Product Description

Rodinsky's world was that of the East European Jewry, cabbalistic speculation, an obsession with language as code and terrible loss. He touched the imagination of artist Rachel Lichtenstein, whose grandparents had left Poland in the thirties. This text weaves together Lichtenstein's quest for Rodinsky -which took her to Poland, to Israel and around Jewish London -with Iain Sinclair's meditations on her journey into her own past, and on the Whitechapel he has reinvented.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #23583 in Books
• Published on: 2000-02-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 362 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In 1980 a curious discovery was made above a disused synagogue at 19 Princelet Street in the East End of London. A room, summarily abandoned years before, was found with everything more or less in its original state, even down to porridge on the stove and the imprint of a head on a pillow. The room's occupant, David Rodinsky, was a reclusive cabbalistic Jewish scholar who had, one day in the late 60s, simply vanished from his home; what became of him no one knew. The mystery of Rodinsky caused a mild flurry of excitement; writer and East-End chronicler Iain Sinclair wrote an essay for The London Review of Books entitled "The Man Who Became A Room" and subsequently expanded this as a chapter in his book Downriver but it was not until artist Rachel Lichtenstein became involved with the story that the true quest for David Rodinsky began. Lichtenstein's search paralleled her desire to investigate her own Jewish roots; the bond she felt with this elusive man whom no one could describe, of whom not one photograph seemed to exist, was incredible. The resulting book is a unique and fascinating collaboration between Lichtenstein and Sinclair and uses interweaving narratives to recreate the history of Rodinsky, "The Man Who Never Was". Sinclair's speculating, mythology-rich essays on Jewish culture, folklore and history blend skilfully with Lichtenstein's breathless detective story, which becomes as much autobiography as biography as the story gathers pace.--Catherine Taylor

From the Author
Searching more Rodinsky sightings & other Jewish stories
I am always interested to hear more stories from the Jewish East End including any further information about David Rodinsky. Another area of London I am currently researching is Clerkenwell. My specific interest is the Jewish jewellery trade in Hatton Garden.If you have any information you would like to share please e-mail me.

Customer Reviews

Detective story like a Pinter play - confusing & compelling
Rachel Lichtenstein's search to piece together the life of David Rodinsky becomes a quest for her own Jewish ancestry. Iain Sinclair, in turn, examines Rachel's personal journey and keeps the narrative more tightly focused. Occasionally I was so irritated by other artists, writers and historians who were appropriating the East End Jewish experience, because they almost seemed to be appropriating the book, that I needed to take a break from it. Only towards the end did their contributions seem entirely relevant. Rachel's emotional involvement with the late David Rodinsky leaves the book somewhere between the personal quest of Theo Richmond's Konin and the sublime dignity of James Agee's and Walker Evans' Lets Us Now Praise Famous Men. I was staying near Konin two years ago and Polish friends persuaded me not to visit the town because there was 'nothing there'. I shall not make the same mistake about Spitalfields. My train ticket is booked and I have already been quizzing my (gentile) father about his memories of that area where he grew up some seventy years ago.

Story transcends the personal
Rachel Litchenstein's account of a search into the clues left behind by the mysterious David Rodinsky is much more than an attempt at a detective-type biography of an enigma. Much more compelling is the way Litchenstein herself has invited the enigma into her own personal search for meaning and healing in her life and Jewish culture.

Her account, written in such clear and evocative prose is imbued with a kind of honesty that is both captivating and rare. Her voice speaks out directly to a generation operating in a culture where irony and supposed distance from culture is all-pervasive, cutting through to what is truly important, namely real people and their experiences, in terms of history, culture and spirituality.

Rachel treats all her 'characters', whether they be her interviewees and advisers during the trail of discovery, or the ghosts of Rodinsky and his family, with immense respect. She not only understands, but embraces the idea that by drawing the stories out, she necessarily incorporates her own into theirs and vice versa. Her energy and tenacity as the story unfolds is very compelling. She also seems to be incredibly 'lucky' during her search, where so many coincidences and chance meetings take on a fateful, spiritual meaning of their own.

It's an idiosyncratic, personal journey through the Jewish East End, Israel and Poland. But the story and approach is so strong that it manages to transcend specific culture in its search for meaning in what it is to be human.

It left me feeling inspired, affirmed and thankful that there are people such as Rachel who are willing to take on the responsibility of being a 'cultural caretaker' for all of our sakes.

Madman or Visionary
David Rodinsky, madman and/or visionary disappeared from his room above a disused East London synagogue, never to be seen again. His room - for that was all that was left -remained locked and lost until it was "rediscovered" in the early 1980's. Is there anything about this room that that makes it special? Stories emerge continually about the reclusive, too confused or too intelligent to deal with the modern world, who are found surrounded by the detritus of their lives. What makes Rodinsky's room different is the absence of a body, we cannot be shown "this is why this is", no pathetic creature stumbling ranting and mumbling to whoever their god is, no closure. It becomes a locked room mystery, the type of fiction made famous by another man more myth than reality, Edgar Allen Poe. The room becomes a cipher, for Rachel Lichtenstein, as she unravels her Jewish heritage, becomes reconciled with it and moves to her future. As for Iain Sinclair - ever the well connected London chancer - the room gives him another pretext for a walk across the pages of the London A - Z. For once his visionary view of London is left flat footed by Litchtenstein's near obsessional quest for Rodinsky and the Jews of East London. Rodinsky's Room is also about time. A room frozen as if on the event horizon of a Black Hole, it also defined the instant of it's rediscovery . Old London was disappearing, the political strife and rubbish filled streets of the late 1970's were swept away under the tide of the new Tory Government .Peter Ackroyd states in his brilliant London The Biography , strife and filth have been central to London for centuries, and some of this past was about to disappear. Margaret Thatcher declaimed "there is no such thing as society" as waves of yuppies started their surge across the city. Hunter S Thompson once said with the right eyes you could see where the wave of the Hippy ideals broke and rolled back. In the 1980's with eyes filled with fear and loathing you could watch a false moneyed, self obsessed wave, break across London. From the East End to Notting Hill in the West, filling and surging down the Northern line to Tooting Bec in the South. The Liberal Left, the Intelligentsia, the "chattering classes" battened down their hatches and readied themselves to ride out the storm. Many looked backwards, to a time of community. The GLC parties and concerts of the time brought people together. Some marched for CND and the Coal Miners. Others looked further back, Georgian Houses squatted in Spitalfields, an attempt to forget the 20th Century for a while. Central to this was the publication of Peter Ackroyd's Hawksmoor, taking all to an arcane, mythic London, to older horrors away from present terrors. London gripped by material greed developed an ethereal edge. At this time writer Joe Cushley was convinced he was confronted by Cerberus the dog guardian of Hades. Late one night in a park by the Thames he was confronted by two Rottweiller's and a black Alsatian , as quickly as they materialised they were called away by their unseen master . The worst thing he said was not the fear, but his fear was controlled not by the dogs but by something he could not see. I cannot think of a less subtle metaphor for London in the 80's. Rodinsky's Room, a place out of time, ripe for rediscovery, an anchor to a lost community, to all lost communities. The book is a fascinating and compelling read, although we learn little about it's subject , we learn much about Rachel Lichtchstein, who, while discovering herself , seems to create a Golem out of the dust in Rodinsky's attic. Once she is secure, her Golem, Rodinsky, and as we all eventually will, return to nothing but dust in a room.