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December 11, 2009
Jewish creativity highlighted
History and poetry excite more, but there's interesting fiction, too.
CYNTHIA RAMSAY
Even though we don't celebrate that other big holiday that comes around this time of year, it does afford us a long weekend, as does New Year's. That means there's more time to read! Here's a brief overview of some of the many offerings available, mainly fiction, but a couple of poetry selections and a couple of excellent non-fiction books highlighting the creativity of Jews in song and art. A perfect way to spend the holidays, in my books.
Many of the fictional stories this year have as their background the Shoah; if not explicitly, implied. Aharon Appelfeld's Laish (Schocken, 2009) is set at the end of the 19th century, but evokes the sense of loss, displacement and disappointment that survivors must have felt after the Holocaust. The protagonist, a 15-year-old orphan, joins a group of Jews on a journey through eastern Europe to the Holy Land. It's a ragtag group, comprised of the most vulnerable people in society – the elderly, the sick, widows and orphans, the victims of pogroms – as well as adventure-seekers and thieves. Detours, plagues, infighting, lack of money, harsh weather and other elements slowly diminish the travelers' numbers. Their only hope is to reach Jerusalem, and this is what keeps them going.
Laish is an original story, which represents not only the historic Jewish quest for a homeland, but reflects the Jewish people today, not always united, not always acting honorably, but determined, and mostly helpful to our own, in the end. We may no longer be searching for Jerusalem, but we must constantly defend our claim to it, both from others and from those in our own "caravan," so to speak. Laish asks us to look inward, to question where we are going, and to think about the role of ritual and routine in our lives – Appelfeld's travelers recite daily prayers, for example – and from where we find the strength to survive.
A Mad Desire to Dance by Elie Wiesel (Alfred A. Knopf, 2009) also examines these types of questions, in the context of a man – an orphan, like Laish – who has lost his direction, his hope and his sanity. Doriel's parents survived the Holocaust only to die soon afterward in a car accident. A young boy during the war, Doriel's partial memories of his childhood and his survivor guilt mix with what he knows about the Holocaust from movies and books, as well as the fact of his parents' death, and, eventually, he is convinced that he is possessed by a dybbuk (evil spirit), so confused is he.
The book is mostly Doriel's stream of consciousness, written with the sense of urgency of someone madly trying to organize his thoughts, but unsuccessfully. Moments of lucidity appear in the sections that are written from the perspective of Doriel's psychoanalyst, her notes on their sessions, her frustrations about his progress and how his issues affect her own life. But Wiesel's writing style, purposefully reflecting Doriel's confusion by being somewhat rambling and not adhering to any particular chronology, makes A Mad Desire to Dance hard to read. Adding to the overall dissatisfaction with this book is that, while occasionally insightful, there are no earth-shattering pieces of wisdom and the conclusion is a little too neat for a story wrought with such angst and so many questions.
Anita Diamant's new book, Day After Night (Scribner, 2009), also takes place after the Holocaust. It focuses on a three-month period in the lives of four female Jewish refugees interned in Atlit, a British detention centre for illegal immigrants to the Palestinian Mandate.
"It was a perfectly forgettable compound of wooden barracks and buildings set out in rows on a scant square acre surrounded by weeds and potato fields [a few miles south of Haifa]," writes Diamant. "But the place offered a grim welcome to the exhausted remnant of the Final Solution, who could barely see past its barbwire fences, three of them, in fact, concentric lines that scrawled a crabbed and painful hieroglyphic across the sky."
Day After Night is based on an actual event: the rescue of more than 200 detainees from Atlit in fall 1945. Tedi, Zorah, Shayndel and Leonie are four of the women being held there: Tedi successfully hid in the Dutch countryside for most of the war, Zorah was imprisoned in a concentration camp, Shayndel fought with the partisans and Leonie was forced into prostitution in Paris. Survivor guilt plays a part in this story as well, but the book is more about healing through friendship and human connection.
While Day After Night doesn't reach the level of Diamant's best-selling The Red Tent, it is more compelling than her The Last Days of Dogtown, for example. Diamant's characters in Day After Night lack complexity and the story is too controlled for it to be a really emotional and impactful read, but it absolutely is a good read and it offers an interesting glimpse into Israel's history.
