In the Polish city of Lodz, the twin brothers Ashkenazi grow up with contrasting characters. Max, depicted as sickly and cunning, is driven by ambition and greed to be more successful than his brother, whereas Yakub, robust and a dolt in school, is drawn to easy living and decadence. Historically and geographically expansive, the novel begins after the Napoleonic Wars and ends after World War I, more than a century later, the rise and fall of Lodz and its Jewish inhabitants emerging as the novel’s focus. The fate of the city and that of the twin brothers point to the physical and spiritual instability of Jewish lives in Poland, as the brothers and their families are torn apart by the clashing impulses of old piety and new skepticism, industrial capitalism and revolutionary socialism, and the hatred that grows between faiths, citizens, and classes.
First published between 1934 and 1935, The Brothers Ashkenazi quickly became a best seller as a sprawling family saga. Breaking away from the introspective shtetl tales of classic nineteenth-century writers, I. J. Singer brought to Yiddish literature the multilayered plots, large casts of characters, and narrative sweep of the traditional European novel. Walking alongside such masters as Zola, Flaubert, and Tolstoy, I.J. Singer’s premodernist social novel stands as a masterpiece of storytelling.
In the Polish city of Lodz, the twin brothers Ashkenazi grow up with contrasting characters. Max, depicted as sickly and cunning, is driven by ambition and greed to be more successful than his brother, whereas Yakub, robust and a dolt in school, is drawn to easy living and decadence. Historically and geographically expansive, the novel begins after the Napoleonic Wars and ends after World War I, more than a century later, the rise and fall of Lodz and its Jewish inhabitants emerging as the novel’s focus. The fate of the city and that of the twin brothers point to the physical and spiritual instability of Jewish lives in Poland, as the brothers and their families are torn apart by the clashing impulses of old piety and new skepticism, industrial capitalism and revolutionary socialism, and the hatred that grows between faiths, citizens, and classes.
First published between 1934 and 1935, The Brothers Ashkenazi quickly became a best seller as a sprawling family saga. Breaking away from the introspective shtetl tales of classic nineteenth-century writers, I. J. Singer brought to Yiddish literature the multilayered plots, large casts of characters, and narrative sweep of the traditional European novel. Walking alongside such masters as Zola, Flaubert, and Tolstoy, I.J. Singer’s premodernist social novel stands as a masterpiece of storytelling.
In the Polish city of Lodz, the twin brothers Ashkenazi grow up with contrasting characters. Max, depicted as sickly and cunning, is driven by ambition and greed to be more successful than his brother, whereas Yakub, robust and a dolt in school, is drawn to easy living and decadence. Historically and geographically expansive, the novel begins after the Napoleonic Wars and ends after World War I, more than a century later, the rise and fall of Lodz and its Jewish inhabitants emerging as the novel’s focus. The fate of the city and that of the twin brothers point to the physical and spiritual instability of Jewish lives in Poland, as the brothers and their families are torn apart by the clashing impulses of old piety and new skepticism, industrial capitalism and revolutionary socialism, and the hatred that grows between faiths, citizens, and classes.
First published between 1934 and 1935, The Brothers Ashkenazi quickly became a best seller as a sprawling family saga. Breaking away from the introspective shtetl tales of classic nineteenth-century writers, I. J. Singer brought to Yiddish literature the multilayered plots, large casts of characters, and narrative sweep of the traditional European novel. Walking alongside such masters as Zola, Flaubert, and Tolstoy, I.J. Singer’s premodernist social novel stands as a masterpiece of storytelling.
