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To the Edge of Sorrow: A Novel Hardcover – January 14, 2020

by Aharon Appelfeld (Author), Stuart Schoffman (Translator)

4.4 92 ratings

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From "fiction's foremost chronicler of the Holocaust" (Philip Roth), here is a haunting novel about an unforgettable group of Jewish partisans fighting the Nazis during World War II.

Battling numbing cold, ever-present hunger, and German soldiers determined to hunt them down, four dozen resistance fighters—escapees from a nearby ghetto—hide in a Ukrainian forest, determined to survive the war, sabotage the German war effort, and rescue as many Jews as they can from the trains taking them to concentration camps. Their leader is relentless in his efforts to turn his ragtag band of men and boys into a disciplined force that accomplishes its goals without losing its moral compass. And so when they're not raiding peasants' homes for food and supplies, or training with the weapons taken from the soldiers they have ambushed and killed, the partisans read books of faith and philosophy that they have rescued from abandoned Jewish homes, and they draw strength from the women, the elderly, and the remarkably resilient orphaned children they are protecting. When they hear about the advances being made by the Soviet Army, the partisans prepare for what they know will be a furious attack on their compound by the retreating Germans. In the heartbreaking aftermath, the survivors emerge from the forest to bury their dead, care for their wounded, and grimly confront a world that is surprised by their existence—and profoundly unwelcoming.

Narrated by seventeen-year-old Edmund—a member of the group who maintains his own inner resolve with memories of his parents and their life before the war—this powerful story of Jews who fought back is suffused with the riveting detail that Aharon Appelfeld was uniquely able to bring to his award-winning novels.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Like Thomas Mann, Aharon Appelfeld surveys all the great quandaries of the twentieth century, only in their Jewish versions . . . His novels are not about waiting for what will happen next but about immersion in a timeless present, a bubble world that is all the more enthralling because you know it is about to pop.”
—Adam Kirsch, The New Yorker

“Surviving the horrors of the Holocaust, Appelfeld suggests with characteristic terseness, entails more than simply the fight to keep breathing . . . The partisans make it their goal not only to preserve their past, but also to secure their future by rescuing as many Jews as possible. Their struggle is a moving one.”
—Jordana Horn, The New York Times Book Review

“Appelfeld constructs his characters with a sensitive grace and humanistic depth; they are luminous concoctions, awhirl with mysteries and passions, at once sentimental and tragic . . . To the Edge of Sorrow is ultimately a work of neat, almost hermetic resonances.”
—Tablet Magazine

“To the Edge of Sorrow, in Stuart Schoffman’s lively and masterful translation, is certainly among Aharon Appelfeld’s top three novels . . . Discuss it, dear reader, among the many selves you will discover in yourself as you read this important work.”
—Hadassah

“In sharp yet affectless language, Aharon Appelfeld, one of Israel’s most honored novelists, has created a created a group of brave, loyal, generous, and intellectually disputatious Jewish partisans.”
—New York Journal of Books

“In this spirited novel set in Ukraine near the end of World War II, Appelfeld describes the daily hardships and travails of a band of Jewish resistance fighters in near-reportorial detail. A powerful tale of lives lived amid the duress and horrors of war that is unflinching in its authenticity.”
—Publishers Weekly

“To the Edge of Sorrow is immediately recognizable as Appelfeld’s, through its spare, eerily understated approach, which records atrocities from a grim remove. Unlike many of the brilliantly allusive author’s other novels, this one makes explicit reference to the Holocaust, but there’s still a dreamlike quality at work . . . The story moves toward its climax with the usual disquieting force. Another haunting and heartbreaking tale of the Holocaust from one who survived it.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred)

About the Author

AHARON APPELFELD is the author of more than forty works of fiction and nonfiction, including The Iron Tracks, Until the Dawn's Light (both winners of the National Jewish Book Award), The Story of a Life (winner of the Prix Médicis Étranger), and Badenheim 1939. Other honors he has received include the Giovanni Boccaccio Literary Prize, the Nelly Sachs Prize, the Israel Prize, the Bialik Prize, and the MLA Commonwealth Award. Blooms of Darkness won the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 2012 and was short-listed for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013. Born in Czernowitz, Bukovina (now part of Ukraine), in 1932, Appelefeld died in Israel in 2018.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

1

My name is Edmund, and I’m seventeen years old. Since last spring we’ve been inching our way over these hills: most of them bare, some sparsely wooded. The bald patches in the forest make our life difficult, but we’ve gotten good at camouflage and deception, and we’ve learned how to stay close to the ground, utilizing blind spots to surprise the enemy. The enemy knows it is dealing with damaged, resolute people; it unleashes its well-trained fighters, assisted by gendarmes and local farmers, who act as informants. We will not be easily defeated.

