"Journey Through A Small Planet" by Emanuel Litvinoff

[Nigeyb]

As it's now obvious that Journey Through A Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff will not win the October 2016 non-fiction BYT poll, here's a hot reads thread for anyone who feels inspired to read it. I think it's a wonderful book.

Emanuel Litvinoff recalls his working-class Jewish childhood in the East End of London: a small cluster of streets right next to the city, but worlds apart in culture and spirit. With vivid intensity Litvinoff describes the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and Whitechapel, the smell of pickled herring and onion bread, the rattle of sewing machines and chatter in Yiddish. He also relates stories of his parents, who fled from Russia in 1914, his experiences at school and a brief flirtation with Communism. Unsentimental, vital and almost dream like, this is a masterly evocation of a long-vanished world.

Here's my review...

Highly recommended for those who like books about London, and reading about the interwar years.

Journey Through A Small Planet by Emanuel Litvinoff is a masterly evocation of a long-vanished world in the overcrowded tenements of Brick Lane and Whitechapel of London's Jewish East End in the 1920s and 30s. The descriptions bring this distinctive, vibrant community vividly to life. A place awash with wonderful characters and stories amidst the squalor, poverty and daily grind.

Having enjoyed every page, it is no surprise that Penguin books identified Journey Through A Small Planet as a worthy addition to their Penguin Modern Classic imprint. The Penguin Modern Classic edition contains a comprehensive introduction about Emanuel Litvinoff written by Patrick Wright; the original book, first published in 1972, which consists of 12 chapters of reminiscences of Emanuel Litvinoff's childhood and teenage years; plus an appendix of two essays and two poems.

4/5


Here's another review, this one from Amazon UK...

This is a re-issue, as a Penguin Modern Classic, of a book first published in 1972. In twelve short chapters Litvinoff wonderfully evokes his childhood and adolescence in the crowded inter-war Jewish East End. While bringing out the poverty, squalor and stench in which the immigrants from Eastern Europe lived, there is a rich and vibrant community life, and his observations of characters and situations are mostly humorous - though the chapter on his experience of coarse antisemitism from staff and fellow-pupils at a trade school for shoe-makers is too grim for humour. He did not seem to show much promise as a youngster and had a series of dreary and humdrum jobs. At the very end of this memoir, when he was 19, a poem suddenly came to him, and "things would never be the same again."

He would of course not be the only upwardly mobile Jew coming from that unpromising setting, but, as in all these cases, each such ascent seems like a small miracle.

There follows an appendix of two essays and two poems. The first essay, here published for the first time, was originally written just after the War. It is a powerful, slightly over-written story about a solar eclipse; but it shows the progress he had made as a writer in the dozen years since that first literary effort. The memoir itself, written a quarter of a century later still, is not over-written at all: by that time his style had become worthy of being a classic.

The second essay, originally published in 1967, sets out his views of what it has meant to him to be `A Jew in England'. That theme is further elaborated by the 35 page introduction to the book. Written by Patrick Wright, it sets Litvinoff's memoir into the context of his whole remarkable life, and is a small masterpiece in itself. Litvinoff's reflections on his experiences as a Jew have varied over a long life-time: how he relates and has related to his background, to his Englishness, to Communism, to the Soviet Union, to Zionism and to Israel.

His last book was published a quarter of a century ago, and none of his novels are currently in print. See my Amazon reviews of The Faces of Terror; Blood on the Snow; The Face of Terror; The Man Next Door). He is now 92; and it must be gratifying for him that this memoir at least has been re-issued, and as a classic at that.

I hope that tempts a few of you to read this interesting BYT era book.

[Nigeyb]

PS: I'm currently reading a novel Emanuel Litvinoff called The Lost Europeans..



I've read 20% of The Lost Europeans by Emanuel Litvinoff and it's very absorbing.

It has already brilliantly evoked both the horror of being Jewish in Germany during the rise of Nazism, & also the feelings of a Jewish person returning to Berlin a few years after the end of WW2. As the intrigue of the plot builds, so does my curiosity and enjoyment. The world weary Hugo is a wonderful character.

It also occurs to me that The Third Man would make a wonderful cinematic accompaniment to this book.

Some more info....

Although British writer Emanuel Litvinoff (1915-2011) is best known for his work Journey Through A Small Planet, it might be said that he has also been pigeonholed by it, as an author confined by a small pocket of British life. But Litvinoff claimed European, rather than British nationality. His political activism after the Holocaust was both dedicated and successful....

Originally published in 1958, The Lost Europeans was Litvinoff’s first novel. It is the story of two Jewish men haunted by their pasts and seeking answers and closure in 1950s Berlin. Martin Stone – previously Silberstein – leaves his London exile to revisit Berlin, the city of his birth, with a view to securing restitution for his father, whose bank was appropriated by the Nazis. He meets his friend, Hugo Krantz, who after a successful stint as a writer of satirical revues in the Weimar era also fled Berlin for London in the 1930s. Hugo has since returned and resettled, but he cannot relax until he has found out if the lover who betrayed him to the Nazis and then became an SS officer is dead or alive.

As Litvinoff’s two protagonists pursue their separate agendas, one for compensation, the other for confirmation, they come into contact with some colourful individuals, many of whom have unhealed scars. Martin stays at the pension of former cabaret artiste Frau Goetz, who hid Jews during the Third Reich and paid for it with three years in Buchenwald. He later falls for Karin, a seamstress from East Berlin who was raped by marauding Russian soldiers. The characters that revolve around or collide with Hugo are altogether shadier. Do the playboy antics of Hugo’s secretary-valet Heinz Dieter mask darker exploits, and is the inquisitive American Mel Kane a journalist with good intentions or a spy who poses a threat?

Litvinoff’s novel is as much about place as people, and he excels with his portrait of post-war, pre-Wall Berlin. We tour a shabby East and a “glittering, night-loving” West. Martin explores the ruins of his family home and roams streets which revive memories and awaken demons. Hugo admires the view from his Kurfürstendamm penthouse and revels in bars and clubs. For Martin, Berlin is “the sick heart of Europe”; for Hugo it is “the great European Sodom”. As Martin comes to learn who to trust and love, and Hugo tracks down his treacherous quarry, the novel expands from a thrilling quest for justice into a probing and enlightening study of guilt and reconciliation.

Hugo tells Martin on his arrival that “Berlin is a form of insanity – and it’s contagious”. We willingly succumb to that madness as we accompany them through a city of victims and survivors, perpetrators and ghosts – all the time wondering why so fine a book could languish so long in obscurity. Now this overlooked gem can sparkle again.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/arts_en...


'One of the best unsung novelists of our time' Valentine Cunningham.

'The great forgotten novel of post-war Berlin ... both moving and forensic in its portrayal of a shabby and still only partly repaired city: recently divided between East and West but united by a common past of such monstrosity that the most prosaic presences and encounters shriek of murder' Patrick Wright.

'Litvinoff’s novel is as much about place as people, and he excels with his portrait of post war, pre-Wall Berlin ... We accompany them through a city of victims and survivors, perpetrators and ghosts – all the time wondering why so fine a book could languish so long in obscurity. Now this overlooked gem can sparkle again' Herald.

'A real treat ... This is still some achievement and has been the book I have enjoyed most to date in Apollo's surprisingly wide-ranging series of eight of "the best books you've never read"' Nudge Books.

[Nigeyb]

I've now finished 'The Lost Europeans’ It's the story of two Jewish men, Martin Stone and Hugo Krantz, seeking answers and closure in 1950s Berlin. Martin Stone returns from London to Berlin, the city of his birth, to claim financial restitution for his father, whose bank was appropriated by the Nazis. His older friend, Hugo Krantz, also fled Berlin for London in the 1930s, after enjoying success as a celebrated theatrical writer. Hugo has since returned and resettled in Berlin, but he cannot rest until he has discovered whether his lover, who betrayed him to the Nazis and then became an SS officer, survived the war.

It's a stunner....

www.goodreads.com/review/show/1738554805