A Hungarian Jewish boy struggles with Judaism in this heretofore untranslated 1930s classic, a gold mine of imaginative leaps by a Hungarian writer who died in the Holocaust before he had the chance to build an oeuvre. In a neutral, autobiographical voice, the young narrator reveals his most eccentric daydreams and secrets in a luscious and highly visual fashion reminiscent of Nabokov's Speak, Memory. When Gyuri is a child, his parents send him to live with his grandfather, an Orthodox fanatic. Papa Jeremiah lives in a tent, with few belongings except for religious items, and he will not allow Gyuri any toys. Making the landscape itself a plaything, Gyuri invests inanimate objects—trees, shadows and other objects—with imaginary life. When Jeremiah dies, Gyuri returns to his parents and siblings, but he misses the surreal quality of life with his grandfather. He realizes, too, that his grandfather gave him more attention than his parents. However, like any child, Gyuri vacillates, sometimes considering himself the undeserving recipient of his parents' benevolence. He lashes out against Judaism, questioning God's existence, calling his rabbi father a hypocrite. After his father punishes him severely, Gyuri runs away from home, only to suffer a breakdown and return to his family and, one thinks, to begin to adopt their ways. This work impressively balances taut plotting with persuasively portrayed spiritual growth. The novel is both the story of a racial identity crisis in a world teetering on the brink of the Holocaust and a mini-adventure. With its expressionistic drama and its unerring understanding of human desire, it is bound to put Pap on literary maps. (Aug. 1)