Daylight is a problem, but the night belongs to us. We also need to be very cautious at night, but over time we’ve learned the advantages of darkness. There’s nothing like lying in ambush on summer nights: you’re on high alert, picking up every sound, poised to strike like a panther.

At the end of the summer, the commander decided that we had to leave this place and head toward the wetlands, to the swamps and the lakes. Such a move would distance us from the fields and orchards that provide our vital needs but would give us several clear advantages: stagnant water is an obstacle, and an army is not eager to plod through swamps, cut off from its headquarters.

During the day, we are dug in and camouflaged, and we advance at night. Progress is slow but steady. Each day brings us closer to the goal. On the last few nights we could smell the water and celebrated quietly. But we must never rest on our laurels; the enemy is vigilant and follows us always. They try to outflank us and block the way to the wetlands. We outsmart them and ambush them. Our calculations have worked out so far, and we haven’t suffered many casualties, but who knows how this bitter struggle will end.

At the beginning of September, we arrived at the ridge overlooking Lake Tanura, a long lake surrounded by boulders. The previous day, the commander had sent an experienced squad to prepare rafts; they reached their destination, cut down trees, and when we arrived, a few small rafts awaited us on the water.

Several fighters went out on the first raft to check the opposite shore. We watched them row, ready to provide covering fire and to help them. The crossing was undisturbed. We saw them land, spread out, and carefully survey the area. After two hours, they signaled us to launch the remaining rafts.

The little rafts floated back and forth, carrying people and equipment. By the way, our equipment is not minimal; it includes hammers, knives, axes, saws, cooking utensils, and food. Not to worry, everything is well packed and travels with us from place to place, supervised by Hermann Cohen, about whom I will have more to say when the time comes.

By midnight we were all on the other bank. We saw right away that this was different territory, covered with thick vegetation and smelling heavily of dampness.

2

Ever since I joined the fighters, I’ve changed beyond recognition. The commander promises us that if we try hard, train diligently, and follow orders precisely, at the end of the course we’ll be fighters. Fighters do not complain; they grit their teeth and do not pity themselves.

Just one year ago I was a student, a teenager of average height with eyeglasses, and until last year I excelled at school. I don’t want to talk now about last year, when I was a tangle of contradictions. Presumably things will become clear when the time comes, but I will say this, my parents were greatly pained by the decline in my studies.

My report card glittered with high grades during my time at high school. I was my parents’ pride and joy, but suddenly my life veered off course, and their quiet happiness turned into shame. They were periodically called to the school and stood mutely before the vice principal, unable to offer a word in my defense.

The teachers grieved alongside my parents over my failure, especially the math and Latin teachers.

“What happened?” my humiliated father would ask in despair.

“Nothing,” I would say, over and over.

“Why aren’t you studying like you used to; something must have happened.”

The war was at our doorstep. People ran around in the streets, trying to escape the trap, but my parents were sunk in their depression. The decline in my studies concerned them more than the imminent danger. In those days I was blind and merciless. I felt that my parents were drowning in their own world and blocking my way. I didn’t speak up or make excuses, but without meaning to I was pouring salt on their wounds.

*

Now they are far away from me, and I’m here. Sometimes it seems that everything that has happened to me in these past months is a nightmare to be deciphered in the future. I will undoubtedly be found guilty, which is why I try hard to obey orders and be a flawless fighter.

The training is exhausting. The commander has no pity for stragglers; he demands extra effort, and weakness is forbidden. Those among us who do not meet his standards guard the base and help with the cooking. They chop wood and gather twigs for bedding.

Fighters, the commander calls us. Our training includes long runs, hurdling over obstacles, climbing ropes, advancing correctly in forested areas and swamps, carrying heavy loads. More than once, I collapsed, and had it not been for friends who supported me, I doubt I would have met all the demands.

I look in the water, and to my surprise I don’t recognize myself. My face has filled out and reddened, and my shoulders are broader. In a sheepskin coat I look more like a young farmer than a gymnasium student. My hands are rougher, too. I’ve lost my previous quickness; a different quickness guides my steps. I can bend scraps of tin and iron, break poles, dig a trench in minutes. I doubt my parents would recognize me, and if they did, I wonder how they’d react. Deep in my heart, my transformation makes me happy. Every success in training, every compliment, makes me swell with pride, and I feel that on the battlefield, face-to-face with the enemy, I will perform to my commanders’ satisfaction.

*

The wetlands. Is this home base or the start of the journey? We press on through the thick foliage, where the darkness is greater than the light. Progress sometimes means strenuous chopping of trees, all hands clearing the path. I do not complain; I accept the difficulties as a duty and atonement for sin. The training exercises and ambushes do not weaken me. I assume that when the time comes, not far off, we will become forest creatures, and the trees and bushes will wrap us in a warm, wide mantle.

