Of Bitter Herbs And Sweet Confections: A Long Journey To Evade The Holocaust

The author of the novel that is the subject of this review, Of Bitter Herbs and Sweet Confections, approached me on Goodreads and sent me a review copy.  Later I discovered that I had purchased it on Amazon some time ago, and hadn't gotten around to reading it because of all the requests I get from authors, publishers and publicists.   There are books that I recently acquired that aren't being read because my mind is currently engaging with this book by Susan Shalev.   So it's Susan Shalev's turn to get  her novel blogged by me.

                            

This is a coming of age book about a Jewish girl in Poland during the Holocaust which was an existential crisis for Jews.  The central character may never have gotten a university degree as she hoped, but she gets full marks just for surviving. Shalev tells us in the Epilogue that the protagonist, Tanya Anglische, is based on Tamar Englander Shalev, the author's mother in law who is now deceased.

I have read numerous books about the Holocaust.  The most recent was A Bookshop in Berlin at the end of last year which I reviewed here. I also took a Holocaust course at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York.   So I can be forgiven for not reading novels that take place in this context very often.

I thought that the most unusual aspect of Shalev's book was that her family spent a good part of World War II in Siberia where they were sent by the Russian military.  They may have endured hard conditions in Siberia, but they were nowhere near as horrific as the camps where the Nazis consigned Polish Jews.  Tanya even got to attend school where a teacher gave her a book that she found inspiring.

The title and author of this Russian novel certainly caught my attention.  It was The Wizard of the Emerald City by Volkov.  Did this book actually exist?   I wondered if someone had translated The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  into Russian without crediting the author, L. Frank Baum.  My research revealed that Baum's first Oz novel was published in 1900.  Fictional Tanya  tells us that Volkov's book had appeared in 1939.  I found a page devoted to it on Wikipedia, The Wizard of the Emerald City on Wikipedia.  The number of differences between Volkov's version and Baum's  caused me to think of it as transformative. I decided that Volkov's work could be viewed as alternate universe fan fiction.  There were sequels that had no resemblance to Baum's Oz novels.  So it seemed to me that Volkov had his own alternate continuity.  Since I'm fond of both fan fiction and alternate universes,  I was pleased with myself for making this discovery through Shalev's novel. 

I decided to find out more about the history of Hebrew University which Tanya wanted to attend.  In the process I discovered that the Bezalel Academy of  Art and Design (founded 1906) and the Technion (founded 1912) were established even earlier than Hebrew University.  The Technion is considered instrumental in establishing Hebrew as the eventual language of Israel through choosing Hebrew as their language of instruction.  I learned about a Battle of the Languages at the Technion.  German was originally supposed to be the language of instruction there because a German Jewish organization called Ezrah founded the Technion. So reading Shalev's book caused me to educate myself about Israel's educational institutions.  I also discovered a great deal about the war of 1948 in Israel that I hadn't known, and that I will be pursuing by reading history books dealing with this period.

I always feel grateful to books that prompt me to do research.  I give them an additional star on Goodreads for all the information I discover.  Of Bitter Herbs and Sweet Confections was an engaging novel that inspired me to do massive amounts of research.