Reviews for Enemy territory

The average rating for Enemy territory based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-04-11 00:00:00 Mark Freitas It's 1948 or so, soon after the birth of Israel. Herman Broder, who is Jewish, lives in New York with the shiksa who saved him from the Holocaust. This woman, Yadwiga, a Polish peasant with calloused hands, hid him in a hayloft for four years. She brought him food. She carried away his waste. Naturally, when the war ends and he hears the terrible news that his wife and children were gunned down in a trench, he acts upon his gratitude and marries Yadwiga. He brings her to New York City. They settle in Coney Island, home of the Cyclone, Wonder Wheel, and Parachute Jump, the sandy boardwalk with its many concessions, fortune tellers, tchochke shops and beach. Herman, who has never been at ease in this world, even before the Nazis, is death saturated. Moreover, he has, as do many of his companions, something that the psychologists call survival guilt. He regrets that he did not die in the war. Why is he alive? He is extremely unhappy, anxiety-ridden, and given to PTSD delusions in which the Nazis have invaded or are about to invade New York. His response to this condition is sex, lots of it. He sleeps around as much as he can. In addition to Yadwiga, in Brooklyn, he has Masha, in the Bronx. Both Masha and her mother are survivors, too. Eventually, by the novel's end, Herman is sleeping with and married to three women. Wherever he goes he plans an escape route, just in case. His experience during the war has rendered him Godless, yet he finds work writing devotional books and sermons for a local Rabbi, his training in the Talmud being deep. Most of the time however he is going from one woman's bed to the next. Yet he refuses to have any more children. No one, he believes, should have children in a world which allows them to be gunned down in trenches. That frustrated or blocked fertility/virility is the book's central metaphor. There's something a little old fashioned about the book which I liked. The narrative is straightforward chronology. Singer avoids the use of flashbacks for the most part. Too, the story is steeped in the old-world shtetl values in which, of course, marriage was a holy and sacred trust. So I think some of the book worked as comedy for a previous generation in a way it no longer works for most present-day readers. Herman's fervid polygamy is a sign of his despair. But even with that bit of cultural comedy neutralized, there is much to impress. Singer has a compressed style which (translated from the Yiddish) is charmingly sustained. His spot on characterizations run very deep. Enemies: A Love Story is a superb novel. Highly recommended.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-07-12 00:00:00 Kyle Colfer Too much spoilers in reviews, but also in the synopsis, almost ruined this one for me. 1/3 of the reviews should be flagged! There's one reviewer who wrote, without inserting a spoiler alert : "The climax of the story is when he..." I'm never going to read reviews again, before reading a work of fiction. So if I don't "like" your review of a fiction book that's on my to read list, you now know why! The story is rather far-fetched and dark, and the main character is extremely pathetic. Nonetheless it kept my interest, because it was so well-written. A story about human behavior, wartime memories, moral bankruptcy and destructive relationships.