Re-reading Lily Brett’s TOO MANY MEN about a quarter of a century after I read it the first time (it was first published in 1999), the themes in the novel of intergenerational trauma experienced by Jewish families after the Holocaust and antisemitism are more relevant than ever in these current challenging times in the world. Like many other Jewish-Australians, in my late teens and early twenties, I read voraciously Holocaust-themed books, both fiction and non-fiction, to try and comprehend the history of World War II. Of the fictional accounts I read, Too Many Men resonated strongly with me, mainly because of Brett’s razor-sharp observant wit and the idiosyncrasies of the main characters, Ruth Rothwax and her father, Auschwitz survivor, Edek Rothwax. I especially loved the way the Yiddish phrases are translated into English, similar to the way English phrases were used by members of my family that spoke Yiddish as a first language.
Ruth is obsessed with the idea of returning to Poland with her father to try and make sense of her family’s past. She longs to visit the places where her beloved mother and father lived and almost died, certainly. However, there is much deeper emotions and meaning to this trip. By facing Poland and the past, she can finally confront her own future. The renaming of the film tie-in of the book to Treasure (starring Lena Dunham and Stephen Fry and directed by Julia von Heinz), cleverly refers to more than the dinnerware found in an apartment that previously belonged to Ruth’s family before the war. The real treasure may be what gives our relationships their meaning. Highly recommended reading.
