4.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,585,778 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A unique and troubling voice, April 24, 2005

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Retreat: A novel (Paperback)

Marginal Jewish characters who would do without their own Jewish identity gather together at a ' retreat' where they are to develop traits which will free them of their 'undesirable' Jewish traits. The major character, an actress who has been forced into retirement, and who has an uneasy relationship with her daughter comes to the Retreat and like its other inhabitants is enclosed and imprisoned by it. Appelfeld is a master of depicting such marginal characters, who seem somehow unreal and threatened not only by the hostile world outside but by their own lack of substance. On the edge of the great destruction of the Jewish people these characters seem half- dead and in some way longing for their own destruction.

Though I sense the art, the depth, the cunning of the master writer at work here I nonetheless found the reading difficult and claustrophobic.

Appelfeld is a writer of immense critical reputation, and truly a writer of unique perception, experience and sensibility.

He is truly a unique and troubling voice, the remembrance and the promise of a terrible disaster that has already happened, and is told as if it is about to come.

1 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Maybe I'm Missing Something..., May 14, 2001

By 

Emily Ellis Hoffman (Apopka, FL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Retreat: A novel (Paperback)

I read this book in a day- very short and very vague. This is the first I've read of this author so I don't know if this is his style or a different feel than his other books. It is basically filled with characters that hate their Jewishness. However, these characters are one dimensional, boring sketches that failed to interest me. I kept trying to ponder this book after finishing for some worthy or powerful statement of Anything! All I discovered is that I'm GLAD some books are really short.