"The grand-paternal Aaronovitches came to England as Jewish refugees — "aliens" as the 1906 anti-immigration legislation called them — fleeing the murderous Russian pogroms. They scraped in just before the door closed on their kind. Aaronovitch's paternal grandfather drifted into the east London rag trade. Buttonholes were the illiterate old needleman's speciality. David's paternal grandmother spoke Yiddish all her life. The book's central focus is on David's parents. They are not, for him, mum and dad. He uses their first names — Lavender and Sam — throughout. It is as if he is holding them up with forceps."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
HumanistsNon-fiction authors from EnglandJournalists from EnglandColumnists from EnglandBroadcasters
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
From a review of Party Animals. Aaronovitch's parents were long-standing members of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/David_Aaronovitch
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
David Aaronovitch
7 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by David Aaronovitch →
Related Quotes
"But, [[John Pilger|[John] Pilger]] objected, "Amnesty produced a catalogue of Saddam's killings that amounted mostly …"
"During the Anfal anti-Kurdish campaign in 1987 as many as 180,000 Kurds disappeared. At Halabja, in one incident alon…"
"When the discussion gets under way, a number of things become apparent. The first is that the people here are mostly …"
"[On his mother] She was disapproving when I grew my hair long and even more disapproving when, a few years later, I c…"
"The left's vice has always been self-righteousness, just as the right's is smugness. But when you add the sense of en…"
"It was quite clearly satirising the Supreme Court decision. It therefore follows that those people who made the compl…"
"The more I thought about it, the more obsessed I became with the idea of a swimming journey. I started to dream ever …"
"From water level, I observed the mating joined in flight like refuelling aircraft, and the random progress of the clo…"
"It is through trees that we see and hear the wind: woodland people can tell the species of a tree from the sound it m…"
"Waterlog (1999), Roger's now-classic account of swimming through Britain, published twenty years ago this year, opens…"