★ 11/28/2016
Appelfeld’s novel delineates the process of becoming a writer, with details incorporated from his experience as a Holocaust survivor and refugee. The title’s sleeping man is 16-year-old Erwin from Czernowitz (formerly Romania, now Ukraine). Erwin has withdrawn into prolonged slumber after suffering deprivation and the loss of family during World War II. Fellow refugees carry him to Naples, where he joins a group of older boys exercising together, studying Hebrew, and learning to shoot—they then take a boat to what will soon become Israel and continue their training there. Despite pressure to let go of the past, Erwin continues to retreat into dreams for visits home, including conversations with his mother and father. Erwin’s group of trainees is eventually sent to a kibbutz to build retaining walls, tend orchards, and guard against infiltrators. Awake Erwin now goes by the Hebrew name Aharon, while the sleeping Erwin shares his hopes and concerns with his parents. Before reaching age 18, Erwin/Aharon is seriously injured in a military action intended to protect the kibbutz. Recovery comes slowly and painfully, but at last he begins to write, in Hebrew: just family names at first, then poetry, and finally stories in remembrance of things past. Erwin/Aharon’s physical and spiritual journey reveals the effects of war and dislocation. It also highlights the consolation found in cultivating old connections and latent talents. Throughout, Appelfeld focuses not on historical events or moral judgments but on the formation of a writer, one much like himself, able to transform memory into transcendent prose. (Jan.)
The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping: A Novel
Narrated by Lance Rubin
Aharon AppelfeldUnabridged — 7 hours, 48 minutes
The Man Who Never Stopped Sleeping: A Novel
Narrated by Lance Rubin
Aharon AppelfeldUnabridged — 7 hours, 48 minutes
Audiobook (Digital)
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Overview
From the award-winning, internationally acclaimed author called “one of the greatest writers of the age” (Guardian) comes this story of a Holocaust survivor, wounded in body and spirit, who takes his first steps toward creating a life for himself in the newly established state of Israel.
Erwin doesn't remember much about his journey across Europe after the war ended-with good reason. He spent most of it asleep, carried by other survivors as they emerged from their hiding places or were liberated from the camps and traveled by train, truck, wagon, or on foot to the Naples, where they filled the refugee camps and wondered what was to become of them.
As he struggles to stay awake, Erwin becomes part of a group of young boys being trained in both body and mind for their new lives in Palestine. The fog of sleep gradually lifts, and when he and his comrades arrive in Haifa, they are assigned to a kibbutz, where they learn how to tend to land and how to speak their new language. But a part of Erwin desperately clings to the past-to memories of his parents and other relatives, to his mother tongue, to the Ukrainian city where he was born-and he knows that who he was is just as important as who he is now becoming.
When wounded while on night patrol, Erwin must spend months recovering from multiple surgeries and trying to regain use of his legs. As he exercises his body, he exercises his mind as well, copying passages from the Bible in his newly acquired Hebrew and working up the courage to create his own texts in this language both old and new, hoping to succeed as a writer where his beloved father had failed. With the support of friends and of other survivors and with the ever-present memory of his mother to spur him on, Erwin takes his first tentative steps with his crutches-and with his pen.
Once again, Aharon Appelfeld mines heart-wrenching personal experience to create masterful fiction with a universal resonance.
Editorial Reviews
As its title suggests, there is a dazed, dreamlike quality to the prose of this bildungsroman, in which a masterly English translation by Jeffrey M. Green manages to retain the direct, concrete quality of the original Hebrew as well as its austere poetry. This is particularly valuable in a novel whose subject is, in part, language and how it forms us, what it lets us see and what it obscures.”
—Geraldine Brooks, The New York Times Book Review
"Powerful and hallucinatory. . . . Haunted by loss, illuminated by hope, and richly textured with tradition, Appelfeld's narrative probes questions of history and identity, vocation and meaning in language that's deceptively simple—as luminous and lingering as poetry."
