Hope: A Tragedy

This book was chosen for discussion at a book group I belong to. I look forward to our discussion.When I think back to the experience of reading this book, I recall basically enjoying it and being very amused by its rather mordant humour. It concerns Kugal, a Jewish man who moves with his wife and small son and his ailing mother into a farmhouse in an obscure American town/village where nothing has ever happened ever. He has a paying lodger but discovers that the house has a long term squatter in the attic, who says that she is Anne Frank.I have read Anne Frank's diary and know that in some middle East countries that it is banned, mainly because it humanises Holocaust victims rather than letting them be seen as anonymous victims. Holocaust Deniers are keen to try and prove that the diary is a forgery, I imagine, for similar reasons. The Anne frank in this book is very old and smelly. She smells like a toilets where other toilets go to the toilet. She is also very bad tempered and sweary. Her time is spent writing a book in the attic.Initially, Kugel keeps the news of this to himself but gradually reveals this incredible story to the person who sold him the house, to the estate agent and finally to his family. His mother's reaction is the funniest. Despite the fact that she has had a safe life in the USA, he identification with Jewish suffering in Nazi occupied Europe leads her to claim that she too is a Holocaust survivor.For Kugel, the experience leads to great reflection with his therapist of the nature of hope, hence the book's title.It is a very funny book but one that also gets the reader thinking.

You know you're in trouble, bookwise, when you start looking at the page numbers and wondering how much more of this you are going to have to read before the story actually gets going. Well, on my Kindle, I read 19% before I metaphorically threw it across the room in despair.The product description on Amazon borrows a quote from the Sunday Times, as follows: `The humour, at times can leave you gasping . . . comic brilliance' I don't know what was in the gap where the dots appear, but might I suggest "..gasping at the audacity of calling it a comedy. Don't go looking for comic brilliance." The thing about a comedies is that they are supposed to contain humour. After 19% of painful reading I failed to crack even the slightest smile.Auslander goes long on Jewish angst and short on story. The trouble with Jewish angst is twofold. It becomes very tedious very quickly (even for Jews I'm sure) and Woody Allen does it so much better anyway, and certainly funnier.The most frustrating thing about this book is that it could actually have been funny. It could actually have been a good book. Imagine actually finding Anne Frank alive and (almost) well and living in your attic in an American farmhouse. I'm sure Ben Elton could do something with this premis. Unfortunately Auslander didn't - at least not in the first 19% of his book. If it got better later then I apologise, but I'm not going to waste valuable time trying to find out.I have just read the on-line New York Times review of this book [...]and can only think that something strange has happened. The book they reviewed wasn't the one I purchased.I recently read an anecdote, probably apocryphal, about a theatre production of Anne Frank that was so bad that when the Nazi's turned up to search the house the audience shouted "She's in the attic". So, all together now ........PSI went back and gave this book another go. I wish I could say that it got better, I really do, but it didn't.Quite what this book is defies description. There certainly isn't much of a plot, none of the characters are more than two dimensional and there isn't anything more than the most basic of motivations for any of their actions. In other words it isn't a story. Given that all the events other than the holocaust are fictional it isn't a documentary either.There are three central themes to the book. There may be more but these are the only three I picked up on. Theme 1: The eternal conflict between optimism and pessimism. Been there, got the T Shirt, debated it ad nauseam so don't need to go there again. Theme 2: The Holocaust was a bad thing, but we don't need to keep talking about it. Maybe this is a Jewish thing, or at least an American Jewish thing, but I don't find the Holocaust being discussed much down at my local. I wonder if the author sees the irony of the fact that he's the one that brought the subject up, not the reader? The final theme, inevitably, is how people feel guilt for things they weren't responsible for. Is the author trying to make me feel guilty for the Holocaust? Sorry, he's knocking at the wrong door. I wasn't born then and have no intentions of embracing the guilt of my forefathers, especially as I'm neither of German nor Jewish origin.Does the book cast any new light on the Holocaust and its affects on the survivors? Not really. In the book Anne Frank is more bitter about not getting any royalties for her diary than she is about narrowly escaping death in Bergen-Belsen.Kugel's mother feels guilty for surviving, but given that she was born and raised in the USA by Jewish immigrants who arrived before the Nazi atrocities even started then that doesn't make sense, though there have been recent comments in the press about such behaviour which may be becoming more common. Kugel's mother claims that close family members died in the concentration camps when it is quite clear they lived blameless lives in the USA. Maybe this is the point of the book. Why feel guilty just because you weren't gassed? On the other hand maybe life is imitating art and people are copying Kugel's mother? Who knows? Who cares?If the Nazis were banging on my door then even as I was being dragged to the gas chambers I would still resent the loss of the hours I spent reading this book.

The book was disappointing because it is extremely repetitive coming back again and again to the main theme which is not believable from the outset.

I found "Hope: A Tragedy" unexpectedly ridiculous, very fast-paced, full of punch-you-in-the-face humour, but I am sure it's not everyone's cup of tea. I had no idea what the book was about before I picked it, and this was the best part - I was blown away by the absurdity of it. It's ridiculous (or is it?), it's offensive (or is it?) , it's darkly comic.What to expect: present day, a New York state countryside where Solomon Kugel buys an old farm house and moves in his family including his lovely wife, 3 year old son and cranky old mother (the Holocaust survivor, or is she?). If I could I would not reveal who, as Kugel discovers, is responsible for the horrid smell in his new old house. But I guess it is impossible with all the other reviews. Another survivor is living in his attic, tap-tap-tapping away at her new novel, to match (if not to outsell) her debut (which sold over 30 million copies worldwide).Original and well written, but too many repetitions, too much swearing and I did not laugh out loud once (despite finding it all pretty amusing). Three and a half stars. Actually, four stars, I am feeling generous.

Solomon Kugel moves to a small town with his wife and son, hoping for a fresh start. He is a man plagued by worries, insecurities and desperate to discover those 'last words' which he should leave for the world whenever he departs it. His fresh start is hampered by the arrival of his mother - who claims she is a holocaust survivor, although she isn't - and a disgruntled tenant. Also, there is the small matter of Anne Frank, now elderly and wonderfully cantankerous, alive and well and living in his attic.This novel could be terrible - in some ways, it almost should be terrible. However, it is, in fact, wickedly funny and very moving. Solomon Kugel is just a terrific character, trying to appease his wife, tolerate his mother and her odd ways and decide what to do about Anne Frank. Can he throw an "elderly, half-mad Holocaust survivor out of his house?" Add in the fact that an arsonist is torching lovely farmhouses in the area where he has just brought, you guessed it, a farmhouse, and you have a funny and thought provoking read.