Sonia Levitin. The Cure. San Diego, New York, London: Silver Whistle, 1999, 192 pp. $11.20. ISBN: 0-1520-1827-1.

Strange. Different. Unusual. These are some of words that came to mind as I started reading Sonia Levitin’s latest book for young adults entitled The Cure. The United Social Alliance, the society within which the protagonist, Gemm 16884, and his identical twin, Gemma 16884, are living is a society devoid of feeling, emotion and human warmth. Enjoyment of food is reduced to periodic intakes of sterile drinks; human interaction is restricted to occasional touching of facial masks; diversity in dress is limited to certain colors for identical tunics; and even dreams and thoughts - the last vestige of individuality - are restricted and monitored via electrodes and scanners. Conformity is implemented via genetics, drugs, and therapy. This is a nightmarish world; and yet those "existing" in the "Year of Tranquility 2407," enjoy such a world, since it is the only one they know. Historical records of previous time periods have been destroyed; and in this world of mind control, enforced behavior and rationality, passion and emotion are banned. The so-called world of "a thousand choices" knows no real choice. Public monitors and loudspeakers spit out standard phrases like mantras: "Tranquility begets peace", "Diversity begets hostility", "Conformity begets harmony."
Lately, Gemm has had dreams in which fragments of music and emotion come to the surface. Even his tentative attempts at individuality are considered threatening in this rigid land of unquestioned authority. Needless to say, once the "Leaders" become aware of his deviant dreams, Gemm is faced with two choices: to be "recycled" - a euphemism for being killed - or to be cured. Gemm accepts the cure. He finds himself hurled back to the medieval city of Strasbourg, Germany, in the year 1348, at the onset of the Black Death. And this is where his intended aversion program commences - and ultimately fails. Gemm is now Johannes, a sixteen-year-old Jewish boy who loves his flute and his beautiful young neighbor, Margarite. The town is beset by hatred toward the Jews; and this anti-Judaism turns into a deadly pogrom with the advance of the inexplicable and horrid plague.

The largest segment of Levitin’s book portrays the colorful environment of Jewish community life during the middle of the 14th century, just prior to the pogrom. The reader gets a vivid picture of what everyday life was like for the average city-dweller and how Christians and Jews often lived side by side. They traded with each other; they danced together; they were even friends, until...fear of the unknown, and the horrible disease, polarized them. As vicious Christian hatred erupts into murder, thousands of Jews are slaughtered, accused of poisoning the wells and bringing the pestilence. This mayhem occurs very much like a historic incident in Strasbourg on February 14, 1349, which was recorded by contemporary city historians. "The Jews of Strasbourg were burnt on a wooden scaffold in the Jewish cemetery ... They asked the town leaders to permit them to prepare themselves for martyrdom. ... They asked that musicians be hired to play dancing tunes so that they could enter the presence of God with singing." (p. 187).

Levitin’s book The Cure weaves a chilling tale of two colliding worlds based on a true historical incident. Those worlds - more than one thousand years apart - are connected by their inhumanity toward "the other" and, at the same time, are joined by the premise that only "the other" has the power to keep alive any hope for a worthwhile future. Gemm and Johannes share a belief that our world needs music, literature, love and compassion to heal itself from cold rationality. To overcome hatred and violence, Levitin affirms her own utopia; namely, that it is only through the arts that we can achieve a measure of balance and thus, ultimately, create our humanity.

Viktoria Hertling