He alone is immortal in this sense of the term. The Scripture teaches that only God has life in Himself.įor as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself ( John 5:26). In this passage we see that immortality is something that is part and parcel with the nature of God. Who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproachable light, whom no person has seen or can see ( 1 Timothy 6:16) The Bible says God alone has immortality. If human beings are going to live forever, does this mean they are immortal? If humans are immortal, then in what sense do they have immortality? The Bible says that the spirit, or soul, of humans will exist forever. He is alive, however, and that, says the author, "isn't a great deal, but it's something.The Scripture teaches that death is not the end of existence. Is Bartfuss transforming himself, closing the "gap between his actions and his verbal declarations," in the words of Gila Ramras-Rauch, and moving "forward in the painful process of coming to terms with oneself"? Appelfeld's Bartfuss finds no consolation in Zionism or religion. We see a generous Bartfuss helping another survivor he knew in his days of smuggling and illegal immigration in Italy, a woman whose poverty renders her dependent upon favors. Preoccupied with finding purpose after experiencing the Holocaust, Bartfuss asks another survivor, "What have we Holocaust survivors done? Has our great experience changed us at all?" He answers his own question ironically, "I expect greatness of soul from people who underwent the Holocaust." We see glimpses of an emerging generosity as he begins to show less contempt for Rosa and Paula. "No one," he thinks while recovering in the hospital from an ulcer attack, "knew what to do with the lives that had been saved." At times he resolves to dedicate himself to the "general welfare … inspire faith in people overcome by many disasters." After all, "a man is not an insect," he thinks, echoing a sentiment that resonates in other Appelfeld novels. Like them, he protects himself by protecting his loneliness. They are merely numb players on the same stage. In coffeehouses and cafés Bartfuss sees other survivors, with whom he does business and who regard him as a hero he has, after all, 50 bullets in his body and a reputation for selfless bravery, which may be an explanation for the adjective "im-mortal." Although he has many acquaintances among the survivors, some of whom he knew in prewar Europe or in Italy just after the war, he is not friends with them. He has not seen his older daughter, Paula, since the day of her wedding more than two years earlier, yet he clumsily tries to form a relationship with Bridget, his retarded daughter, whose smile warms him. Contemptuous of them, he provides for them, but he does not share a life with them. Life is valuable, but not at any price." He lives and sleeps alone in a sparse room in the same apartment as his wife and daughter. He blames his wife, Rosa, beyond forgiveness for surviving by sleeping with a peasant and his sons and repeatedly accuses her of selling herself: "There's a limit to disgrace. Bartfuss, like Appelfeld himself, is, in the words of Leonard Michaels, "a figure of awesome interiority."Įlaborating on his obsession with survivors whose lives are marked by the absence of both language and mutual personal relationships, Appelfeld explained to Philip Roth that the "Holocaust belongs to the type of enormous experience which reduces one to silence." Bartfuss is the essence of the survivor who remains alienated by choice as well as by circumstance. ![]() ![]() With sparse details and tight, spare narrative, Appelfeld sets a dreamlike tone, a gauzelike backdrop for inaccessible characters. ![]() He is estranged from his wife and retarded daughter, distrustful of them and almost everyone else, and always deep in his private thoughts. He devotes 15 minutes a day to earning a living in underground dealings, spends endless days and nights in a Jaffa café or wandering about the beach or the city, and takes uneasy satisfaction in the knowledge that he has hidden three bars of gold, gold watches, two necklaces, some cash, and old photographs of his parents and sister. THE IMMORTAL BARTFUSS (Bartfus ben haalmavet)Īnother "small masterpiece" (the epithet frequently evoked by reviewers and critics about Aharon Appelfeld's novels), The Immortal Bartfuss, published in Hebrew and in English translation in 1988, focuses on a survivor living in Israel and haunted by his Holocaust experiences.
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