A review by zcsforbes
Reunion by Fred Uhlman
i found this book in my house and decided to read it for the car journey to the airport. this review is a work in progress / needs more thought probably.
at the core of this book is zionism, and essentially the author disputes anti-zionist argument through the character of the jewish father, who's described as anti-zionist and the reason for that being german nationalism. which, of course, is weak with hindsight. it's very clear from the beginning of the book that the narrator is a zionist who cannot fathom not being a zionist, and it seeps into all the philosophical questions of the short book, and the conclusion of being pro-israel is not surprising at all. But the author doesn't tackle the topic head on and is evasive, which placed the argument in a binary: one being 'the side of the nazis' and the other being 'the side of literally everyone else'. that's an unfair binary and i guess reading it today when israel / palestine look so different it may be unfair of me to criticise it in that way, but the author relies on using the holocaust to justify israel and that's been time and time again counter argued.
It could've been more of an analysis of how political views are shaped by violence if there had been more of an arc and actual shift in the narrators political perspective. But there wasn't, there wasn't really room for questioning zionism. And, the narrator seems convinced there is a way to be a 'good' zionist, which is shown by the fact he ultimately spends money on charity to help palestinian refugees. I thought that was a sick joke. it's conveyed as being 'diplomatic' but you just want the native people off of the land you're stealing!! Bottom line, this book is a zionist book and that's fundamentally not going to change and wouldn't have changed, i'm just grappling with this as a reader.
I also actually didn't really love the ending. I felt as though it proposed the idea that facism will be eventually overthrown with the 'power of friendship', which was pretty unconvincing. It was hopeful, it does show that indoctrinated children can indeed revolt against the dominant fascist powers. it's not that it's bad, it's just that i wasn't fully convinced.
the best aspects of this book are the descriptive elements, the appreciation for the german landscape and the idyllic, romantic youth. I could read pages and pages of the way the houses are described, how summer days are depicted, how the bedroom is so intimately conveyed. this does a lot of the work to make the grief and loss of pre-nazi germany more poignant. The narrative skips over any of the heavier details, mentioning it briefly as a subject too difficult to tackle. it works well. What was most interesting was seeing how Nazism was promoted in the classroom, it felt so surreal. I think the narrative could've done a bit more to communicate the severity of this change emotionally, and perhaps also the more subtle ways schools changed. The nazi teacher is described and the change is sudden and overnight, which marks the turn of the book and tonal shift.
Overall, the writing was great but i have mixed feelings.
at the core of this book is zionism, and essentially the author disputes anti-zionist argument through the character of the jewish father, who's described as anti-zionist and the reason for that being german nationalism. which, of course, is weak with hindsight. it's very clear from the beginning of the book that the narrator is a zionist who cannot fathom not being a zionist, and it seeps into all the philosophical questions of the short book, and the conclusion of being pro-israel is not surprising at all. But the author doesn't tackle the topic head on and is evasive, which placed the argument in a binary: one being 'the side of the nazis' and the other being 'the side of literally everyone else'. that's an unfair binary and i guess reading it today when israel / palestine look so different it may be unfair of me to criticise it in that way, but the author relies on using the holocaust to justify israel and that's been time and time again counter argued.
It could've been more of an analysis of how political views are shaped by violence if there had been more of an arc and actual shift in the narrators political perspective. But there wasn't, there wasn't really room for questioning zionism. And, the narrator seems convinced there is a way to be a 'good' zionist, which is shown by the fact he ultimately spends money on charity to help palestinian refugees. I thought that was a sick joke. it's conveyed as being 'diplomatic' but you just want the native people off of the land you're stealing!! Bottom line, this book is a zionist book and that's fundamentally not going to change and wouldn't have changed, i'm just grappling with this as a reader.
I also actually didn't really love the ending. I felt as though it proposed the idea that facism will be eventually overthrown with the 'power of friendship', which was pretty unconvincing. It was hopeful, it does show that indoctrinated children can indeed revolt against the dominant fascist powers. it's not that it's bad, it's just that i wasn't fully convinced.
the best aspects of this book are the descriptive elements, the appreciation for the german landscape and the idyllic, romantic youth. I could read pages and pages of the way the houses are described, how summer days are depicted, how the bedroom is so intimately conveyed. this does a lot of the work to make the grief and loss of pre-nazi germany more poignant. The narrative skips over any of the heavier details, mentioning it briefly as a subject too difficult to tackle. it works well. What was most interesting was seeing how Nazism was promoted in the classroom, it felt so surreal. I think the narrative could've done a bit more to communicate the severity of this change emotionally, and perhaps also the more subtle ways schools changed. The nazi teacher is described and the change is sudden and overnight, which marks the turn of the book and tonal shift.
Overall, the writing was great but i have mixed feelings.