How wonderful is a visit with an old friend.
It doesn't have to be in person, either. Perhaps you, like
me, have a special "memory box" tucked away in your cupboard.
It may have been years since you last looked inside, but its
contents still have the power to warm your heart. Open it --
take out each piece one by one -- and dive into the sweet
waters of memory.
There's your graduating class picture, every face bright and
hopeful as it gazes into a wide-open future. Your autograph
book, filled with pages of funny, personal and practical
greetings from friends of long ago. Your parents also penned
their greetings and in the curve of their handwriting you
read all the caring ways they nurtured you toward adulthood.
Each souvenir and trinket recalls a special party, an
important ceremony, an unforgettable trip.
Time passes unheeded as you savor each cherished memory, each
friend from your past. When you replace all the contents and
gently close the lid, you know your friends will be there
when you want to visit them again.
Sometimes a book is just like that: a memory box full of
dear, old friends. Its characters can be so real that you
empathize with their struggles and rejoice in their
successes. The scenery, the descriptions, the dialogue (as
well as what is left unsaid) make impressions on your heart
as well as your mind. You finish the last page on a high
note, but you wish you could keep reading more about these
people you've come to know and care about.
A few months later, you pick up the book again and reread the
scenes that moved you the first time. They do so the second
time, too. The characters wait patiently between the pages,
ready to spring to life whenever you return to them.
Such is the charm of South African Journeys, a new
novel by Gita Gordon. Yated readers were first
introduced to its main characters, Esther and Ruth, a few
years ago when Mrs. Gordon published a story about two
shtetl girls on their journey to marry husbands in
South Africa. At the train station, due to mistaken
assumptions, each girl chose the other's intended. A sequel
to this episode, occurring ten years later, revealed that not
only did Esther marry her bashert, but her commitment
to a Torah lifestyle, even in this alien land, turned out to
be far more satisfying than the life Ruth chose for
herself.
Since then, we've met other fascinating characters in weekly
installments, encouraged and helped along by Yated,
and seen modern South African Jewish history unfold in the
lives of these transplanted Jews.
When read in its entirety, South African Journeys
flows with the rhythm of life in a most unusual locale.
Spanning the lives of three families over four generations,
it underscores time and again the power of Torah to enlighten
even the darkest continent.
This novel never lags or bores. Mrs. Gordon has a unique
talent for zeroing in on the turning point of a character's
life, an incident that defines his or her essence and that
shapes who he or she will become. Acts and gestures speak as
loudly as words to crystallize each personality. When the
turning point has passed and the novelist introduces the next
character, the vivid memory of the first character still
shimmers in memory, real and alive.
Take Esther, for example. That singular episode at the train
station describes her turning point: a young woman who
hearkens to the feelings of other people rather than her own
desires. Aside from her brief reunion with Ruth ten years
later, we don't meet her again until she is 60 years old. Yet
we understand her so well from that first encounter that we
don't need to hear every detail of her life in the interim --
and we like her so much for who she is.
Near the end of the book, when the novelist mentions that
Esther and her husband have passed on, the reader experiences
a heartfelt pang at the loss of an old friend.
The Yated's serialization of South African
Journeys proved to be one of the most popular series it
ever published. This newly published volume will be one of
the most popular books in your home, full of dear friends
waiting for you to visit again and again.
Editor's Note: The book version is slightly different from
the version serialized in our paper, having been reedited
from the author's original version and not the one reviewed
by Yated's Vaada Ruchanit.
