Ludovic (Joseph Leib) Bruckstein is quasy unknown in the Romanian literary realm and the Jewish literature in Eastern Europe in general. Born in Munkacs (Munkacevo) and growing up in Sziget (Sighet), in the Northern part of Transylvania (Hungary/Romania), in 1972 he left Romania for Israel. While in Romania, he wrote plays and short stories, and taught at the University, but it looks like his name was completely erased from any literary mention. His writings he published in Israel until his death in 1988 caught the attention of the local literary critics and were mentioned in Viata Noastra/Our Life, one of the main publications in Romanian in Israel. Again, he remains largely unknown in his country of origin.
Istros Books brought Bruckstein into the wider, English-speaking literary world, publishing two of his novellas, The Trap and The Rag Doll. Personally, I didn't know what to expect from this book. I've only vaguely heard about him but couldn't place his work in any context, either regional/local or Jewish in general.
The novellas are insightful, with a strength of the storytelling that keeps you captivated during the reading while occupying your mind with many general human questions after you've finish.
The Trap takes place in the context of the humiliations Jews had to deal with daily in his native Sighet. 'How easily a man accustoms himself to everything! Even to his own humiliation' says Ernst, the main character of the story. The friendly town he returned to from his architecture studies in Vienna 'had become a prison with invisible walls, and he had to escape from those walls'. He will survive the war, for ending up deported by the Russians following a completely absurd occurence. But besides the story in itself, written in the cadence of the old Hassidic stories told by the itinerant storyteller or the maggid there is something else that struck me: the fact that most situations and characters are in fact hiding behind the friendly welcoming appearance a darker side. From the beautiful walls of the Palace of Culture to the German polite/distant attitude of the art student from Berlin turned into SS cruel executant or the apparent friendliness of the peasants from the mountains, Ernst is the witness of the historical revelation of the beautiful appearances, of the human lows and weaknesses. It is the experience that people that went through the horrors of the Shoah - as Bruckstein himself - had to live with thereafter.
The Rag Doll approaches a different topic, but nothwistanding a common occurence in the life of Jews in this part of the world: mixed marriages, when the Jewish member shall give up/hide his/her identity. The lovestory between Theo and Hanna survived the harassment against the Jews during the war but failed when Theo met a much younger colleague at work. Hanna gave up her Friday evening candle lightning as a 'protection' for her daughters. But once in a while, she cannot stand still when she hears the usual anti-Semitic references or longing for her family home and the life with her parents, murdered during Shoah that disowned her anyway after marrying a non-Jew. The precise location of the story is not mentioned but the name of the characters sound Romanian with some Slavic/German sounding ones, typical for the multicultural border areas.
Those two novellas by Bruckstein are important for the local Jewish history but also for the literary Jewish history in Romania. Hopefully, once the English translation is done, someone will have the idea to translate his works into Romanian as well.
Disclaimer: Book offered by the publisher in exchange for a honest review
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