Aharon Appelfeld's third novel is about the simpleminded and mute daughter in a large Jewish family. Set against the background of the Holocaust, the story takes the eponymous Tzili through a world she is unable to understand. Abandoned when her family flees the Nazis, Tzili endures a life of hardship, finally meeting up with a bizarre, mentally defective young man named Mark, who becomes her lover. Together they produce a child, and Tzili becomes able, after years of horror, to find some feeling in her heart. But what is most striking about Appelfeld's novel is the extent to which history controls us all, and the way a powerful world can gradually be created that, in the end, swallows up the unwitting people caught in it. Copyright (C) Muze Inc. 2005. For personal use only. All rights reserved.