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The memory monster : a novel / Yishai Sarid ; translated from the Hebrew by Yardenne Greenspan.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextLanguage: English Original language: Hebrew Publisher: Brooklyn, New York : Restless Books, 2020Edition: First Restless Books hardcover editionDescription: 169 pages ; 19 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781632062710
  • 1632062712
Uniform titles:
  • Mifletzet ha-zikaron. English
Subject(s): Genre/Form: Summary: "The English-language debut of celebrated Israeli novelist Yishai Sarid is a fierce and harrowing tale of reckoning with the horror of the Holocaust, and how memory and the effort to preserve it can become an all-consuming monster. The narrator of Yishai Sarid's powerful novel is a young, initially reluctant Holocaust scholar working at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. A diligent historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II, and guides tours through the camps for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims' lives, and the process by which enslaved Jews were forced to dispose of the remains. The job becomes a mission, and then an addiction. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the mass murder committed by the Germans. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers--their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill."--Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Fiction SARID, YISHAY Available 33111010403919
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A brilliant short novel that serves as a brave, sharp-toothed brief against letting the past devour the present" ( The New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice), Yishai Sarid's The Memory Monster is a harrowing parable of a young historian who becomes consumed by the memory of the Holocaust.

A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW 100 NOTABLE BOOKS OF 2020 SELECTION

Written as a report to the chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, our unnamed narrator recounts his own undoing. Hired as a promising young historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II and guides tours through the sites for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims' lives.

The job becomes a mission, and then an obsession. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the genocide committed by the Nazis. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers--their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill.

With the perspicuity of Kafka's The Trial and the obsessions of Delillo's White Noise , The Memory Monster confronts difficult questions that are all too relevant to Israel and the world today: How do we process human brutality? What makes us choose sides in conflict? And how do we honor the memory of horror without becoming consumed by it?

"First published as Mifletzet ha-zikaron by Am Oved, Tel Aviv, 2017"--Title page verso.

"The English-language debut of celebrated Israeli novelist Yishai Sarid is a fierce and harrowing tale of reckoning with the horror of the Holocaust, and how memory and the effort to preserve it can become an all-consuming monster. The narrator of Yishai Sarid's powerful novel is a young, initially reluctant Holocaust scholar working at Yad Vashem, Israel's memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. A diligent historian, he soon becomes a leading expert on Nazi methods of extermination at concentration camps in Poland during World War II, and guides tours through the camps for students and visiting dignitaries. He hungrily devours every detail of life and death in the camps and takes pride in being able to recreate for his audience the excruciating last moments of the victims' lives, and the process by which enslaved Jews were forced to dispose of the remains. The job becomes a mission, and then an addiction. Spending so much time immersed in death, his connections with the living begin to deteriorate. He resents the students lost in their iPhones, singing sentimental songs, not expressing sufficient outrage at the mass murder committed by the Germans. In fact, he even begins to detect, in the students as well as himself, a hint of admiration for the murderers--their efficiency, audacity, and determination. Force is the only way to resist force, he comes to think, and one must be prepared to kill."--Provided by publisher.

In English. Translated from the Hebrew.

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