''The Second Scroll'' is a

1951 Events January * January 4 – Korean War: Third Battle of Seoul – Chinese and North Korean forces capture Seoul for the second time (having lost the Second Battle of Seoul in September 1950). * January 9 – The Government of the United ...

novel by the Jewish-Canadian writer A. M. Klein. Klein's only novel was written after his pilgrimage to the newly founded nation of

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

in 1949. It concerns the quest for meaning in the post-

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

world, as an unnamed narrator, a

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...

journalist, editor, poet and Zionist, who traveled to the State of Israel soon after its founding, searches for his long-lost uncle, Melech Davidson, a Holocaust survivor, in post-war

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria t ...

, and

. Klein's novel parallels the biblical story of the

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

from Egypt, with the modern Jewish immigration to Israel after the war being compared to the original Exodus story. It is arranged in "books" (

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

, Leviticus,

Numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...

and Deuteronomy), with each book loosely based on its equivalent from the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

, and in the Jewish Talmudic tradition, several glosses further the ideas of each book at the end of the novel. The novel incorporates modes from poetry, drama and prayer, and contains elements of metafiction. The novel's protagonist travels to Israel, seeking "a new revelation of God’s purpose in the world," the "second scroll” of the title, and finds not a new revelation, but a new people being created: ''"In the streets, in the shops, everywhere about me I had looked but had not seen. It was all there all the time — the fashioning folk, anonymous and unobserved, creating word by word, phrase by phrase, the total work that when completed would stand as the epic revealed."'' According to ''Cynthia Ozick'', ''The Second Scroll'' tells of a reborn Israel in language that is “Influenced yet liberated by Joyce, forged in the laboratory of the English language as it exerts all its fathomless force, immersed simultaneously in Bible, Hebrew, Jerusalem and 20th-century history, this prophetically intricate work is the antithesis of what we have come to expect of the so-called — and largely secular — Jewish-American novel. (Think not Roth but Blake.)” The book was translated into French as ''Le Second rouleau'' by Charlotte and Robert Melancon, who won the Quebec Governor General's Award for their translation.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Second Scroll New Canadian Library 1951 Canadian novels Novels based on the Bible Alfred A. Knopf books