Like Homage to the Eighth District and The Law of White Spaces by the Pressburgers this book emerges from memories of a poor Jewish Budapest in the period from the end of the First World War to the end of the second — which doesn’t at all convey that behind its simple storytelling is a profound and rather magical reflection on life and on the burden or gift of parental expectations.


This charming novella, told mainly through a child’s eyes, is secretly an essay on a strand that has deeply marked exceptional Jews throughout the last few centuries; the messianic, utopian, far-seeing urge that often possesses them; something born out of the combination of the notion of a Chosen People, their relative sophistication in a world of ignorant peasants and feckless aristocrats and the actual limitation on what Jews were allowed to do in a universe of hostility and discrimination. A yearning for a better, holier, richer, wider life thus became deeply ingrained and the dream of the Green Elephant that is the keynote of this book seems to be a beautiful literary reflection of the rich and felicitously mad idea many Jews have had that the world will/can/must change for the better.


The writing of The Green Elephant is in a peculiarly exalted vein and as sweet and pungent as a heimishe pickled cucumber and well reflected by the marvellous jacket design by Graham Peake. Our glimpse into District Eight develops into a Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) for Europe’s Lost Tribe, an elegiac, fanciful and beautiful tribute. A book of twins, written by twins and a very honest parable about the desire not to be chosen of the exceptional and gifted personality trying to resist the responsibility that the free gift of exceptional intelligence, subtlety or beauty demands of its bearer.

‘The young couple went to live in Kun Street, near the Teleky market, in a single alley-like room which stretched from the railings overlooking the courtyard on the inside of the house to the external wall on the other side, into which was set the only window. It was a poor dwelling: the only thing that made it bearable was the knowledge that the other Jews of the Eighth District were no better off. The wedding bed was a present from Rachel’s mother. There was little else in the way of furniture: a chest of drawers, a table, one or two chairs and a radio with a green-lit dial completed the set-up. A cupboard in the middle of the room gave them somewhere to store their kitchen utensils. The kitchen stove just sat inside the door; its red glow lit up the room in the cold winter evenings as the couple rested after a long day’s work.’ p47

Like Homage to the Eighth District and The Law of White Spaces also by the Pressburgers this book emerges from memories of a poor Jewish Budapest in the period from the end of the First World War to the end of the second — which doesn’t at all convey that behind its simple storytelling is a profound and rather magical reflection on life and on the burden or gift of parental expectations.

This charming novella, told mainly through a child’s eyes, is secretly an essay on a strand that has deeply marked exceptional Jews throughout the last few centuries; the messianic, utopian, far-seeing urge that often possesses them; something born out of the combination of the notion of a Chosen People, their relative sophistication in a world of ignorant peasants and feckless aristocrats and the actual limitation on what Jews were allowed to do in a universe of hostility and discrimination. A yearning for a better, holier, richer, wider life thus became deeply ingrained and the dream of the Green Elephant that is the keynote of this book seems to be a beautiful literary reflection of the rich and felicitously mad idea many Jews have had that the world will/can/must change for the better.

The writing of The Green Elephant is in a peculiarly exalted vein and as sweet and pungent as a heimishe pickled cucumber and well reflected by the marvellous jacket design by Graham Peake. Our glimpse into District Eight — a substantially Jewish area of pre-war Budapest — develops into a Kaddish (the Jewish prayer for the dead) for Europe’s Lost Tribe, an elegiac, fanciful and beautiful tribute. A book about twins, written by twins an honest parable about the desire not to be chosen of the exceptional and gifted person who resists the responsibility that exceptional intelligence, subtlety or beauty demands.

’The young couple went to live in Kun Street, near the Teleky market, in a single alley-like room which stretched from the railings overlooking the courtyard on the inside of the house to the external wall on the other side, into which was set the only window. It was a poor dwelling: the only thing that made it bearable was the knowledge that the other Jews of the Eighth District were no better off. The wedding bed was a present from Rachel’s mother. There was little else in the way of furniture: a chest of drawers, a table, one or two chairs and a radio with a green-lit dial completed the set-up. A cupboard in the middle of the room gave them somewhere to store their kitchen utensils. The kitchen stove just sat inside the door; its red glow lit up the room in the cold winter evenings as the couple rested after a long day’s work.’ p47