Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent, True to the Original Translation
Beautiful true to life story. What is amazing is how the translator has managed to capture and translate into English the rhythms and cadences of 1937 pre-state Hebrew. A touching story, full of ins and outs. Perfect.

A story written 50 years ago, and so actual here, Israel
OK. I'm in the middle of reading. I enjoy eavery moment. It's a simplestory, writtenn as if told.. It is intersting to see how many things havn'treally changed here, in Israel, while also teaching a lot about recenthistory. I wonder how the English translation is. (I'M reading it inHEBREW) ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Beautifully detailed "Simple Story"
A superb tale of multiple Jews in one predominant eastern Galicia community in the early 1900s. THe book is a wonderfully spirited opportunity to experience several types of Jewish life in these villages through a variety of characters magnificently described by Agnon and expertly translated by Halkin. Biblical relationships to people, places and events in the Bible are easily theorized or pictured. Interpersonal relationships are movingly described with one's own emotional attachments and detachments to almost every character.

wonderful story
I really enjoyed this one. It is snapshot of a time gone by.

A novel for some, a trial for others..
S.Y Agnon's "A Simple Story" tells us of a bygone era, and of rich Jewish tradition.Set in early 1900's Austria-Hungary, this is the story of an oprhan who is taken in by her cousins, one of whom eventually falls in love with her.But it is not to be, as the boy's mother sets him up with a superficial, but pretty Jewish girl.You can guess how he reacts, but you'll never guess how it ends.A decided anti-romance, it stresses duty and fidelity over our romantic notions of love.Interesting sequence where the young man goes nuts and is put into a mental hospital.It's interesting how he recovers.

A mystical journy to the jewish east european town.
The forground of this book is very simple: a young man hopelessly falls in love for a woman he can't marry. But in the background a deep psychological plot slowly evolves and carries the reader to the complex world of the Jewish towns in Eastern Europe before WW 2. Agnon as usual is very perceptive, very smart and writes with his wonderful combination of humor,cynicism and compassion. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A true classic
For those curious about the Jewish High Holy Days, this book is indispensable. Agnon, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1966, is considered by many to be the greatest Hebrew writer of the 20th century (and for some, of all time).Although this is a non-fiction work, Agnon was known primarily for his writing of fiction.The subtitle of the book, "Being a treasury of traditions, legends and learned commentaries concerning Rosh Ha-Shanah, Yom Kippur and the days between culled from three hundred volumes ancient and new" aptly describes the scope of the work. Although the book is a collection of material from many sources, it reads as if it were written by one person (Agnon notes that he did modify the style of various passages to make them more palatable).The translation is superb and a major achievement.I usually re-read the book during the High Holy Days and get much more out of it than with the Machzor (the holiday prayer book).

One note of caution.If you are not at all familiar with this holiday, I would suggest starting with a more basic work on Judaism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Subtle For Americans, But Brimming With Meaning
Shmuel Agnon won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1966, to date the only Israeli to do so.This collection of twenty one pieces of short fiction is a good representation of Agnon's subtle form of literature.He is heavily influenced by fable and fairy tales, and many of the short stories have the dream like, simplistic quality of a children's stories (The Lady and the Peddler, First Kiss).Very many stories are considered his masterpieces(Agunot, The Doctor's Divorice).Although deeply indebted to the Jewish Diaspora experience, with its traditions and religious context, Agnon was very much a modernist.All of the stories in this collection suffer from a kind of disjointedness which says less about the skills of the writer, and more about the world he wrote about:this is a world of discontinuities.Here there are often strange shifts in daily life.Often, the end comes quite abruptly.So, reading Agnon's stories can be a little disconcerting to the reader unprepared for his subtly and unschooled in the basics of Jewish life in the early parts of the 20th century. Readers need to come to Agnon fighting his lulled tempo and prepared to search below the surface of things.

A masterpiece collection
This is a collection of stories by one of the great masters of the form. Agnon in Hebrew writes on many levels at once, and shows a deep mastery of the traditional sources. It is difficult to translate this . Yet he does more and presents characters and situations which move us to a sense of the holiness , mystery and beauty of life. Of all the remarkable stories in this collection one, ' The Scribe' remains strongest in my mind. For it gives an image of purity in life and love, an image of holiness that inspires and augments the reader's love of life.
Meeting this work is meeting one of Literature's great masters. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A book that was Lost
This is a collection of short stories that bring life to a bygone time of Jewish life.

Excellent in Translation
I have read the English translation, and love it.Agnon's mystical surrealism is worthy of Garcia-Marquez.While being versed in Jewish traditions can be helpful, it is not necessary for appreciating this brilliant writer.

The hebrew Shakespear
Ye, I know it sounds over-bombastic. Still, I quite stand behind this. Agnon has the quality (like the bard) of writing one sentence or a few words within, that tell a whole story in a bang. Every now and again you stop over a phrase that seems obscure, you think a bit, and often enough, it's revelation. It causes you to regret all the previous, skipped, pharagraph that you only half fathomed.

