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Shosha è un romanzo di Isaac Bashevis Singer scritto in lingua yiddish, tradotto in inglese dall'autore insieme con il nipote Joseph e pubblicato per la prima volta da Farrar, Straus and Giroux nel 1978. L'autore riprenderà il nome del protagonista in Anime perdute. (fonte: Google Books)

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Singer-Shosha/33620
> Psychologies magazine : https://fr.calameo.com/books/000048378bf6d93a97b95

I was drawn to this book by its setting, in the pre-war Jewish community in Warsaw. However it doesn't set out to explore this setting but rather to use it in much the same way a play will use stage props. It does give some insights but they are almost incidental. Instead we get a cleverly contrived but constantly shifting view of one young man and his immediate circle. One of the characters claims that the modern Jew is interested only in sex, the Torah and revolution mixed together: this in a way summarises the book. Aaron Greidinger, the son of a Hassidic rabbi, emerges from his Hassidic upbringing steeped in the culture but without its substance of faith. His attempt to find a way through his life involves an unconvincing attempt to embrace intellectual post modernism whilst being seduced by women representing these various tensions. His final clinging to Shosha, innocence and naivety, seems like finding his feet in fleeting contact with solid ground in the middle of a quicksand. But in the end, the destructive force represented by the Nazi holocaust is mainly one of cleansing from delusion and laying bare the difficulty of simply clinging on to what meaning life gives you. 28 November 2017. ( )

Much enjoyed Shosha: funny, deep, moving. Smorgasbord of characters in Arty-bohemian Poland as Hitler threatens. Slightly fuzzy ending though. ( )