NOT ONLY NEW JERSEY (English Edition) [Kindle-editie] beoordelingen het boek quotes

The book describes life in the late nineteen sixties in a prestigious scientific research institute located in the New Jersey of the title. On the surface, this is a tale of some non-hippie young people and their friends on the one hand, and research scientists and their work, their problems, their jealousies and occasional triumphs on the other. But this is only the screen onto which the panorama of the book is projected. The real story is that of the post-Holocaust generation, both Jews and Germans and the baggage that they carry.A young Jewish couple, Paul and Larissa arrive in the United States from England in order for Paul to take up a position at the world famed Coolidge research institute. Paul, as we learn, was born in Hungary in the middle of the second world war, and is a product of deprivations and dangers which his family went through, but which was too young to remember. Brought up in post-war Budapest under communist rule, he and his family escaped to England in 1956. His past is held in abeyance in the first half of the book, while we meet the young couple’s neighbours and Paul’s colleagues at work, and learn their stories. We also pay a visit to mega-rich Uncle Bela, whose family perished in Auschwitz but who survived the extermination camp to live the American dream. The past catches up with Paul when he finds himself sharing an office with Hans, a German chemist, a few years older than himself. Divided by that past, they find a bond in spite of themselves through the exhilaration of shared scientific discovery. The two men spend hours each day talking, first about “innocent” topics, but in time the big subject of the Second World War dominates their exchange. Argument, accusation, occasional common sense, rage, guilt, responsibility, irresponsibility, stories of sins, sinners and the sinned against, tales of heroes and villains ebb and flow between them as they struggle with the burden of the past, the over-rational present and their hopes and fears for the future. Matters are further complicated by the visit Paul’s parents pay to New Jersey, to Uncle Bela and to Hans’s home.This is when the reader is confronted by the deep questions raised by the book; what is it to be a second generation Holocaust survivor?, how far does the stain of guilt spread?, what is the meaning of friendship? And there is the eternal tale of fathers and sons. As if this were not enough, we are also party to dreamworld discussions between Paul and a Sage of his imagination, where no question is taboo and answers are imperative.The main body of the book takes place in 1969, but the reader is treated to a postscript which describes a meeting between Paul and Hans 30 years later..........