Genre
Historical Fiction
Setting and Context
It is set in Israel in the 1950s and 1980s. The third part is set in a Nazi death camp during the Second World War.
Narrator and Point of View
Narrator: Momik;
Point of View: Both in Third-person and First-person.
Tone and Mood
Curious, Determined, Grim
Protagonist and Antagonist
Protagonist: Momik / Shlomo Neuman; Antagonist: Nazi Beast
Major Conflict
A young Mimok seeks to understand and subdue the Nazi Beast even though he is unable to fully comprehend the complex past of his family. As an adult Mimok pursues a creative outlet through literature that responds to violence and the intergenerational trauma of the Jewish people.
Climax
The climax happens in the cellar after Momik is unable to draw the Nazi Beast out of the animals and goes on a frantic rant about attacking the Nazis.
Foreshadowing
“And Momik who is usually well-mannered didn't hang around for more but ran outside to the ambulance and climbed up on the back step, wiped the rain from the little round window, and peered inside where the oldest man in the world was swimming like maybe a fish in an aquarium.”
It foreshadows the connection Mimok/Neuman has with the sea akin to Wasserman and Schulz with the latter transforming into a salmon and escaping into the sea.
Understatement
N/A
Allusions
The novel incorporates an alternative life of the Polish writer Bruno Schulz addressing his literary style in handling violence and warfare.
Imagery
“He'd always been afraid to go down to the cellar because of the dark and the dirt, but this time he had to. There, together with the big brass beds and the mattresses with straw sticking out and the bundles of clothes and the piles of shoes was Grandma Kenny's kifat, a kind of box you tie up, with all the clothes and stuff she brought from Over There and this book called a Teitsh Chumash and also the Tzena u-Rena, and the bread board Grandma Henny used there for making pastry dough and three bags full of goose feather…”
Paradox
“I want to write, but I can't get rid of my blocks and inhibitions. Every step becomes impossible because of the half step that must precede it."
Momik explains his writer’s block through the theory of Zeno’s paradox.
Parallelism
The narrative parallels Mimok/Neuman, Wasserman, and Bruno Schulz in their journey towards finding their literary voice as a response to war and violence.
Metonymy and Synecdoche
Over There and Nazi Beast are used as metonymies for Nazi Germany and the Holocaust respectively.
Personification
“A little yolk of a sun was blotted up by leaden clouds, and the light faded.”
