A Guest for the Night
After the First World War, a narrator returns to his hometown and finds himself facing a devastated community and a fading faith, trying to understand the shape of what has been lost. One of Agnon’s major works, it portrays the memory and collapse of Jewish communal life in a style that is both allegorical and richly detailed.
Work Information
A man returns home and follows only the traces of what can no longer be recovered.
A major novel by S. Y. Agnon, it follows a narrator who returns to his hometown after the war and searches for meaning in prayer and memory before a vanished community. It traces the break between Jewish tradition and modern life with quiet intensity.
Review Summaries
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It is praised for the detail of its everyday scenes and the way metaphor and scriptural reference deepen its view of the human condition. Readers often note the way it holds together a dreamlike atmosphere and the harshness of real destruction.
Book Information
- Publisher
- Toby Pr
- Published
- 2015-01-13
- Pages
- 531 pages
- Language
- 英語
- Size
- 14.48 x 22.35 x 2.54 cm
- ISBN-13
- 9781592643578
- ISBN-10
- 1592643574
- Price
- 4333 JPY
- Category
- 洋書/Religion & Spirituality/Judaism
A Guest for the Night (first published in 1939 as Germany invaded Poland) is Agnon's depiction of how all modern movements aside from Zionism secularism, Haskalah, socialism, communism failed to provide a viable alternative to traditional life. But, he is clear, even traditional life was untenable, because it all fell apart from within before the first furnaces were ignited in Auschwitz. Even the Guest's well-intentioned attempt to revivify and to re-engage the lost world of piety is also doomed. The Alte Heim, the old home, can no longer exist it is a place where we can only be passing guests for the night. Therefore "you can't go home again," because home no longer exists. It has to be rebuilt, but it can only be rebuilt in the Bayit Hadash, in the new home in the Land of Israel. This is Agnon's greatest theme in the novel and, in differing ways, throughout his body of writing: The idea that modern man, modern Jews, are alienated from their spiritual home.
Reviews
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Good
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This book was filled with different characters which made reading it somewhat difficult. However, if you are a fast reader and can get through it in seven days, then I would recommend it. The characters about whom the narrator writes are sometimes confusing, but it all ties together. Sometimes if feels like reading short stories that are not connected, but eventually they all do. Do not let the title fool you; the timeline is much longer.
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I feel fortunate that there is a resource for "vintage" books like this one. I'm just starting to read is but I can already tell that it's a wonderful book.
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This is a book that at first is hard to read. So to understand it you have to read slowly and just a chapter a day, maybe. The main character loves the 'Land of Israel' that is what he says, never jus Israel. He gives us Jewish wisdom in a subtle way. In a way that you will remember it at odd times. He loses his overcoat and one day he sees it on another and it looks happy! Noting the fact that the garment doesn't miss him at all and the fact that the body misses the garment. Then the passover meal is prepared and the participants left the house and while gone someone broke into the home and stole the food. It gave a feeling of great loss. I first purchased the book when it came out then lost it then bought a used one from Amazon. Now this is the third time I have purchased this book for a friend. The guest spent a lot of time in the Beit Midrash, studying the Scriptures with others. I moved from the country where I spent many hours simply studying. Now I call it my Beit Midrash. Thank you Amazon for the opportunity to purchase books we love, Patricia A
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Very timely, superb packaging. Book as described! Thank you.