I must worn you though, that I can't recommend the english translation (not having read it translated). ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

An essential anthology for every day of the year
In this anthology of selections from the traditional Jewish sources Agnon does for Shavuot what he did for the High Holy Days in his 'Days of Awe' anthology. He gathers together midrashim and provides by his ordering and interpreting a midrash of his own.
This volume has an introduction on the subject of 'Agnon and Sinai' by the distinguished scholar Judah Goldin, a preface by the translator Michael Swirsky.
One Midrash talks about why the Torah is said to have been given on Shavuot and not received on it. And Rabbi Simchah Bunim says this is because the Torah is given on one day and must be received every day.
This anthology is of course specially relevant around the time of Shavuot ( as there is the tradition of learning always about the holiday or experience some time before the time as well as during it) but it can be learned from each and every day of the year. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The anthologist as artist- To more truly experience the Yamim Noraim
Agnon begins with Chodesh Elul and goes through the Yamim Noraim, bringing to each time, a wealth of religious insights from a wide variety of sources. He in one sense is a scholar- anthologist simply presenting before the reader quotations from the works of others, but in another he is the master artist- arranger- interpreter creating new and deeper connections.
I have for many years accompanied my effort at living the Yamim Noraim truly by reading and studying this work.
It is by this timea Jewish religious classic, and cannot be recommended more highly. ... Read more

Product Description
"Betrothed" is a mystical love story by Israel's onlyNobel Laureate, S.Y. Agnon.(He won the award in 1966.)This novellafollows Jacob Rechnitz, a brilliant scholar who leaves the stuffinessof European academia for life among the early Zionists living inPalestine at the turn of the century.As in much of Agnon's fiction,the worlds of memory, illusion and reality blend.Jacob casuallycourts six girls, but his research of the sea (he is a marinebiologist) is his only real love.Then his childhood sweetheart,Susan, and her father come to visit the area after a lengthy worldtour.Susan reminds Jacob of their childhood vow of eternal fidelity.However, love appears to be halted as Susan develops a mysterioussleeping sickness and Jacob prepares for a university post in America.Finally, in a race on a moonlit beach where Jacob's six girlfriendscompete for his affections, another figure -- Susan, asleep -- winsthe competition and Jacob as well. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

A flawlessly produced and narrated audiobook
The late S.Y. Agnon, Israel's Nobel Laureate and acknowledge master of modern Hebrew fiction, is the author of more than 24 novels, novellas, and short story collections, was a master storyteller who aptly and amply demonstrated the literary abilities of the Hebrew language. Betrothed (written in 1943) is set in Palestine, in 1909, where a gentle scholar who studies the sea encounters a beautiful girl in the grip of a mysterious illness. This engaging story was first translated into English by Walter Lever in 1966 and is now available as an unabridged, flawlessly produced and narrated audiobook which will splendidly introduce a whole new generation to a master craftsman of enduring literature.

If James Joyce were Jewish ...
Agnon is the James Joyce of Hebrew Literature. This book is relatively short and accessible. It serves as a great intro to his works. In a few brief passages, Agnon vividly re-creates Jaffa and Vienna of circa 1900. In the same way that Joyce adds references to all of western literature, Agnon brings in both western and Jewish literature. This short book is packed with references to ancient Greek literature, Hebrew bible, Talmud, medieval commentaries, 19th century German philosophy and more. Yet it is an engaging, dramatic story, full of romance, suspense and the supernatural. ... Read more

Product Description
These twenty-two classic poems, written by Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon, are now available for the first time in English in this beautiful collection. Known for his rare ability to evoke the rich imagery of the Bible and ancient Israel, Agnon created a witty poem for each letter of the Hebrew alphabet. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Jewish learning
This book was bought to help preschool and kindergarten age children.After being translated into english it has really lost the poetic value and the interest of the children. ... Read more

Product Description
The late Miriam Roshwald here examines the role of the nineteenth-century ghetto or shtetl through the eyes of three contemporaneous Jewish writers: Karl Emil Franzos (1848-1904), Sholom Aleichem (aka Sholom Rabinovitz, 1859-1916), and Shmuel Yosef Agnon (aka Samuel Josef Czaczkes, 1888-1970). ... Read more

Product Description
Compiled by one of the greatest Hebrew writers of the 20th century and first published in 1948, Days of Awe is the long-acknowledged classic companion to the High Holy Days prayer book. Here in one volume are readings and meditations from the Bible, the Talmud, the Midrash, and the Zohar, to deepen the spiritual experience of the holiest days of the Jewish year. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A holy book for study before and during the High Holy Days
This is a remarkable collection of commentaries on the High Holy Days and the month of Elul leading up to them . Agnon acts as a Talmid Chachim ( a wise scholar) and as a master creator of literature in putting these commentaries, stories , insights together.
The reading of this work makes reading a religious act. The work could not be more highly recommended. ... Read more