Sam Apple: Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria's Jewish Past with Its Last Wandering Shepherd, Kartoniert / Broschiert

Kurzbeschreibung

A young Jewish comic writer details his odyssey through Austria with the country's last wandering shepherd, Hans Breuer, who is also a Yiddish folksinger, in search of the history of Austria's Jewish inhabitants and his discovery that the anti-Semitism of the past continues to haunt the present.

Beschreibung

Hans Breuer, Austria's only wandering shepherd, is also a Yiddish folksinger. He walks the Alps, shepherd's stick in hand, singing lullabies to his 625 sheep. Sometimes he even gives concerts in historically anti-Semitic towns, showing slides of the flock as he belts out Yiddish ditties.

When New York-based writer Sam Apple hears about this one-of-a-kind eccentric, he flies overseas and signs on as a shepherd's apprentice. For thoroughly urban, slightly neurotic Sam, stumbling along in borrowed boots and burdened with a lot more baggage than his backpack, the task is far from a walk in Central Park. Demonstrating no immediate natural talent for shepherding, he tries to earn the respect of Breuer's sheep, while keeping a safe distance from the shepherd's fierce herding dogs.

As this strange and hilarious adventure unfolds, the unlikely duo of Sam and Hans meander through a paradise of woods and high meadows toward awkward encounters with Austrians of many stripes. Apple is determined to find out if there are really as many anti-Semites in Austria as he fears and to understand how Hans, who grew up fighting the lingering Nazism in Vienna, became a wandering shepherd. What Apple discovers turns out to be far more fascinating than he had imagined.

With this odd and wonderful book, Sam Apple joins the august tradition of Tony Horwitz and Bill Bryson. Schlepping Through the Alps is as funny as it is moving.

From the Hardcover edition.

Rezension

Advance praise for Schlepping Through the Alps

"This marvelously alert, one-of-a-kind book fascinates by virtue of its eccentric honesty, humor, warmth, and intelligence. Sam Apple's writing style sparkles, and the two brilliantly achieved, richly sympathetic characterizations at the heart of the book - the singing shepherd and the author himself - make for a dazzlingly satisfying read. I absolutely loved it."
- PHILLIP LOPATE

"At its best, Apple's narrative voice is as grave as W. G. Sebald's while as self-deprecating as a poetic version of Woody Allen's. Europe in the wake of the Holocaust is risky material. I know of no other American of Apple's generation writing non-fiction who has attempted as subtle and oblique an approach as this."
- HONOR MOORE, author of The White Blackbird

"In this wonderful book, Sam Apple has written a brilliantly comic and very dark pastorale about shepherds, Nazis and Jews, modern-day Austria, love and fidelity, and he has done it with such subtlety - with bright colors at the center and darkness around all the edges - that the effect is quite singular. I have never read a book quite like this, and I loved it; it's that simple."
- CHARLES BAXTER, author of Saul and Patsy: A Novel and Burning Down the House: Essays on Fiction

From the Hardcover edition.

Auszüge aus dem Buch

Chapter One

A Shepherd Comes to Manhattan

If you're traveling the Alps with a Yiddish folksinger who also happens to be the last wandering shepherd in Austria and he assigns you the task of walking behind his flock of 625 sheep, you'll discover that the little lambs sometimes tire out and plop down for naps. Since your job is to make sure no sheep is left behind, you'll approach the sleeping lambs, your shepherd's stick firm in your right fist, and shout, "Hop! Hop!" You'll have learned to make this noise, which rhymes with "nope," from observing the shepherd and his sons. On occasion, when a lamb is in a deep sleep and not responding, you'll look around quickly to see whether the coast is clear. If the shepherd is far ahead or busy singing Yiddish ditties to himself, you'll kneel down next to the sleeping lamb and say, "Come on, little cutie. Time to move on." Then you'll attempt to give the lamb a quick pat on the head. Usually the lamb will wake up before you touch it and scurry ahead in search of its mother. When this happens, you'll let out several angry hop hops, as though you're completely in charge.

After a while on the job, you'll grow a little cocky. You'll continue along even when a few sheep are still lingering behind because you'll have learned that, for the most part, the sheep don't want to be left alone. As you walk, you'll wonder about this instinctual urge to stay close to the flock, and before you know it, you'll be lost in thoughts about evolution. You'll remember that we once traveled open landscapes in groups not unlike these sheep. You'll think about what it would be like if the sheep were forced to live apart from one another in miniature suburban homes. Would they ever find happiness? Would they greet one another while grazing in their front yards?

Suddenly, you'll reach a narrow passage and find you've drifted too far ahead and are now stuck in the middle of 625 tightly packed sheep. You'll realize that the sheep, for all their virtues, don't have much regard for human shins or feet. They'll bump their woolly sides against you from every angle until you almost lose your balance. You'll try to clear some space with your stick, but it will be no use. The sheep will treat you like the novice you are. Then, just as you're regaining your bearings, a mangy gray sheepdog will race by and bark its angry orders. Your heart will skip a beat, and you'll hurry ahead as fast as the others. If only for that one fleeting moment, you will understand the hardships of life in the flock.

After this unsettling experience, you'll remain in back. Watching the sheep from behind, you'll note the way their ears flop when they run, turning their heads into full-bodied birds in flight; the way sheep, in the hunched position they assume to urinate, resemble kangaroos; the way even a castrated male will mount an unsuspecting ewe; the way the ewe will continue her furious nibbling at the earth as she shakes off the pesky eunuch; the way a sheep's stomach gradually ex-pands as the day goes on, so that by sundown a cantaloupe-sized bulge has formed on its left side.

If you're on a particularly good patch of land, meaning the grass is plentiful and not too tall (sheep prefer their grass fresh), the sheep will spend a long time in one place. This is when you'll put down your backpack and look around at the snowcapped peaks and the endless expanse of Alpine foothills, hills so green and peaceful that whenever you cross them, you have to fight the desire to get down on your side and roll. You'll turn to the quiet streams cutting this way and that, pick the red flowers that peek out of crevices in the rocks, and think, Hmm,