There’s no point wasting time with fantasies; better to clean the weapon, fix what’s left of my shoes. The soles are torn, and I tie them with string. That’s how it is for nearly all of us. Were it not for the cold nights, it would be easier, but the cold and wet are unrelenting. Thank God for the whispering coals that keep our clothes a little dry.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Schocken (January 14, 2020)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0805243429
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0805243420
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.75 x 1.15 x 8.54 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,531,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #2,090 in Jewish Literature & Fiction
- #4,803 in Biographical Fiction (Books)
- #65,149 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
4.4 92 ratings

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Elizabeth A. Gibson

Moving, evocative, sad, strange

Reviewed in the United States on April 13, 2022

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This is a beautiful book, moving and strange. As with all of Appelfeld's books, the story is not quite realistic though it is historically true. Though Appelfeld was not in fact a young guerilla fighter and partisan, the story contains many elements that do seem to be true to his experiences as a boy and young man -- living in the woods, being part of communities in hiding, living as a refugee, and the loss, in particular, of his mother and his longing for her -- his experiences of each infuse this story. In that sense, To the Edge of Sorrow is a book of memory and is infused with loss -- loss of particular people, of ways of living, of innocence -- for now there is direct knowledge of "man's" great inhumanity to other men and women.

As in some of his other books, there is some blame of secular Jews for not seeing the holocaust coming, for wanting to assimilate and for believing it was fully possible in that time and place. And the characters here struggle -- argue -- with and about religion, Judaism, "God;" Appelfeld nimbly evokes multiple religious and secular points-of-view. And as always with Appelfeld, there is tenderness and compassion. One of the weirdest and loveliest parts of this novel is that its partisans -- hardened fighters and reluctant thieves -- gather round the fire at night to read sections of the Torah together, to sing religious songs, to argue and pray. At first I thought, "Unbelievable! They're in the middle of a war, they wouldn't really being doing that!" but as I read further I came to appreciate the community being created and Appelfeld's intention, which is ethical, above all. So -- in the midst of brutality, lovingkindness, tenderness, care for others, a dedication to continue to try to be ethical in a place and time where ethics are anathema.

This is a slow-moving story. I nevertheless found myself longing to get back to it when I had to set the book aside to attend to other things, to want to be near and with the man who wrote the book; to be inside the community Appelfeld built, to try to figure out why he wrote this lovely book in this way. And now, reader-of-this-review, it is your turn to reside with the master in this tale and see what you think.

3 people found this helpful

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Linda Keenan

Learned something new today

Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2020

Told from the point of view of Edmund, a young teen who escapes at the bidding of his parents as they are boarding a train to be transported to German prison camps, this story is about the Jewish escapees from the ghettos who have banded together to fight German forces in the Ukraine. They have nothing. They must go on raids to even get the food they require to survive, let alone weapons and ammunition to protect themselves. At times, they are holding their guns on those who would normally be neighbors. But the mission is clear. It is paramount that they save as many Jews as possible from the death trains heading for the concentration camps. And that means that they must do anything to survive in order to complete their mission and survive this crazy war. I was moved by the plight of this band of survivors who ranged in age from three to ninety-three. The writing is crisp and to the point. The picture painted of the harsh conditions and the lengths people went to just to survive, or not, had me enthralled at the sheer tenacity of those who had so much to lose. Not knowing if they would survive had me turning the pages just to see if they did. I won't say I enjoyed this story due to the really sad subject matter, but I definitely stayed engrossed. Thank you to Penguin Random House for the advance readers copy. I learned something new today.

5 people found this helpful

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jeffrey r.

Lucky to have one more from the master

Reviewed in the United States on March 23, 2020

Verified Purchase

One of the greatest writers of all time.

5 people found this helpful

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Ira E. Stoll

Conquer Despair

Reviewed in the United States on January 16, 2020

Amid recent news reports of violent antisemitism in America, a story about partisan fighters weathering a bleak Eastern European winter while trying unsuccessfully to prevent genocide stuck me as a potential downer.
Don’t be scared away by the topic or the title, though: It’s actually a tale with inspiring, even uplifting themes, told in a suspenseful way that makes you feel like you are right there in the woods during World War II. The leader of the band of partisans, Kamil, is described as saying, “If we will learn to conquer despair, to stay fixed on our goal, and to understand that being a Jew is no small matter, we will live to see the downfall of the enemy.”

8 people found this helpful

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Lizzie

A moving, inspiring, beautifully written book.

Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2020

This is one of the best novels I have ever read and I'm a big reader. Tender, brilliant, moving: the story of a young Jewish man during the Second World War, who becomes a resistance fighter and the resistance community he is part of. I found it tremendously moving and inspiring. A coming of age novel, in which the protagonist finds meaning when his world and culture are disrupted.

4 people found this helpful

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