I just finished reading Tiny Lights for Travellers by Naomi K. Lewis and I can’t recommend it enough. It was one of those books that I deliberately slowed my reading of because I didn’t want it to end.
In the book the author follows the path her Jewish grandfather took in his 30s to escape from the occupied Netherlands and the Holocaust, as described in a journal he wrote recounting the journey, the author taking this trip after he’s passed away. Much of the book, however, is made up of other stories from the author’s life, as the trip causes her to reflect on her experiences, family, identity, and values. It’s often hilarious but mostly deeply moving and very thoughtful and welcoming.
I read it at the perfect time for me—travelling to Budapest after my father passed away. Before we settled our itinerary we’d debated taking the train from Budapest to Amsterdam, which would have (rather imprecisely) followed my own dad’s travels as a child refugee out of Hungary. Anyway we didn’t do that, but one of the things Tiny Lights does beautifully is delve into what one gains or doesn’t by retracing a family member’s steps on a traumatic and significant journey they took, so I got to live vicariously just a bit through the book in this way (the two scenarios are obviously different in many ways). One of the things I most appreciated was how the book recounts the extent to which symbolic plans and gestures have their anticipated or desired effect on our lives, and how such plots don’t really lead to closure, because that’s not really how we experience life. The book contains many threads that aren’t tied up, which is entirely accurate for a memoir written by someone young—the extent to which create narratives out of our lives itself a subject elegantly considered in the book.
There’s much more to the book than I’ve described here, and all my own subjective stuff aside, this book is beautifully written, immediate, entertaining, and engrossing. I only wish I could keep on reading it! I’ll probably read it again in the coming years.