Shosha : A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Sex. Torah, and Revolution
Review: "Shosha" is the story of a young writer's (Aaron Greidinger) committed love for a girl by the name of Shosha, from whom he falls in love at the age of seven. Althoug Shosha is a backward girl, intellectually below the level of the writer, he is unable to disregard her and although pursued by a number of other women, Greindinger returns to Shosha. It parallels his struggle to uproot himself from a society that is disrupted and doomed to die. To a great extent it is autobiographical, reflecting the conflict between communist political ideas and the laws of the Torah, Poland's ghetto life in the 30's, and the author's early struggle as a writer. Despite its simplicity in narration, the story is powerful, with a number of strong characters, with reversal of plots, reminding the fact that the story was developed to be published as journalist serial. As characteristic in all of Singer's writing deep philosophical questions are brought up, adding spice to a turbulent plot by itself reflecting an era of dramatic changes.

Rating:
Summary: Sex. Torah, and Revolution
Review: "Shosha" is the story of a young writer's (Aaron Greidinger) committed love for a girl by the name of Shosha, from whom he falls in love at the age of seven. Althoug Shosha is a backward girl, intellectually below the level of the writer, he is unable to disregard her and although pursued by a number of other women, Greindinger returns to Shosha. It parallels his struggle to uproot himself from a society that is disrupted and doomed to die. To a great extent it is autobiographical, reflecting the conflict between communist political ideas and the laws of the Torah, Poland's ghetto life in the 30's, and the author's early struggle as a writer. Despite its simplicity in narration, the story is powerful, with a number of strong characters, with reversal of plots, reminding the fact that the story was developed to be published as journalist serial. As characteristic in all of Singer's writing deep philosophical questions are brought up, adding spice to a turbulent plot by itself reflecting an era of dramatic changes.

Rating:
Summary: Shosha
Review: A beautiful mosaic of people, ideas, and loves make up this heart-wrenching tale of human desire, intellect, and dignity. An aspiring writer and a man of the modern world, Aaron has left behind his home and the ways of his parents and grandparents on Krochmalna Street in Warsaw's Jewish ghetto. A patron of the city's Writer's Club, young Aaron is part of a social circle that includes Yiddishists, socialists, and Zionists, both men and women, all hoping to make something of themselves in a hostile world that somehow, on the eve of the Holocaust, still seems to them promising and full of opportunity. No matter his intelligence and talent, at heart Aaron is as inextricably tied to a past, personal and cultural, as his heart is bound to his childhood love, and when he rediscovers Shosha on a visit to Krochmalna, the simple truths of love and the depths of human compassion and dignity are movingly brought to bear.

Rating:
Summary: As relevant today as it was a quarter century ago!
Review: In Shosha Singer reminds us to focus on the journey as human beings rather than on any specific destination. Shosha, as a love story, asks us to look at what it means to be a living, thinking, feeling being even as the world falls inexorably into a chaos where definitions of normalcy no longer make sense. Even as Hitler, the Nazis, the Communists and, indeed, much of an uncaring western world threatened the continued existence of Eastern European Jews our cast of characters persisted in their exploration of the nature of God and man. While emmeshed in their rituals of relationship and love, they seek to make sense of the perils of day to day existence in an anti-Semetic world.

This is a book that allows the reader to look at the world as it was in the late thirties and forties, looking outward from the hearts and minds of a thriving Jewish community soon to be destroyed. We see what the consequences were for people who chose for centuries to not lift up the sword. Past, present and future seem to exist simultaneously. Spiritual and intellectual exploration thrive even in the face of personal and cultural annihalation. There is a somwhat distant and dreamlike quality to the life, loves and adventures of Singer's characters, but it fits the events as they unfold. And, while the story ends with the birth of Israel and new beginnings for survivors of the holocaust, we are reminded that what was continues to live only as long as those who were there are alive to relate the facts, to tell their stories. We are cautioned that when individual and collective realities that surround evil, suffering and loss are lost the universe becomes ever more flawed. This is a tale of evil and catastrophe, as well as a tale of hopefulness and wonder and resiliance of the human spirit.

This book sat on my shelf unread for twenty years. I am glad that I read it now, given the almost surreal times in which we are living. Singer's tale of love and survival of the human spirt is as relevant now as it was when it was written. It is not an easy book to read, but one well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: As relevant today as it was a quarter century ago!
Review: In Shosha Singer reminds us to focus on the journey as human beings rather than on any specific destination. Shosha, as a love story, asks us to look at what it means to be a living, thinking, feeling being even as the world falls inexorably into a chaos where definitions of normalcy no longer make sense. Even as Hitler, the Nazis, the Communists and, indeed, much of an uncaring western world threatened the continued existence of Eastern European Jews our cast of characters persisted in their exploration of the nature of God and man. While emmeshed in their rituals of relationship and love, they seek to make sense of the perils of day to day existence in an anti-Semetic world.

This is a book that allows the reader to look at the world as it was in the late thirties and forties, looking outward from the hearts and minds of a thriving Jewish community soon to be destroyed. We see what the consequences were for people who chose for centuries to not lift up the sword. Past, present and future seem to exist simultaneously. Spiritual and intellectual exploration thrive even in the face of personal and cultural annihalation. There is a somwhat distant and dreamlike quality to the life, loves and adventures of Singer's characters, but it fits the events as they unfold. And, while the story ends with the birth of Israel and new beginnings for survivors of the holocaust, we are reminded that what was continues to live only as long as those who were there are alive to relate the facts, to tell their stories. We are cautioned that when individual and collective realities that surround evil, suffering and loss are lost the universe becomes ever more flawed. This is a tale of evil and catastrophe, as well as a tale of hopefulness and wonder and resiliance of the human spirit.

This book sat on my shelf unread for twenty years. I am glad that I read it now, given the almost surreal times in which we are living. Singer's tale of love and survival of the human spirt is as relevant now as it was when it was written. It is not an easy book to read, but one well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Began to Drag
Review: The novel was excellent, the plot and the conflicts that aroused in Aaron Greidinger's life were well written and very interesting. Only fault i found was after around page 200 or so after his marriage, the book begins to get closer and closer to being encapsulated by boredom. I found it hard to read after page 200, i kept having to read in intervals, because the book would lose my attention so quickly. Unfortunately minutely too lengthy, the overall perspective of the novel was excellent.

Rating:
Summary: Out of the ashes of a doomed love comes redemption
Review: This is a haunting and compelling novel about love, loss, redemption and the horrors of the holocaust.

Set in Jewish Warsaw just before its destruction, Aaron Greidinger, an aspiring writer has the chance to flee and survive the horrors that are to come by heading for the safe shores of America.

However he finds he is compelled to stay on, forsaking safety and riches for the simplistic love of Shosha his childhood friend, now a girl-woman for whom time has stood still. Intellectually stunted yet surprisingly wise, Shosha has always loved Aaron, and as death dogs them in the guise of the inevitable destruction of Jewish Warsaw, Shosha and Aaron begin a doomed love affair that will reverberate though the blood and ashes of Poland, to the birth of nation half a world away, Israel...

A wonderful book, that is a richly satisfying read from beginning to end.