{"id":16241,"date":"2015-12-04T00:34:04","date_gmt":"2015-12-04T08:34:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=16241"},"modified":"2015-12-03T23:14:01","modified_gmt":"2015-12-04T07:14:01","slug":"the-capacity-for-excellence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/12\/04\/the-capacity-for-excellence\/","title":{"rendered":"The capacity for excellence"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a wonderful concept. A family flees from Russia in 1928. By 1933, they are running a lodge in Canada \u2013 the only place Jews can stay. Among their more known guests are the Marx brothers, in particular for the plot, Harpo. Jump to 2003 and the fourth generation, Emily Kogan runs away to her family\u2019s lodge to escape her unraveling PhD thesis. While her academic future remains uncertain, her research brings clarity of her family\u2019s history and of the connections that truly matter.<\/p>\n

\"book<\/a>The Capacity for Infinite Happiness<\/em> (Buckrider Books) by Alexis von Konigslow is a solid first novel. Von Konigslow is a talented writer with a gift for language and storytelling. Straight away, she sets up the mystery and the tension, describing the scene as Emily\u2019s great-grandmother, Ayala, prepares to flee Russia with her husband and daughter, Blima, Emily\u2019s grandmother:<\/p>\n

\u201cPay attention,\u201d said the tall man.<\/em><\/p>\n

He was so long that he seemed to be folded into the hallway. He was standing close to Blima\u2019s mother, his big hands around her smaller ones, pressing papers into her palms. Blima had seen this man before, and she hadn\u2019t liked him then either. She backed away, quietly so that they wouldn\u2019t know she was there.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAyala, I need you to listen to me,\u201d the man said again.<\/em><\/p>\n

Ayala bowed into his chest. Blima shivered.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want you to panic, or pretend that you\u2019re bored. Here\u2019s what I want you to do. When the officials ask to see your papers, I need you to pinch the little girl, pinch her hard. Don\u2019t tell your husband that you\u2019re going to do it. That way, she\u2019ll be crying, you\u2019ll both be concerned, everyone will want the scene to be over.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Blima crouched down. She was the only little girl in the house.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, make sure that your shirt is unbuttoned,\u201d the man said, touching her mother\u2019s blouse. \u201cThat will help.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to do this,\u201d said Ayala.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cAs a plan, it\u2019s perfectly safe. You\u2019ll send these back by post. We\u2019ll be together again before the end of the year.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The questions that arise from this opening passage, notably about the man helping Ayala and her family, are central to the novel and keep you reading as it struggles to find its feet. The book\u2019s format, which alternates between Harpo\u2019s 1933 visit to the lodge and Emily\u2019s 2003 visit, interrupts the flow at first and doesn\u2019t become a tension-increasing device until about two-thirds of the way into the book. As well, while von Konigslow\u2019s poetic writing is succinct, it is also repetitive on a few points: Harpo\u2019s concerns about whether he\u2019d make a good father; whether or not William, who Harpo meets in the woods on more than one occasion, is a real person or a figment of the actor\u2019s imagination; and Emily\u2019s ruminations about her thesis and her successive excuses for putting it off.<\/p>\n

For almost 200 pages, The Capacity for Infinite Happiness<\/em> is an OK read; its last 100-plus pages, however, as it becomes more focused and races towards \u201cthe reveals,\u201d are excellent. A few minor edits would have made the novel a standout from start to finish. As it is, it is still worth reading for its unique premise, the quality of writing and its insights into Jewish life in the first half of the last century, the meaning of family, how we impact each other even across generations and, most important, love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a wonderful concept. A family flees from Russia in 1928. By 1933, they are running a lodge in Canada \u2013 the only place Jews can stay. Among their more known guests are the Marx brothers, in particular for the plot, Harpo. Jump to 2003 and the fourth generation, Emily Kogan runs away to her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[784],"tags":[4992,801,4991],"class_list":["post-16241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","tag-alexis-von-konigslow","tag-antisemitism","tag-harpo-marx"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}