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A review by stevienlcf
No One Is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel
4.0
This fable-like novel depicts a small community of Jews who live a quiet, sheltered existence on a small peninsula in nothern Romania. When a female stranger arrives who describes the horrors of WWII, the villagers decide to "start over." Echoing Genesis, they plan for a grand temple, designate various committees, and solicit the stranger to record their daily prayers.
Ausubel's writing is dreamlike and is often powerful. She recites the history of the Jews -- the "pogroms and survivals, escapes and resettlings" -- in less than a dozen pages. Despite an economy of language, she is able to invoke strong emotions, like when she explains how Lena, the narrator of the story, is given by her parents as a pre-teen to her childless aunt and uncle because "everyone deserves to love something more than themselves." More wrenching is the description of Lena's decision to leave her starving child with a farmer and his wife, making Lena a member of "the clain of women who love their dearests by giving them away."
The book is uneven. The middle section depicting life in the village as the villagers carve a new beginning was tedious. But the novel picks up steam as reality encroaches. Lena's husband is captured and taken away by benign Italian soldiers who "imprison" him on an island where he enjoys daily swims and coffee at an outdoor cafe. Lena makes a harrowing escape through the woods with her two sons.
An unusual depiction of the Holocaust.
Ausubel's writing is dreamlike and is often powerful. She recites the history of the Jews -- the "pogroms and survivals, escapes and resettlings" -- in less than a dozen pages. Despite an economy of language, she is able to invoke strong emotions, like when she explains how Lena, the narrator of the story, is given by her parents as a pre-teen to her childless aunt and uncle because "everyone deserves to love something more than themselves." More wrenching is the description of Lena's decision to leave her starving child with a farmer and his wife, making Lena a member of "the clain of women who love their dearests by giving them away."
The book is uneven. The middle section depicting life in the village as the villagers carve a new beginning was tedious. But the novel picks up steam as reality encroaches. Lena's husband is captured and taken away by benign Italian soldiers who "imprison" him on an island where he enjoys daily swims and coffee at an outdoor cafe. Lena makes a harrowing escape through the woods with her two sons.
An unusual depiction of the Holocaust.