A Review of Hope

I was almost afraid to review Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel by Shalom Auslander. The book seems to be viewed as “controversial” and honestly, I think a lot of the point of views in the book many people would maybe not appreciate. Looking at the book, I found myself reflecting upon the protagonist of the book, Solomon Kugel, and seeing more of myself in him than I am comfortable to admit. That is when it hit me; despite my background being nothing like Kugel’s, I found his plight to be sympathetic and relatable. It was then I decided I needed to write something about this book.

Hope takes place when Kugel and his family (wife, child, and grandmother) move to the country and live in a farmhouse in Stockton, New York. It is in this farmhouse where the attic has an unexpected guest who claims to be Anne Frank. The book then revolves around what Kugel is going to do with the guest, finding out if the guest is really Anne Frank, and trying to deal how this will affect his already dysfunctional family. The book does not play around or tries to be coy about the implications of Anne Frank still being alive; instead it uses it as an opportunity to discuss the effects of the Holocaust on both the people that went through it and the people who did not. The book doesn’t just focus on the Holocaust; it bounces from moral issue to moral issue as the forever anxious Kugel worries about each issue individually and throughout the book.

The thing that makes Hope a compelling novel and not just an essay on controversial topics, is that all these points of view are filtered through the main character. It isn’t just about raising controversial points of view, but how Kugel’s various opinions informs his character. The book isn’t really about death, the Holocaust, and how optimism can only ruin lives, and the lives of millions of people, but how all those topics swirl around and create a character that can’t quite escape from his past, and whose anxiety prevents him from living in the present. Hope, like the title suggests, is a tragedy. Which doesn’t mean that it is sad (in fact, if I had to assign a genre to this book, it would be Comedy/Satire), but a tragedy in the classic Greek sense; the characters’ woes and fates are determined by his their own flaws and imperfections, not necessary just because of the world around them.

The tragedy in Hope is what makes it a great book to me. It is how through every absurd situation Kugel goes through, it makes him seem much closer to truth and more sympathetic. Even if the situation is improbable, the weirder and more painful it gets for Kugel, the more I found myself getting uncomfortable about how closely it relates to me. The genius is that Kugel’s situation is nothing like mine, but I still was cringing about some of the same type of mistakes, assumptions, and thoughts Kugel creates for himself.

Hope: A Tragedy: A Novel, may not be the easiest read in the world, but through humor, insight, and insanity (that almost makes too much sense at times), it is a novel very much worth reading.