A Simple Story (Magill Book Reviews)

At a glance:

The narrator, wise and tolerant in regard to the foibles of men and women in love, tells a simple tale that grows ever more complex and meaningful. He begins with the fortunes of Blume Nacht, an attractive, clever, and industrious young woman who, as a penniless orphan, arrives at her cousin’s home in Galacia. Baruch Meir Hurvitz and his shrewd wife, Tsirl, look the girl over and decide that she might well serve as a maid in the household to earn her modest care, but their only son Hirshl looks at the girl with deeper appreciation. In time, he falls in love with her, but--too much the obedient son, and too inexperienced in the ways of the world to approach Blume--he allows fate to take control of his romance. The matchmaker Yona Toyber works out for the young man a much more promising match: with Mina Ziemlich, from the nearby village of Malikrowik.

Only after his marriage does Hirshl show signs of agitation that swell into revolt against the conventions of married life and finally turns to depression and near-madness. Desperate with his unrequited love for Blume, Hirshl strays from his home, suffers and emotional breakdown in the forest, and is placed in the wise Dr. Langsam’s sanatorium. There, allowed time for sleep and the renovation of his frayed nerves, he regains his sanity. Indeed, he recovers more than his wits: He returns home to his wife and to his vocation as shopkeeper with a new vigor. Happy with his wife and children, content with his lot as an ordinary townsman in an imperfect world, he resumes a life of complacency. Yet what of Blume? The narrator prefers not to discuss her fate; hers is another simple story.

How simple, indeed, is Agnon’s novel? Hillel Halkin, translator of the volume, attempts to answer this question in a perceptive afterward. He argues that the story is far more complex and ironic than its lucid narrative pattern might suggest. Certainly one who reads the tale of Hirshl’s early discontent in a loveless marriage will dismiss the work as a folk romance. As both a realist and a man of deep religious faith, Agnon treats his characters no better than they are--but no worse.

Bibliography

Aberbach, David. At the Handles of the Lock: Themes in the Fiction of S.J. Agnon, 1984.

Alter, Robert. “Shmuel Yosef Agnon: The Alphabet of Holiness” and “The Israeli Novel,” in After the Tradition, 1969.

Band, Arnold J. Nostalgia and Nightmare: A Study of the Fiction of S.Y. Agnon, 1968.

Fisch, Harold. S.Y. Agnon, 1975.

Hochman, Baruch. The Fiction of S.Y. Agnon, 1970.