Snapshots by Michal Govrin
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The legacy of the Holocaust exacts another victim in this debut novel, which charts a woman's religious frenzy and descent into madness. The narrator, who variously refers to herself in the first and third person, has a fractured personality reflected by the names she has been known by and the metamorphoses she has deliberately pursued. Named Amelia by her father in memory of his first wife, Malinka, who died heroically in a concentration camp, the protagonist becomes emotionally unhinged in childhood because she feels possessed by Malinka's spirit. Attempting to rid herself of both the incubus of her namesake and what she sees as her own impure body, she changes her name several times, becomes Emily, then Amy, and flees from America to Europe to Jerusalem. Embracing ultra-Orthodox Judaism, she weaves ritual prayer shawls, hoping to earn redemption for the sin of living when talented musician Malinka died, and for promiscuously sharing her own body with men. Self-loathing Amelia starves herself, can't sleep, hears voices and sees visions, meanwhile pouring out her thoughts over the 49 days of the Omer Counting, a period of ritual mourning. Israeli writer Govrin conveys her tormented heroine's increasing dementia in a lush, lyrical monotone that mixes Amelia's frenzied prayers with biblical passages and Kabbalic lore. Amelia's betrothal to another yeshiva student, her deliberate sacrifice of the happiness that marriage with him could bring (instead, she will become the bride of God) and her encounters with various mystical rabbis are described in passages of suffocatingly sonorous prose. Though Govrin won Israel's 1997 Kugel Literary Prize and the 1998 Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Writers, most readers may find it difficult to sustain interest in this essentially static and claustrophobic narrative in which the tragic end is foreordained and the narrow path there marked with a few revelations but no surprises.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this wrenching, painfully detailed work, Amalia is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, named for the beautiful pianist who was her father's first wife and who perished in the camps. The burdens of her family's past weigh heavily on Amalia?as a child, she can't even play the xylophone without angering her father, who evidently draws invidious comparisons with the playing of his lost wife?and she flees into a secular, hedonistic lifestyle. But in her hunt for spiritual renewal, she is drawn back to Orthodox Judaism, living in a tiny room in Jerusalem and trying to find herself worthy of weaving a prayer shawl. This debut by poet and theater director Govrin, who lives in Paris and Princeton, NJ, as well as Jerusalem, is the story of Amalia's long path to redemption. It's beautifully written but also slow-moving and ponderous and would work best for readers interested Jewish history or tales of spiritual rebirth.
-?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
The legacy of the Holocaust exacts another victim in this debut novel, which charts a woman's religious frenzy and descent into madness. The narrator, who variously refers to herself in the first and third person, has a fractured personality reflected by the names she has been known by and the metamorphoses she has deliberately pursued. Named Amelia by her father in memory of his first wife, Malinka, who died heroically in a concentration camp, the protagonist becomes emotionally unhinged in childhood because she feels possessed by Malinka's spirit. Attempting to rid herself of both the incubus of her namesake and what she sees as her own impure body, she changes her name several times, becomes Emily, then Amy, and flees from America to Europe to Jerusalem. Embracing ultra-Orthodox Judaism, she weaves ritual prayer shawls, hoping to earn redemption for the sin of living when talented musician Malinka died, and for promiscuously sharing her own body with men. Self-loathing Amelia starves herself, can't sleep, hears voices and sees visions, meanwhile pouring out her thoughts over the 49 days of the Omer Counting, a period of ritual mourning. Israeli writer Govrin conveys her tormented heroine's increasing dementia in a lush, lyrical monotone that mixes Amelia's frenzied prayers with biblical passages and Kabbalic lore. Amelia's betrothal to another yeshiva student, her deliberate sacrifice of the happiness that marriage with him could bring (instead, she will become the bride of God) and her encounters with various mystical rabbis are described in passages of suffocatingly sonorous prose. Though Govrin won Israel's 1997 Kugel Literary Prize and the 1998 Israeli Prime Minister's Prize for Writers, most readers may find it difficult to sustain interest in this essentially static and claustrophobic narrative in which the tragic end is foreordained and the narrow path there marked with a few revelations but no surprises.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Library Journal
In this wrenching, painfully detailed work, Amalia is the daughter of Holocaust survivors, named for the beautiful pianist who was her father's first wife and who perished in the camps. The burdens of her family's past weigh heavily on Amalia?as a child, she can't even play the xylophone without angering her father, who evidently draws invidious comparisons with the playing of his lost wife?and she flees into a secular, hedonistic lifestyle. But in her hunt for spiritual renewal, she is drawn back to Orthodox Judaism, living in a tiny room in Jerusalem and trying to find herself worthy of weaving a prayer shawl. This debut by poet and theater director Govrin, who lives in Paris and Princeton, NJ, as well as Jerusalem, is the story of Amalia's long path to redemption. It's beautifully written but also slow-moving and ponderous and would work best for readers interested Jewish history or tales of spiritual rebirth.
-?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews
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Inside This Book Citations: This book cites 1 book Explore: Citations | Concordance | Text Stats Key Phrases - SIPs: first prayer shawl, raffia bag, ritual fringes, warp beam, holy rabbi (more) Key Phrases - CAPs: Torah Curtain, Rabbi Israel, Rabbi Avuya Aseraf, Aunt Henia, Bar Yochai (more) Browse Sample Pages: Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover | Surprise Me! |
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Inside This Book
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First Sentence:
May it be Your will, HaShem, Holy Name, my God and God of my fathers, that in the merit of the Omer Count that I have marked today, there may be corrected whatever blemish I have made in the Sefirah Power of Powers. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
first prayer shawl, raffia bag, ritual fringes, warp beam, holy rabbi, flesh sing Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Torah Curtain, Rabbi Israel, Rabbi Avuya Aseraf, Aunt Henia, Bar Yochai, Omer Counting, Rabbi Gothelf, New York, Ludwig Stein, Rabbi Aseraf,
May it be Your will, HaShem, Holy Name, my God and God of my fathers, that in the merit of the Omer Count that I have marked today, there may be corrected whatever blemish I have made in the Sefirah Power of Powers. Read the first page Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
first prayer shawl, raffia bag, ritual fringes, warp beam, holy rabbi, flesh sing Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Torah Curtain, Rabbi Israel, Rabbi Avuya Aseraf, Aunt Henia, Bar Yochai, Omer Counting, Rabbi Gothelf, New York, Ludwig Stein, Rabbi Aseraf,