—Christian Century
"By constantly recasting the stories he has created over a long career, Appelfeld creates a literary way of bringing his pre-Holocaust past into his Israeli present. There is no longer a need to return to Bukovina in Ukraine. There is a creative way of bringing Bukovina to the cafe in Beit Ticho in Jerusalem, where the venerable and venerated Appelfeld comes to sit and write."
—Hadassah magazine
“Gently tragic, intensely moving, and filled with metaphor. . . . Careful reading showcases the author’s exquisite poetic style, drawing us into Erwin’s painful experiences and his determination to form an identity that both encompasses his roots and honors what (and who) has been lost.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Appelfeld’s novel delineates the process of becoming a writer, with details incorporated from his experience as a Holocaust survivor and refugee. . . . Throughout, he focuses not on historical events or moral judgments but on the formation of a writer, one much like himself, able to transform memory into transcendent prose.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred and boxed review
“Appelfeld once again delivers with a novel of great sensitivity, finely attuned to the difficulties of responding to post-Holocaust living. . . . His style is never flashy, but the plainness of his writing gives these events both starkness and power.”
—Kirkus Reviews
01/01/2017
Award-winning Israeli author Appelfeld (Suddenly Love) offers a fictional account of his experiences as a young Holocaust survivor who has made his way from war-torn Europe to preindependence Israel. Apparently modeled on the author, the protagonist is the sleeping man of the title, who barely recalls his escape from the Nazi genocide because he slept through most of it. He is carried from the camps after liberation and brought to Italy, where other young men in his situation are trained to become citizens of their future homeland by working the land and learning to bear arms. As our protagonist spends more of his time awake, he has frequent flashbacks to real and imagined conversations with his parents, especially with his mother. We do not learn what happened to his parents during the war or whether they survived. The most intriguing parts of the novel are the young man's coming alive again, bonding with his comrades, and learning to begin a new life. VERDICT In keeping with the title, a dreamlike quality suffuses this well-translated tale, and though it is an effective conceit, some readers may wish that Appelfeld had provided a more specific grounding for his survivor's journey. Recommended especially for followers of this prolific novelist. [See Prepub Alert, 7/25/26.]—Edward B. Cone, New York
2016-11-07
Prolific author Appelfeld once again delivers with a novel of great sensitivity, finely attuned to the difficulties of responding to post-Holocaust living.The sleeping man of the title is the narrator, Erwin (later renamed Aharon), who grew up in the Carpathian Mountains of Eastern Europe until World War II threw his survival into question (all based on facts from the author's life). The novel opens at the end of the war, after Erwin has emerged from a cellar where he's been hiding out for two years. He drifts to Naples, bereft of family and finding in himself a weariness he cannot shake. He and some other young men are separated from the refugee camp and given military training under the tutelage of Ephraim, a charismatic leader planning to lead his cadre into the conflict in Palestine that will end up creating Israel. Not only do the men get military training, but they also learn Hebrew, for Ephraim claims that Hebrew will help bond them by "[attaching] the language to [their] bodies." Erwin grows stronger but still feels an almost overpowering need for sleep, and this allows him the freedom to reconnect to his past through long, vivid dreams of his mother and father. Eventually, he's wounded in action in Palestine and confined to bed. During his slow recuperation he develops the goal of becoming a writer, a profession his father had aspired to but never achieved. To this end, Erwin spends his time copying verses from the Hebrew Bible, which informs both his literary sensibility and his prose style.Appelfeld's style is never flashy, but the plainness of his writing gives post-Holocaust events both starkness and power.
Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940169752250 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Blackstone Audio, Inc. |
| Publication date: | 01/31/2017 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
Read an Excerpt
I
At the end of the war, I became immersed in constant slumber. Though I moved from train to train, from truck to truck, and sometimes from wagon to wagon, it was all in a dense, dreamless sleep. When I opened my eyes for a moment, the people looked heavy and expressionless.
No wonder I don’t remember a thing about that long journey. I ate what they gave out or, rather, from what was left over. If I hadn’t been thirsty, I probably wouldn’t even have gotten up to look for a slice of bread. Thirst tortured me all along the way. If some memory of that sleep-drunk journey still remains with me, it’s the streams where I knelt to gulp the water. The chilly water put out the fire inside me for a while but not for long.
