Word: agnon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...GUEST FOR THE NIGHT, by S. Y. Agnon. Israel's 1966 Nobel prizewinner spins a searching, unhurried tale about the eternal Wandering Jew, who turns up this time in Eastern Europe just before World...
...GUEST FOR THE NIGHT, by S. Y. Agnon. Israel's 1966 Nobel prizewinner spins a searching, unhurried tale about the eternal Wandering Jew, who turns up this time in Eastern Europe just before World...
Listlessness of Limbo. Agnon's nameless Wandering Jew in this 1939 novel is a fortyish exile returned from Palestine after World War I to the East European town of his youth. Moving into a small hotel, the wanderer becomes "that man who was a guest for the night and stayed for many nights." Agnon himself was born in the Galicia region of Austro-Hungarian Poland, went to Palestine as a very young man, then back to Europe during World War I before returning to his adopted homeland. Obvious elements of disenchanted autobiography are present in the words that another...
Ultimate Quest. Here is the recurring dilemma that Agnon never quite resolves in his stories. His scholar-heroes dream of locking themselves up with some sanctified absolute discipline that will freeze change and make even time stand still. Yet, like the guest, they feel disturbing tugs toward the world outside-toward the everyday pleasures of walking in the forest or smiling once more at Rachel, the hotel-keeper's daughter. It is as if what keeps security in also keeps the very flavor of life out. And so, at the moment they discover their sanctuary, Agnon's characters...
...Agnon half-concludes, "is defined as a being that moves." In the end, the guest returns to Palestine, but with a kind of sad hesitancy. For in Agnon there is no confident resolution between the perfect closed circle of ancient ritual and the improvised present tense of life...