The Second Scroll

The Second Scroll, the only novel by poet A.M. Klein, is an ambitious and complex work that interlaces prose, poetry, drama, and commentary. The narrative follows a Canadian Jew to the newly established state of Israel on a double mission - to collect the emerging national literature and to search for his Uncle Melech Davidson, a Holocaust survivor. Klein creates a modern Torah out of the uncle's crises of faith as he attempts to come to terms with the atrocities of the Second World War. The five chapters of The Second Scroll mirror the books of the Pentateuch (the 'first scroll') and the language is rich with biblical, talmudic, kabbalistic, and literary allusions as both the narrator and his uncle wrestle with the meaning of Jewish identity, messianic faith, and homecoming.Popham and Pollock's scholarly edition re-creates the feel of the Knopf publication of 1951-now a collector's item-but restores the text to Klein's original vision. This includes echoing the architectural structure of the Sistine Chapel in the physical layout of 'Gloss Gimel,' Klein's powerful commentary on Michelangelo's famous ceiling. Extensive annotations, and appendices that cross-reference the finished book to the raw material gathered during the author's trip to Israel and to the fund-raising speeches he delivered on his return, give the reader access to the process by which the novel took shape. A significant addition to UTP's Collected Works of A.M. Klein, and of interest not only to Klein scholars, The Second Scroll marks the inception of Holocaust literature and holds a central place in the Canadian literary canon.

About the Author :
Zailig Pollock is Professor of English Literature, Trent University. Elizabeth Popham is an associate professor in the Department of English Literature at Trent University.

Review :
'[Klein writes with] a sardonic humor and sense of irony that makes for a kind of bubbling laughter as a cloak of tragedy.[He is a] born story-teller, a supreme verbal artist.' - Leon Edel - Compass '[The Second Scroll is] probably the most remarkable novel ever to be written in Canada ... because of the richness of the prose which clothes it. The novel is an exposition of the inveterate and ingrained nature of Judaism and of the role of the Jew as the Suffering Servant and scapegoat of mankind.' - Robertson Davies - The Peterborough Examiner '[The Second Scroll is] wrought with the scrupulous care of high art, and employed for a purpose nobler ... than any other tale that resembles it in English literature, although Blake and Joyce come to mind.' - B.K. Sandwell - Saturday Night 'Original in all respects, profoundly important and certainly a work of genius, A.M. Klein's first novel is a bold attempt at appraisal, within the narrow framework of an extended fable, of the essence of the Jewish racial soul.' - William Arthur Deacon - The Globe and Mail 'The most profoundly creative summation of the Jewish condition by a Jewish man of letters since the European catastrophe ... Intricate, beautiful, and passionate.' - Harvey Swados - The Nation