This is a very challenging book, unique for its approach and creativity. Every successful book should be unique for...but, some topics are much harder to be creative with than the others.
In 'A Man Lies Dreaming', Shomer (watcher, in Hebrew) an inmate of Auschwitz is re-creating a world where the cursed German dictator is just a refugee turning into a refugee, in an England openly unfriendly towards the difference - actually this last part is not a fictional projection.
The time of the story alternates from the adventures of detective 'Wolf' aka Adolf, hired to find the whereabouts of a Jewish girl mysteriously missing on her way from the - communist - Germany to the free England. In the good tradition of the shund - the Yiddish version of pulp noir openly despised by Sholem Aleihem who criticized the popular author Shomer for his un-literary and bad taste writings - there are a lot of sexual encounters and misadventures. During the story, 'Wolf' is having his own private 'bris' and will emigrate to Palestine with Exodus, while 'In another time and space' Shomer lies either 'dreaming' or 'sleeping'.
The entire story - with its many stories and references, from the top members of the Nazi establishment to various literary references, more or less familiar - with its absurd episodes and hard-core moments its a run against the clock for survival. This is how Shomer, who lost his children and wife at Auschwitz is able to survive the daily nightmare, so well that it will simply disappear, becoming maybe himself one of the characters of his own stories. Or this is the hope that he did so.
In a very gentle way, this book is a praise to the world of imagination and the work of spirit, which sometimes can won even in the most disgraced places. It is not guaranteed but at least it is worth a try. It makes life more bearable, whatever the circumstances.
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