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September 26, 2008
Where does Jewishness fit?
How much of themselves do writers share through their work?
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
At the Jewish Independent, one of the usual questions asked in an interview of a Jewish professional or volunteer is: How, if at all, has Judaism influenced your work or your life in general? The answers are varied and always interesting, especially with Jewish authors whose books are devoid of obviously Jewish content. This is why two very different books in particular caught the attention of the Independent this year.
Exiles on Main Street: Jewish American Writers and American Literary Culture (Indiana University Press) by Prof. Julian Levinson, the Samuel Shetzer Professor of American Jewish Studies and associate professor of English at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, is an academic attempt to explain how Jewish authors have been shaped by and, in turn, have affected American culture. Sit, Ubu, Sit: How I went from Brooklyn to Hollywood with the Same Woman, the Same Dog and a Lot Less Hair (Harmony Books) by Gary David Goldberg is the autobiography of the founder of UBU Productions and creator of such popular television shows as Family Ties and Spin City (with Bill Lawrence). The books don't really have much in common – other than their unwieldy titles and the fact that both authors are Jewish – but the latter reinforces the non-generalizability of Levinson's conclusions, which calls into doubt the existence of what Levinson calls "Jewish American literary culture."
In Exiles on Main Street, Levinson examines the ways in which various Jewish authors were influenced by American literary culture, most notably the work and ideas of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman. Levinson argues that writers such as Emma Lazarus, Mary Antin, Ludwig Lewisohn, Waldo Frank, Anzia Yezierska, I.J. Schwartz, Alfred Kazin and Irving Howe, arrived at a new, more meaningful understanding of themselves as Jews as a result of their interaction with American culture.
The promotional material for the book sets up the analysis in this way: "In contrast to the often expressed view that the Diaspora experience leads to assimilation, Exiles on Main Street traces an arc of return to Jewish identification and describes a vital and creative Jewish American literary culture."
Levinson does show that an "arc of return" exists for the authors he chooses to study. The information in each chapter about their lives and how some of their writing relates to Emersonian ideals or Whitman's poetic style is quite fascinating and coherently organized. However, unless you're particularly interested in one of these authors, there isn't much reason to pick up the book. For readers in tune with literary theory, Levinson won't add much to your knowledge base, as you are likely familiar with several notions of "the other" in literature and Levinson's ideas on the subject aren't that unique. For readers unfamiliar with the topic, there will be many head-scratching moments, as you turn to Google for help in understanding what the "exclusionary nativist argument" is or what a "Jeremiad" is, for example.
To give the professor credit, he is completely honest about the fact that he chose his subjects for a reason and that "this would have been a very different book indeed had I chosen to concentrate on another group of figures, such as Gertrude Stein, Mike Gold, Lillian Hellman, Nathanael West, Muriel Rukeyser, Arthur Miller, J.D. Salinger, Norman Mailer or Paul Auster. Each of these authors may be and has been called 'Jewish' or 'half-Jewish,' in the case of Salinger, but, to my knowledge at least, none has evinced any particular inclination to 'return' to Jewishness."
Within his purposefully narrow focus, Levinson has managed to write a compelling narrative about one particular aspect of his selected authors' lives. However, he does not succeed in making a convincing case that Jewish writers in general have contributed anything more important or specific than other writers to the shaping of American literary culture. It's not even necessarily clear that Levinson's chosen authors were reunited with their Jewishness in the way that he claims, as there are so many others factors that cannot be controlled for in the analysis and so many pieces of information that cannot be known.
Jumping ahead to more contemporary times and to someone who definitely had an impact on American culture – albeit through television rather than books – Goldberg's life, as he describes it in Sit, Ubu, Sit, puts him among the authors to which Levinson's "return" theory does not apply. His writing is only "Jewish" in so much as he is Jewish and as his family is Jewish (though not his wife). For example, his short-lived sitcom of the early 1990s, Brooklyn Bridge, was based on his childhood growing up in Brooklyn in a Jewish family in the 1950s. He relates a few stories about these years in his autobiography, but doesn't offer any serious commentary about his religiosity or what Judaism means to him.
The majority of Sit, Ubu, Sit is devoted to two topics: how Goldberg became a scriptwriter for television, eventually forming his own company, and his relationship with his wife, Diane. Canadian actor Michael J. Fox, with whom Goldberg worked and with whom Goldberg has a deep friendship, also figures prominently in the book.
Sit, Ubu, Sit is, not surprisingly, written with a lot of humor. The parts about Family Ties and the other behind-the-scenes TV talk are fun to read. The book also has very touching moments, especially when Goldberg speaks of his wife. But, overall, it's somewhat like a television sitcom, in that it's quite polished, with the push and pull between laughter and attempted tear-jerking feeling too contrived. It's a bit shmultzy. Take, for example, the part when Goldberg first meets Diana, at the apartment of one of his friends:
"She was seated cross-legged on the floor playing the guitar.... I had to manoeuvre my way through a large group of guys who obviously felt the same way I did, but eventually I found myself standing next to her.
" 'Nice guitar,' I said.
"A lame beginning to a relationship that was going to last a lifetime, but you have to start somewhere.
" 'Martin,' she said, looking up at me.
"'My name's Gary.'
" 'The guitar. It's a Martin.'
"I revise my plan to pass myself off as a musician between gigs who works in a bookstore at night and wants to be a kindergarten teacher.... In point of fact, I am a waiter at the Village Gate, a jazz club on Bleecker Street. I'm 25, a part-time actor, I've been kicked out of two colleges, as well as deselected from the Peace Corps, and I've never earned enough money in any one year to file an income tax return. But I'm not sure I should lead with that.
" 'I know who you are,' she says.
" 'Really?'
" 'Yes. I've been warned about you by several of your friends.'
"I make a note to get new friends.
" 'Why? What'd they say?'
" 'They said you were cute. But, they also said you're self-centred, shallow and vain.'
" 'Perhaps we need to hear from my enemies.'
"She smiled and she was so beautiful my knees went weak."
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