Love and Exile: A Memoir Book

This is one of the first writer's memoirs I have really loved. Singer is a wonderful storyteller, and from the very beginning he brings you into the mind of an incredibly neurotic Jew in Warsaw in the years before World War Two. The memoir is deeply philosophical and personal. As the world is teetering on the edge of collapse, he can't help spending his time wondering about the impractical big questions: why is God so cruel? Why would he allow sin to exist? etc. He is also concerned with the little questions - How can I be less lonely? How can I sleep with my cousin and my girlfriend without getting in trouble?

Amazingly for such a memoir, Hitler is mentioned maybe ten times. Instead, the worldly events Singer focuses on are drawn to show the absurdity of human nature. The Yiddishist writers, big fish in a disappearing pond, constantly declare themselves communists and become rabid and bloodthirsty, waiting for the revolution to come. Several of them sneak into Russia, only to be sent off to Siberia and never heard from again.

Eventually, Singer makes it to New York, and gets terribly depressed. He says it is because he doesn't feel comfortable there. Could it maybe be because the holocaust has just destroyed everything and everyone he left behind? Who knows, the mind of a neurotic is a lovely thing to follow.

Oh, and I couldn't help wondering the whole time if the movie Love and Death was based on this memoir. Any thoughts anyone?