Pages from a Charred Notebook: The Fabulous Tales of Tsvi Eisenman

By Tsvi Eisenman and Tsevi Ayznman

This book is an entrancing collection of charming, fabulous tales written in a masterly, unique style. Some of the tales are on Jewish themes: Israel, the Holocaust, and the author's eventful and troubled life as a wartime refugee from Poland and an immigrant to Israel; others are drawn from his fertile imaginings about kings and queens, monsters, and strange mystical visions of existence. In 1996, the work was awarded the Rosenfeld Prize for Yiddish Literature. The citation reads in part: His is a unique voice in Yiddish literature. He says a lot in very few words and speaks loudly with a quiet voice. He looks at both life and death with the wide-open eyes of a child. His language is rhythmical and his stories read like ballads. They seem, at first, like naive children's stories but they contain great wisdom and even greater sadness. Eisenman's truly wonderful Yiddish original has been given a superb, idiomatic translation by Barnett Zumoff, who has also published translations of works by Sholem Aleichem, Jacob Glatstein, Abraham Sutzkever, Rajzel Zychlinsky, and Chaim Lieberman.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0881256773
• ISBN13: 9780881256772
• Release Date: January 2001
• Publisher: Ktav Publishing House
• Length: 260 Pages

Customer Reviews

Yiddish worlds

Tsvi Eisenman contributes family history, versions of world history, mystical and utterly realistic short stories, meditations, lamentations, allegories and "musical word improvisations" in this varied and interesting collection. In addition there are original fables that are suitable for children or adults. Eisenman invites readers into a daunting variety of Jewish triumphs, calamities, and inner states, from the beginning of time to 1980's Warsaw. The ordinary and the mythic are honored equally.Eisenmam's deceptively simple "musical word improvisations" are usually a page long. "Apocalypse," a prose poem on the longing for communion when there seems to be no hope ("Dance with me. Hold me close. Embrace me.") is a simple, powerful plea. The loneliness of old age in "Tango" ("the bittersweet tango I now dance alone") is inarguable. Occasionally, Barnett Zumoff's translation falters ("woven braids" for dreadlocks, for example). In all, these pieces are well worth reading - for a look at a somewhat experimental Yiddish writer who has a great imagination, generosity of spirit, and an enthusiastic knack for describing his world.