Rodinsky's Room - Softcover

Lichtenstein, Rachel; Sinclair, Iain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862073295 ISBN 13: 9781862073296

Publisher: Granta Books, 2000

Synopsis

David Rodinsky lived above a synagogue in the heart of the old Jewish East End of London, and sometime in the late 1960s he disappeared. His room, a chaos of writings, annotated books and maps, gramophone records and clothes, was left undisturbed for 20 years. Rodinsky's world captured the imagination of a young artist, Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had escaped Poland in the 30s, and over a period of years she began to document the bizarre collection of artifacts that were found in his room, and make installations using images from his enigmatic bequest. She became obsessed with this mysterious man: Who was he? Where did he come from? Where did he go? Now Lichtenstein and Iain Sinclair have written an extraordinary book that weaves together Lichenstein's quest for Rodinsky. Part mystery story, part memoir, part travelogue, Rodinsky's Room is a testament to a world that has all but vanished and the celebration of the life of a unique man.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Lichtenstein is an artist who lives and works in East London. She is also a tour guide and gives lectures on the Jewish East End. Iain Sinclair's books include Lights Out for the Territory, White Chappell Scarlet Tracings, Lud Heat and Radon Daughters, which are all available as Granta paperbacks.

From Publishers Weekly

Published to critical acclaim last year in the U.K., British artist Lichtenstein's obsessive quest to uncover the fate of a reclusive Jewish scholar named David Rodinsky unfolds as a labyrinthine detective story and a moving search for the author's roots. Fluent in several languages, alive and dead, Rodinsky was the caretaker of one of London's oldest synagogues and lived above it in an attic room until he disappeared mysteriously in the late 1960s. Left undisturbed for over a decade, his abandoned room was finally unsealed to reveal chaos: hundreds of books and records, mystical formulas and diagrams, diaries and bizarre poems. Was Rodinsky, as those who remembered him variously claimed, a self-taught kabbalist, a holy fool, a Dostoyevskian "underground man"--or was he a sad, mentally handicapped autistic? To find the answers, Lichtenstein consulted a kabbalist rabbi in Jerusalem, tracked down Rodinsky's surviving relatives and journeyed to Poland, where she delved into Rodinsky's past as well as her own family's (her grandparents escaped Poland in the 1930s to settle in East London). Lichtenstein's first-person narrative alternates with ruminative chapters by novelist/essayist Sinclair, who examines the legends surrounding Rodinsky and scrutinizes the rediscovery of East London by novelists, filmmakers and artists, who view it as a sanctuary preserving remnants of immigrant culture, Georgian London and working-class values. Ultimately, the Rodinsky enigma cannot support the speculative and interpretive edifice built around his memory, but his obscure life, a metaphor of Jewish tragedy and survival, yields a vibrant time capsule to the lost worlds of London's Jewish East End and the Eastern European shtetl. Photos.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Granta Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 1862073295
• ISBN 13: 9781862073296
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 362