Lublin
As seen:
By Manya Wilkinson
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1 review
Elya is the lad with the vision, and Elya has the map. Ziv and Kiva aren’t so sure. The water may run out before they find the Village of Lakes. The food may run out before the flaky crescent pastries of Prune Town. They may never reach the Village of Girls (how disappointing); they may well stumble into Russian Town, rumoured to be a dangerous place for Jews (it is). As three young boys set off from Mezritsh with a case of bristle brushes to sell in the great market town of Lublin, wearing shoes of uneven quality and possessed of decidedly unequal enthusiasms, they quickly find that nothing, not Elya’s jokes nor Kiva’s prayers nor Ziv’s sublime irritatingness, can prepare them for the future as it comes barrelling down to meet them. Absurd, riveting, alarming, hilarious, the dialogue devastatingly sharp and the pacing extraordinary, Lublin is a journey to nowhere that changes everything it touches.
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This novel is an absolute delight to read with prose that gallop along as lively as the three Jewish teenage boys on their journey. Set in Poland in 1907 there are lots of general historical nuggets as well as Jewish history and stories embedded in the telling of the lads' walk. Like the boys, the book starts off jauntily and with much humour. As they begin to tire and the dread creeps in we get the idea that things are unlikely to go well.....And then: Oooof! That ending hits like a punch in the gut.
