Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
"The book tells a seemingly simple tale about a man who immigrates to Palestine with the Second Aliya - the several hundred idealists who returned between 1904 and 1914 to work the Hebrew soil as in Biblical times and revive Hebrew culture.".
"Seduced by Zionist slogans, young Isaac Kumer imagines the Land of Israel filled with the financial, social, and erotic opportunities that were denied him, the son of an impoverished shopkeeper, in Poland. Once there, he cannot find the agricultural work he anticipated. Instead Isaac happens upon house-painting jobs as he moves from secular, Zionist Jaffa, where the ideological fervor and sexual freedom are alien to him, to ultra-orthodox, anti-Zionist Jerusalem.
While some of his Zionist friends turn capitalist, becoming successful merchants, his own life remains adrift and impoverished in a land torn between idealism and practicality, a place that is at once homeland and diaspora. Eventually he marries a religious woman in Jerusalem, after his worldly girlfriend in Jaffa rejects him.".
"Led astray by circumstances, Isaac always ends up in the place opposite of where he wants to be, but why? The text soars to Surrealist-Kafkaesque dimensions when, in a playful mode, Isaac drips paint on a stray dog, writing "Crazy Dog" on his back. Causing panic wherever he roams, the dog takes over the story, until, after enduring persecution for so long without "understanding" why, he really does go mad and bites Isaac.
The dog has been interpreted as everything from the embodiment of Exile to a daemonic force, and becomes an unforgettable character in a book about the death of God, the deception of discourse, the power of suppressed eroticism, and the destiny of a people depicted in all its darkness and promise."--BOOK JACKET.
Check nearby libraries
Buy this book
Previews available in: English
Showing 3 featured editions. View all 3 editions?
Edition | Availability |
---|---|
1 |
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
2
Only Yesterday
March 4, 2002, Princeton University Press
Paperback
in English
- New Ed edition
0691095442 9780691095448
|
zzzz
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
3
Only Yesterday: a novel
March 27, 2000, Princeton University Press
Hardcover
in English
0691009724 9780691009728
|
aaaa
Libraries near you:
WorldCat
|
Book Details
First Sentence
"Isaac stood there on the soil of the Land of Israel he had yearned to see all the days of his life."
Edition Notes
Classifications
Contributors
The Physical Object
ID Numbers
Source records
Internet Archive item recordInternet Archive item record
Internet Archive item record
Library of Congress MARC record
Better World Books record
marc_nuls MARC record
marc_columbia MARC record
Work Description
a novel
Community Reviews (0)
Feedback?History
- Created April 29, 2008
- 19 revisions
Wikipedia citation
×CloseCopy and paste this code into your Wikipedia page. Need help?
July 13, 2024 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
March 7, 2023 | Edited by MARC Bot | import existing book |
October 15, 2022 | Edited by jgalron | Edited without comment. |
October 8, 2020 | Edited by ImportBot | import existing book |
April 29, 2008 | Created by an anonymous user | Imported from amazon.com record |