Also a good, but not stellar, read is The Game of Opposites by Norman Lebrecht (Random House of Canada, 2009). While not directly Holocaust-related, it takes place in a fictional country at the end of a world war. The protagonist, Paul Miller, barely escapes from a labor camp and is saved by a woman named Alice, who he eventually marries. They have a family, he helps the town (whose people knew of the labor camp but did nothing) rebuild and, ultimately, becomes its mayor. But Paul's anger remains: both toward the townspeople who ignored his and his fellow inmates' suffering in the camp, but also toward the brutal commandant. When this man returns to the town, Paul recognizes him immediately and must decide whether or not to exact vengeance.
Lebrecht is a very good writer – he has written 11 books about music, which have been translated into 17 languages – but his storytelling needs to develop more. His novel lacks suspense and he needs to revel more in loose ends, but his use of language is almost musical and there are some very beautiful descriptive and amusing passages.
In the afterword to Kahn & Engelmann (Biblioasis, 2009), author Hans Eichner writes, "With this book, I wanted to commemorate the Viennese Jews who were driven out of the country or murdered after the Auschluss [which made Austria part of Germany]. It quickly became clear to me on my first attempt that a documentary such as I could have written was completely unsuited for that purpose, and finally a novel emerged, in which there is little that didn't actually happen, but also little that happened as it is reported here."
Indeed, there are similarities between the lives of Eichner and his book's narrator, Peter Engelmann; both living in Vienna for a time and escaping the Holocaust to England via Belgium, with Eichner finally settling in Ontario and his narrator eventually settling in Haifa.
The story has a richness that probably comes from Eichner having lived many aspects of the book. The story is not just about the Kahn and Engelmann families but about life in Vienna before the Second World War and how it was destroyed – it is an apt commemoration. The detail is incredible at times, but Eichner pulls it off, educating but still progressing the plotline and Kahn & Engelmann is a really fascinating book. Sadly, though Eicher wrote it years ago in German, it was only released in English this year – and he died three days before it returned from the printer.
Changing tone completely, The Briss by Michael Tregebov (New Star Books, 2009) is a Mordecai Richler-esque novel by a former Winnipegger who now lives in Barcelona, where he works as a translator.
Tregebov definitely has a gift for language and The Briss is an aggressively funny book about topics that, in real life, threaten to tear apart families and communities when they arise. Sammy's kids have failed him, to say the least, but, as we get to know him, we can understand why they may have acted out. His daughter has a not-so-secret affair and his son, Teddy, in Israel on a Birthright trip, joins a group of peaceniks, meeting a Palestinian woman and falling in love with her. The father-son struggle is especially at the fore because Sammy is a staunch Zionist, who fought in Israel in 1948, but moved back to Winnipeg years ago.
When Tregebov is satirizing, he's at his best. When he is moralizing, as in the sections that take place in Ramallah, The Briss is not as funny or engaging. Many readers of this novel may feel bullied or lectured, but there are some very hilarious scenes. Unfortunately, Tregebov's politics overtake his storytelling.
Much less challenging to read is The Late, Lamented Molly Marx by Sally Koslow (Ballantine Books, 2009). It is classic chick lit, but with a bit more substance. The plot centres on Molly Marx, a 35-year-old New Yorker with a philandering plastic surgeon husband and a young daughter, who has just died in a cycling accident. Or was it murder? In what Koslow calls "the Duration," Molly is able to observe the goings-on and, while doing so, she reflects back on her life and finds out not only whether she died accidentally, but also what happens to her family and friends (including her own lover). It's an interesting, if not original, premise and the writing is solid, so if you're looking for an easy read, it might be worth picking up.
If you enjoy something more intellectual, then Brandon Marlon's poetry collection, Judean Dreams (Bayeux Arts, 2009), might satisfy. It is truly a paean to Israel, the Jewish people, religion, redemption, mysticism, history, landscape and culture.
An Ottawa-based poet, playwright and screenwriter, Marlon has an in-depth knowledge and a profound love of the Torah and of Israel that emanates from his writings. While most of the poems stand on their own without extra study, there are many that do not, though perhaps those will inspire an interest in learning more. Definitions at the bottom of some of the works help a great deal.
