Kirjahaku

While Vili has neither the multi-generational sweep nor the moral gravitas of Singer’s family sagas, its themes are nonetheless timeless, its struggles archetypal. A father and son grapple with each other, and, in the process, a richly compact narrative emerges: a rebellious son leaves his ancestral home—an unnamed village in Poland—to find adventure among strangers and lose tradition and family along the way. Their respective stories define what is lost and what is gained in the immigrant passage to the new world. The eponymous hero, Volf Rubin—or Willy (Vili) Robin in America—is the rare agon who must share center stage with his antagonist, that is, his more voluble paterfamilias. The sententious Hirsh—modeled on Singer's own painful childhood interactions with the savage brutality of the chief rabbi of Nyesheve—tenaciously holds onto some of the more merciless and "bone- breaking" pronouncements derived from a literalist reading and application of Jewish law. Such is the heavy baggage which, according to Volf, should have been left behind in steerage. Volf's lapsed Judaism is his father’s dystopian nightmare. He much prefers nature and farm animals to any form of classroom. Eventually, he leaves home for the New World, and there a whole new story unfolds—or is it so “new”?

In the Polish city of Lodz, the Brothers Ashkenazi grew up very differently in talent and in temperament. Max, the firstborn, is fiercely intelligent and conniving, determined to succeed financially by any means necessary. Slower-witted Jacob is strong, handsome, and charming but without great purpose in life. While Max is driven by ambition and greed to be more successful than his brother, Jacob is drawn to easy living and decadence. As waves of industrialism and capitalism flood the city, the brothers and their families are torn apart by the clashing impulses of old piety and new skepticism, traditional ways and burgeoning appetites, and the hatred that grows between faiths, citizens, and classes. Despite all attempts to control their destinies, the brothers are caught up by forces of history, love, and fate, which shape and, ultimately, break them. First published in 1936, The Brothers Ashkenazi quickly became a bestseller as a sprawling family saga. Breaking away from the introspective shtetl tales of classic nineteenth-century writers, I. J. Singer brought to Yiddish literature the multilayered plots, large casts of characters, and narrative sweep of the traditional European novel. Walking alongside such masters as Zola, Flaubert, and Tolstoy, I. J. Singer's pre-modernist social novel stands as a masterpiece of storytelling.