Suddenly, Love

February 24, 2014
This compact novel by prolific Israeli author Appelfeld (The Iron Tracks) movingly embraces the themes of love, faith, and redemption between two disparate Jewish generations. Ernst Blumenfeld, 70, is divorced and resides in Jerusalem. He retired from a brokerage firm and is now a frustrated novelist. Two years prior, he hired Irena, a single 36-year-old woman who only finished the 10th grade, to work as his housekeeper and caretaker, and they became friends. An ardent Communist who persecuted the Jews in his youth in the Ukraine, Ernst grew estranged from his Jewish shopkeeper parents and served with distinction in the Red Army during the Second World War. Now he’s ill, he suffers from bouts of depression, and he’s haunted by his past; he fights these afflictions by penning his memoir. Unlike Ernst, Irena enjoyed a warm relationship with her late parents, who were Auschwitz survivors. She understands Ernst’s need to make peace with his past, and she inspires him as “the gateway to life.” Ernst passionately writes about his idyllic boyhood spent with his grandparents in the Carpathian Mountains, and he and Irena fall in love. As Ernst’s health worsens, the steadfast Irena only grows more protective of him. Appelfeld tells their affecting tale told in clean, spare prose.

Starred review from April 1, 2014
A quiet, moving and utterly convincing story about the growing love between an aging author and his companion. Seventy when the novel opens, Ernst is a retired investment adviser who has been married twice. His first wife and their baby daughter were killed by the Nazis, and his second marriage was a mistake whose pain still torments him. At first abrupt, if not downright curmudgeonly, Ernst goes to a cafe in his Jerusalem neighborhood every morning and then spends hours writing. He's not in robust health, so he hires Irena as a companion to supervise his care. Irena is 36 and has a simple faith far different from the angst that has bedeviled Ernst. As a boy, he rejected Judaism, much to the distress of his father, and joined the Communist Party. Eventually he became a member of the Red Army, a time that he still recalls with fondness due to its clarity: "You know who's a friend and who's a foe." Over time, however, he rejected communism and rediscovered the faith of his ancestors. In fact, much of the writing that now preoccupies him involves reminiscences of his devout grandfather in the Carpathian Mountains in Czernowitz (now in Ukraine and, perhaps not so coincidentally, where Appelfeld was born). Although he initially instructs Irena to destroy his manuscripts after his death because he doesn't "want strangers to grope [his] writings," over time he begins to read her excerpts, and she finds in his work a remarkable sensibility, both tender and kind. As Ernst's health continues to deteriorate, his need to record his memories grows more desperate, and he begins to rely ever more on Irena as an empathetic listener, eventually finding in her presence "the gateway to life." Appelfeld writes simply but gorgeously about important things, and the translation is particularly graceful and supple.

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March 1, 2014

In his latest novel, prominent Israeli writer Appelfeld (All Whom I Have Loved; Blooms of Darkness) explores how two people form a devoted bond despite themselves. Irena, the sheltered daughter of Holocaust survivors (Appelfeld is himself a survivor), serves as caretaker for the brusk and determined Ernst, a 70-year-old Red Army veteran, since his surgery two years before. Ernst battles loneliness and depression as he struggles to come to terms with his communist past and write his memoirs. Appelfeld creates an interesting contrast between the unbending, youthful Ernst and the warmer man of the present, who is willing both to consider and to value views other than his own. While devoted, calm Irena increasingly becomes essential to Ernst; the two grow to love each other. VERDICT A quiet, contemplative story about empathy, connection, and finding love when you least expect it. Readers of Amos Oz and A.B. Yehoshua will enjoy Appelfeld's modern style of storytelling. [See Prepub Alert, 12/7/13.]--Gwen Vredevoogd, Marymount Univ. Libs., Arlington, VA

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