For Two Thousand Years

Starred review from October 9, 2017
The existential predicament of a Jewish Romanian man born into a deeply anti-Semitic society is brought to harrowing life in Sebastian’s intelligent, tragic novel, which was first published in Sebastian’s native Romania in 1934. The narrator, 20-year-old university student in Bucharest in the interwar years, is harassed and physically assaulted by anti-Semitic classmates. His entire life has been marked by such attacks, and although he passes his exams, this constant onslaught inculcates self-doubt. Under the influence of sympathetic professor Blidaru, he decides to study architecture, hoping to find in this field a “feeling of fulfillment, of calm,” while friends turn to Marxism or Zionism for solutions to their impossible situation. But even as the narrator finds professional success, the effects of relentless anti-Semitism prove corrosive: “Being persecuted is not just a physical trial.... The reality of it slowly deforms you and attacks, above all, your sense of proportion.” Sebastian documents the melancholy of a man attached to his homeland even it continually rejects him in this bold and brilliant novel.

Simon Vance delivers a strong performance of an often overlooked classic that offers a look at a very specific time and place in history--Europe between the wars. Originally published in 1934, the novel follows a young Romanian Jew as he comes of age under the growing shadow of fascism in Europe, encountering difficulties with nationalism, identity, and prejudice. Vance's narration imbues the unnamed narrator with curiosity about life, and the story's autobiographical tone is helped along by the realism Vance brings to it. The protagonist is complicated, and his perspectives and experiences may cause listeners some discomfort as he makes his way through a turbulent time. A.G.M. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine