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by Lara Vapnyar

Lara Vapnyar Short Stories and Anthologies English

eBook There Are Jews in My House download

ISBN: 1400033896
Author: Lara Vapnyar
Publisher: Anchor; 52802nd edition (December 7, 2004)
Language: English
Pages: 162
ePub: 1657 kb
Fb2: 1422 kb
Rating: 4.5
Other formats: azw lit mobi doc
Category: Literature
Subcategory: Short Stories and Anthologies

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Lara Vapnyar has one of the purest voices in modern fiction

Lara Vapnyar has one of the purest voices in modern fiction. In these stories, written with almost Chokhovian acuity and crispness, she summons all the idiosyncrasies and pathos of the Soviet Jewry, from the onset of Hitler's invasion all the way to Brooklyn, NY. There is something formulaic about how the stories are structured. Vapnyar seems to have a thing for absent husbands and fathers; almost every story in "There are Jews in My House" involves either a woman or child who has lost the man in her/his life.

Lara Vapnyar is a new American voice, whose stories come from her own background and experiences, and will .

Lara Vapnyar is a new American voice, whose stories come from her own background and experiences, and will now be woven into the literary fabric of her new country. We are the richer for it. –Chicago Jewish Week. Reading the stories in There Are Jews in My House is a bit like what it might have been like to look over Tolstoy’s shoulder while he examined a blade of grass, then another. In Vapnyar’s fiction, details jut, simple and bright, until they pose a world. From the Inside Flap. There Are Jews in My House" is one of the most striking debuts of recent years.

Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia to New York in 1994 and began publishing short stories in English in. .

Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia to New York in 1994 and began publishing short stories in English in 2002. She lives on Staten Island and is pursuing a P. in comparative literature at CUNY Graduate Center. Lara Vapnyar emigrated from Russia to New York in 1994 and began publishing short stories in English in 2002. Her work has appeared in Open City and The New Yorker. She lives on Staten Island. What Our Readers Are Saying.

She is a writer to relish and to watch. There Are Jews in My House". Galina carried in an aluminum pot of boiled potatoes, holding it by the handles with a kitchen towel. She put it on a wooden holder in the middle of a round table covered with a beige oilcloth.

Publisher: Random House Publishing GroupReleased: Dec 18, 2007ISBN: 9780307429698Format: book. There Are Jews in My House - Lara Vapnyar.

The Scent of Pine, There Are Jews in My House. Three of Vapnyar's books have appeared in Russian, although she did not participate in their translation.

1971 (age 47–48) Moscow, USSR. The Scent of Pine, There Are Jews in My House. Lara Vapnyar (born 1971) is a Russian-American author currently living in the United States. She studied comparative literature at CUNY and worked with André Aciman and Louis Menand. Vapnyar has published four novels and two collections of short stories. 2019: Divide Me By Zero: A Novel (Tin House Books).

There are Jews in my house - Ovrashki's trains - A question for Vera - Mistress - Love lessons - Mondays, 9 . Reflecting the perspective of a recent immigrant to the United States, a collection of short fiction explores the lives of Russians in Moscow and Russians in Brooklyn.

In Vapnyar's book, she shows a tremendous talent for integration and understand of personal feelings, and particularly, some nuances of prejudice, that . I first read Lara Vapnyar in the debut fiction issue of The New Yorker. I've now read this collection

There Are Jews in My House is one of the most striking debuts of recent years

Lara Vapnyar is Jane Austen with a Russian soul. The blend of coolness and pathos in these perfect stories is uncanny. There Are Jews in My House is one of the most striking debuts of recent years. Tracing the lives and aspirations of Russians living in Moscow and Brooklyn, these poignant, sad and funny stories create a luminous new literary world. In the title story, set during the Second World War, Galina, a gentile, offers refuge to a Jewish friend and her daughter, only to find herself increasingly resentful of their presence in her home.

There Are Jews in My House is one of the most striking debuts of recent years. Tracing the lives and aspirations of Russians living in Moscow and Brooklyn, these poignant, sad and funny stories create a luminous new literary world. In the title story, set during the Second World War, Galina, a gentile, offers refuge to a Jewish friend and her daughter, only to find herself increasingly resentful of their presence in her home. In “Mistress,” a nine-year-old boy, new to America, escorts his grandmother to her weekly doctors’ appointments to interpret her myriad complaints. At the same time, he becomes aware that his grandfather may be involved with another woman. And in “Love Lessons–Mondays, 9 A.M.” a young math teacher assigned to teach a sex education class becomes all too aware that her students are more experienced than she is.

Comments: (7)

Virtual

In Vapnyar's book, she shows a tremendous talent for integration and understand of personal feelings, and particularly, some nuances of prejudice, that we don't often consider. Most, but not all, of the stories in this book take place in Russia. Part of Vapnyar's brilliant writing style in this short book of short stories is her ability to capture so vividly, the picture and feeling of the surrounding environment in very few words, but her descriptions never seem incomplete.
The title story is particularly poignant, and shows the level of anti-semitism in Russia mostly in the 1940's, and how while it was there, it was not the same as that of Poland, which was ingrained in the society for 100's of years, or that of Germany, which was institutionalized by the Nazi party. Yet, it was still there, it was always there. And when a person started to get on another's nerves, when they were more successful, when they were more literate, when they did things that were beyond the ability of the other individual, well the answer cannot be, that I am inferior, it must be, that they are Jews.
But must it? Perhaps, if perception is reality. Even the children in her story, "A Question For Vera" are indoctrinated in some of the usual anti-semitic methods of the time, including phrenology. It is in this very story, that Vapnyar poses the question, so reminiscent of Shakespeare's Shylock in the "Merchant of Venice" when he says, "...If you prick us do we not bleed?..." But Vapnyar says it her way, "What if ... there wasn't anything bad or special about being Jewish? Katya looked around. There was nobody to answer that question..."
Aside from her incredible insight, it is so much the more so interesting, that English is not Ms. Vapnyar's first language. She is a Russian immigrant who came to New York in 1994, the book blurb says. But she has mastered the language of English, so finely, so delicately, that she can express these intricate and personal feelings, so very well, in English. She truly has broad talent. I would expect she will produce much more for readers to enjoy and ponder as her career expands.

Risky Strong Dromedary

Vapnyar's stories hit home with primal human themes: how war shoves friends together and apart, how in a changed environment one spouse always adapts "too little" and the other "too much", and how an unusual challenge can help us finally see the assets of someone we've been ignoring for years.

Meanwhile, these stories also provide a front-row seat to the lives of Russian-Americans.

Eta

This is a well crafted and very readable collection of short stories. The powerful title story is a frightening account of a Russian Jew and her daughter who are hidden by a gentile friend with second thoughts. Other stories touch on the Russian immigrant experience in Brooklyn. Her subjects are treated with empathy and compassion.

Wen

There are jews in my house shows deep and profound understanding of human nature.
It reads easily, although the subject matter is horrifying, it is hard not to feel and understand both characters in the main story

Enone

Wow!I enjoy reading it!I love these short stories!While reading it, I remembered my childhood and I got great pleasure of the moments of nostalgia)))

Reighbyra

I have read all the available short fiction by Lara in the New Yorker magazine and this piqued my interest to read all of her work. I can't even find the words to describe the immense talent and beauty present in each of her stories. They hit close to home, yet, you discover things that you never thought about when growing up in the USSR but Lara brings them to light. An example is her story Katania ()not in this book) where the main character's Mom was a writer of school math textbooks and Lara noted how her Mom was not allowed to create math problems with objects that were scarce such as bananas, but she could create them with apples. I never thought of it this way, but trying to jog my memory, I could not remember any math problems with the damn bananas!!! Such acute observation is stunning. The Luda and Milena story (also not in this book) is funny with two old yentas vying for an attention of an old geezer by cooking food for him. They enjoy their rivalry and his attention but then he kicks the can and there is nothing left for them.
I remember reading "My fair lady" and when Eliza Doolittle mastered English so well, someone has mistook her for a Hungarian princess because the person said that no way a native Englishperson could have mastered the language so well. I have the same feeling about Lara's work-you could feel her intoxication with the language on every page.

Auau

Don't be misled by this book's title into thinking its concerns are narrowly ethnic. Although the first story lends the collection its title, the last story's title ("Love Lessons...") points to the book's larger subject of love in its various forms: first love, a child's love, gay love, adulterous love, altruistic love. Like Chekhov, Vapnyar draws you into her stories with carefully chosen, specific details and characters rendered lifelike with a few light strokes: a pear-shaped principal whose black pumps leave impressions in the linoleum ("Love Lessons"), an obsessively cooking grandmother who smells of sweat, valerian root, and dill ("Mistress"). These last two stories, along with the title story, are longer, more complexly constructed, but the shorter stories have their own charm. "Ovrashki's Trains" breaks your heart as you watch a lonely girl pass her time beneath a summer cottage preparing mudcakes for her dolls while waiting for a father who will never arrive. Through stories of Russian Jews in Moscow and Brooklyn, Vapnyar conveys the inclinations of the human heart.

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