The refugees carried me and supported me. Sometimes I was forgotten, and then someone remembered me and went back to pick me up. My body remembers the jolting more than I do. Sometimes it seems that I’m still in that darkness, drifting and being borne along. What happened to me during those days of sleep will probably be unknown to me forever. Sometimes a voice that spoke to me comes back, or the taste of a piece of bread that was shoved into my mouth. But aside from that, there is just darkness.
That’s how I arrived. The truck drivers rolled up the canvas. People and bundles tumbled out. “We’re in Naples,” the drivers announced. The sky was high above us, the sun blazed as it dipped into the sea, and the light was intense and dazzling.
I had no desire to push my way in to look for a bed in the sheds or to stand in line to get the used clothes that people from the Joint Distribution Committee were giving away. Everything around me buzzed with desire and a thirst for life, but the people looked ridiculous in their rushing about.
I could barely stand on my feet. At last I dragged myself over to a tree, sank down at its foot, and plunged into sleep.
It was a more diluted sleep. I could hear voices and the noise of the generators. I was borne along but without force. I felt the hard earth beneath me, and I said to myself, In a little while they’ll come and shake me. At first that worry kept me from sinking into a deeper sleep, but, nevertheless, I eventually did so. In the evening a man approached, nudged me, and called out loud, “What are you doing here?” I didn’t open my eyes and didn’t bother to answer him. But he kept shaking me and bothering me, so I had no choice but to say to him, “I’m sleeping.”
“Did you eat?” asked the man.
“I’m not hungry,” I replied.
My body knew that kind of annoyance. All along the way people tried to wake me up, to shove bread into my mouth, to speak to me, to convince me that the war was over and that I had to open my eyes. There were no words in me to explain that I couldn’t open my eyes, that I was trapped in thick sleep. From time to time, I did try to wake up, but sleep overpowered me.
Waves of darkness carried me along, and I moved forward. Where are you heading? I asked myself. Home, I replied, surprised at my own answer. Only a few of the refugees wanted to go back to their homes. Everyone else streamed to the sea in trains and trucks. People knew what they wanted. I had just one wish—to return to my parents.
As I was being carried forward, a hand touched me, and when I didn’t react, the hand shook me again. I didn’t want to answer, but the pulling disturbed me, and so I said, without opening my eyes, “Leave me alone. I want to sleep.”
“You mustn’t sleep for such a long time.”
“My weariness isn’t done. Leave me alone.”
The man went away, but then he came back and prodded me again. My sleep was no longer deep, and I felt the man’s determination to draw me out of it, no matter what.
I opened my eyes and was surprised to see that the man, on his knees and wearing glasses, looked like my uncle Arthur. I knew he wasn’t Arthur, but still I was glad to see him.
“What are you doing here?” he asked softly.
“I came with the refugees.”
“From where?” He stretched his neck toward me.
I couldn’t answer that. The places where we had stopped slipped past me without leaving a trace.
The man stared at me and asked if I wanted something to eat. I was about to say, A cup of cocoa, but I realized that would be a foolish request. Only at home, at breakfast, and toward evening at supper would Mother make me a cup of cocoa.
“I’ll bring you a sandwich and a glass of milk,” the man said. Without waiting for my response, he went off to get it for me. I wondered about the man who resembled my uncle Arthur, not only in his build and face but also in his movements, and I decided to ask him whether he was a communist, too, like my uncle.
He came back with a tray of food.
“Thank you,” I said. Since I had left the house, years earlier, no one had served me food on a tray.
“Hearty appetite,” said the man, another term I hadn’t heard since the war broke out.
I ate. The more I ate, the more my appetite grew, and I finished it all. The man watched without disturbing me. Finally, he asked my name.
I told him.
“What do you want to do?” he asked.
“Sleep,” I said.
“I’ll leave you alone,” he replied, and went away.
I was by myself again, and I felt relieved. After the war, it was hard for me to be with people. Sleep was right for me. In sleep I lived fully. I needed that fullness like I needed air to breathe. Sometimes a dream floated up and threatened me.
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