Research Catalog

Title

Random destinations : escaping the Holocaust and starting life anew / Lilian R. Furst.

Author

Furst, Lilian R.

Publication

New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xviii, 213 pages; 25 cm

Summary

"In Random Destinations, Lilian R. Furst examines how novels and short stories portray those who managed to escape from Central Europe in the 1930s following the rise of Nazism. These refugees faced many concrete and psychological problems at their random destinations: language acquisition, assimilation into an unfamiliar community, the loss of their homeland, and, above all, the need to reshape their identities. Their personal struggles are contextualized within their historical situation, both global and specific to their new locale. The book argues that fiction, by taking ordinary escapees' difficulties into account, paradoxically offers a subtler and truer picture than sociological studies that have tended to foreground the successes of a few outstanding individuals."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• English-speaking countries > In literature
• English fiction > 20th century > History and criticism
• Jewish refugees in literature

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. [203]-207) and index.

Contents

Introduction : "shards from the explosion" -- 1. "Twin souls" : Anita Brookner, The latecomers (1990) -- 2. "The hidden abyss" : Gillian Tindall, To the city (1987) -- 3. A "success story" : Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, "a birthday in London" (1963) -- 4. "Try to forget" : Maureen Duffy, Change (1987) -- 5. "To serve under the chimney" : W. G. Sebald, "Max Ferber," The emigrants (1992) -- 6. "The great loss" : Bernard Malamud, "the German refugee" (1963) -- 7. "An abundance of happiness" : Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, In search of love and beauty (1983) -- 8. "A bizarre double game" : Isaac Bashevis Singer, Shadows on the Hudson (1998) -- 9. "Can you harmonize?" : Carol Ascher, The flood (1987) -- 10. "An inconsequential appendix and coda" : Randall Jarrell, "Constance and the Rosenbaums" in Pictures from an institution (1954) -- 11. "Accepting - but not accepted" : Anita Desai, Baumgartner's Bombay (1988) -- 12. The "hanger-on" : Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, "an Indian citizen" (1968) -- Conclusion : "a bit in the middle of nowhere"

ISBN

1403969752 (alk. paper)

LCCN

2005047208

OCLC

• ocm60550757
• SCSB-5203448

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries