Sabato (Adjusting Sights
) draws upon his personal history in this reflective novel about an indefatigable Hungarian Holocaust survivor. The story is narrated by a boy named Haim whose Jewish family is expelled from Egypt after the 1956 Sinai conflict. Haim, a precocious five-year-old when his family resettles in a Jerusalem housing project, knows nothing about the Holocaust and is puzzled by the somber Europeans who stay shut up in their homes. Only a charismatic Hungarian, Mr. Farkash, has close relationships with both the Jewish Egyptians and his own community. Farkash guides and protects the meek of both worlds, ensures that both the Sephardic and the Ashkenazi have places to worship, and, over time, becomes Haim’s mentor and entrusts Haim with his family’s tragic story. Sabato skillfully mimics the nonlinear processes of human discovery as Haim learns about the world wars and the Holocaust, and though occasional clumsiness in language may be due to the difficulties of translation (and suggest that subtleties of meaning may also be lost), the vivid images of life in the projects of the new Israel underscore the story’s power. (Mar.)
