Only Yesterday: A NovelPrinceton University Press, 2019 M02 26 - 696 pages When Israeli Nobel Laureate S. Y. Agnon published the novel Only Yesterday in 1945, it quickly became recognized as a major work of world literature, not only for its vivid historical reconstruction of Israel's founding society. The book tells a seemingly simple tale about a man who immigrates to Palestine with the Second Aliya--the several hundred idealists who returned between 1904 and 1914 to work the Hebrew soil as in Biblical times and revive Hebrew culture. This epic novel also engages the reader in a fascinating network of meanings, contradictions, and paradoxes all leading to the question, what, if anything, controls human existence? |
From inside the book
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... Isaac's most important encounter is with Sonya, a liberated and “modern” woman, elusive and seductive. Unlike many modern novelists, Agnon writes decorously about sexuality. But he leaves no doubt that for Isaac, the product of a ...
... Isaac's first meeting with Shifra echo his Biblical namesake's first meeting with his bride, Rebecca. Both ... Isaac in a clean glass and said, May the gentleman please savor it.” “God created one thing against another,” Agnon writes, in ...
... Isaac's conscious or subconscious sensibilities, sometimes left alone with Isaac or serving as his voice, and always hovering just above him, yet shifting from reproducing his internal monologues to taking a distance and mocking him ...
... Isaac's father, saw Isaac's activities, he was bitter and depressed and worried. He would stand in the door of his shop and wring his hands in grief, or would sit on the chair and lean his head back and blow out his lungs inside him. If ...
... Isaac, for he had a pin stuck in his tie with the name of Zion engraved on it. Isaac didn't notice them, and if they said anything to him—he was silent. Isaac had removed himself from all arguments, and his heart was not moved by talk ...