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Until the Dawn’s Light

Appelfeld, Until the Dawn’s Light

In this post I would like to focus on an aspect of Appelfeld’s novel that wasn’t yet touched on in tutorial. The reoccurring  allusion to the body as being an extension of the mind and spirit was something that I found particularly interesting in my reading. What brought my attention to this theme was the […] Continue reading →

Posted in blogs, lb5-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light

I wonder which is more tragic – Blanca’s abusive marriage or her inability to express and defend herself. Time and again, Blanca finds it “hard […] to talk, because it [is] hard for her to say what [is] oppressing her” (Appelfeld 41). I find this rather peculiar: Blanca excelled as a student, one of the […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light

If you survived the Holocaust, you haven’t truly experienced it. It was the above paradox that struck me the hardest during yesterday’s seminar and, after reading the text, it wasn’t a surprise to me why Appelfeld couldn’t talk about what happened in WWII directly, even if he hadn’t “truly experienced it”. It was easy enough […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light by Aharon Appelfeld

Finally, a novel! Or not. Reading Until the Dawn’s Light is an intense experience, and while I have thoughts on the content I feel they would be redundant, so I’ll comment instead on the style. Appelfeld writes with such finesse. The short, nonlinear chapters do not at any point give the impression of nonlinearity–the novel is perfectly seamless. […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light

What has really impressed me about Appelfeld’s writing is the depth and complexity of his characters. Blanca’s character especially is so real that I often forget this is written in third-person. The novel seems more like her autobiography. Appelfeld retells every little thought that goes through Blanca’s mind, almost like a stream of consciousness but […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until The Dawn’s Light

What has caught my attention the most at the moment about Appelfeld’s Until the Dawn’s Light is the way the story begins. As Miranda Burgess said in the lecture, the first chapter starts on a train and brings to mind the trains heading to concentration camps. Immediately the story seems to be about the holocaust even though […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light

(From the moment I opened the book and saw the name Adolf I thought Hitler! I don’t know why. Adolf is a perfectly wonderful name. Every time I see the name Joseph, I don’t think Stalin! ) After Blanca’s mother … Continue reading →

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Appelfeld’s Until the Dawn’s Light

What I think is most valuable in the novel is the structure it follows. The initial flashback makes the reader wonder why is Blanca fleeing from, and we slowly learn as the flashbacks continue. I think that this was masterful from Appelfeld’s part and this really shows his skill as a storyteller. Secondly, I think […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

Until the Dawn’s Light

I think Miranda Burgess said it best when she said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that it’s not the explicitly tragic parts of the novel that make her most emotional, but the suspended pockets of beauty. Like any piece of work regarding the subject of jewish persecution, Until the Dawn’s Light is at times a very […]

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

The Hitler Conundrum

Hmmmm… A jewish woman at the start of the 20th century…. a man named Adolf…. let me guess, a comedy?Well, the book certainly wants you to believe that Blanca’s dead husband was the man himself. Everything points to it, he’s christian, he’s Austri…

Posted in blogs, lb4-2014 | Tagged with Appelfeld, Until the Dawn's Light

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