Marlon's work appeals more to the intellect than the heart. Some poems are better read silently than aloud, as there is the occasional awkward phrasing, at the end of "In the Tent of Nomads," it feels like there's a beat missing, while there seems to be too many beats in a line in "Israeli Politicians."
Marlon is strongest in the sections on Jewish history and religion, as well as when he is lashing out at Israel's leaders, who, in his view, are jeopardizing the state's future. The weakest works are the romantic poems because in writing about the love of the land of Israel, God and women, Marlon writes with reverence and awe, which results in emotional distance, rather than union.
Wearing My People Like a Shawl by Victoria poet Dorothy Field (Sononis Press, 2008) is almost the antithesis of Marlon's work. In Field's intensely personal poems, she shares her struggles with Judaism and Israel. They do seem to wrap around her like a shawl, but not necessarily a comfortable one. They seem to be an integral part of her identity, but not one that brings her satisfaction or contentment, at least initially. Generations of her family have had a difficult relationship with Judaism and Field inherited conflicted feelings about her Jewishness, with which she must come to terms.
There is an honesty and simplicity in Field's writing. In "Who We Are," for example, Field describes the two lessons taught to her by her parents: "The worst sin, denying our Jewishness. The second, being too Jewish." This dichotomy makes its appearance in several poems, such as "That Jewish Christmas," in which Field, at 18, decides she's had enough and leads her siblings in a rebellion against the family's celebration of Christmas, "but the naked tree, leaving my father / sucked out like a leaky inner tube."
Field comes to some resolution, settling on aspects of Judaism she can accept, one that honor nature and stress compassion not only for Jews, but for all those who are suffering, including the Palestinians.
Rounding out the books reviewed by the Independent in this Chanukah issue are two thoroughly entertaining and informative publications, A Fine Romance: Jewish Songwriters, American Songs by David Lehman (Schocken Books, 2009) and From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books by Ari Kaplan (Jewish Publication Society of America, 2008).
A Fine Romance looks at the music that has defined America to a large extent and he finds Jewish connections everywhere: the first movie with synchronized music and dialogue was The Jazz Singer, in 1927; Of Thee I Sing, with a score by George and Ira Gershwin, was, in 1932, the first musical to win a Pulitzer Prize; Irving Berlin wrote "God Bless America" and it was sung by Kate Smith on her radio show, on Armistice Day (Nov. 11) in 1938, just after Kristallnacht.
The now-infamous songs that were written by American Jews are innumerable but Lehman guides readers through many of them, as well as shares some of the personal drama behind such writing duos as Rodgers and Hart, which became Rodgers and Hammerstein. Lehman offers insight into what makes a song sound Jewish, the "on-again, off-again love affair between Jewish songs and black musicians," the social commentary contained within Jewish composers' lyrics and more. It sounds somewhat cliché, but the promotional materials for the book are spot on when they say, "Lehman has produced a fascinating book that shows us how the musicians who wrote these classic songs shaped America even as America was shaping them."
What Lehman does for Jewish musicians, Kaplan does for Jewish cartoonists, but with much more color, literally. From Krakow to Krypton is a visually stunning full-color coffee-table book on how Jews really created and propelled the comics industry. Kaplan has compiled an immense amount of information and, in addition to the basics – the first comic book, the first graphic novel, the first comic book convention and the first comic book specialty store were all Jewish accomplishments – he offers tidbits that many of us will not know. For example, thanks to those Heritage Minute commercials of a few years back, many Canadians will know that one of the creators of Superman was a Canadian, Joe Shuster, but they may not know that both he and co-creator Jerry Siegel were Jewish. Also accredited to Jewish artists/writers are the cartoons of Spiderman, X-Men and Batman. As well, Gil Kane (born Eli Kane) designed the Green Lantern superhero to resemble Paul Newman, whose father was Jewish, and Kane drew the Guardians of the Universe to look like David Ben-Gurion.
From Krakow to Krypton delves into how Jews became involved in the comics industry, the Jewish subtexts of various characters and storylines, the commentaries about racism and other social ills contained within certain comics, as well as interviews by Kaplan with prominent artists like Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Al Jaffee, Trina Robbins and Art Spiegelman. Kaplan takes readers from the very first comic book – created by Charlie Gaines (Ginsberg) in 1933 – to the state of the art in 2006, with the next generations of Jewish comic book artists well established. One can only hope that there will be a volume two.
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