Tsuris and Sensibility

Set in Westport, a Jewish Retelling of 'Sense and Sensibility': I interviewed The Three Weissmans of Westport author Cathleen Schine about finding the perfect Jewish last name for her characters, fighting the crowds at Manhattan’s Fairway market, and Jane Austen’s legacy, beyond “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”"

Here's a taste:

You recently wrote an essay about “Austenolatry.” Will Jane Austen mania ever die out or is it here to stay?

I don’t know if there will even be books in the future — things are changing so fast. But there’s something compelling about Jane Austen’s understanding of families: the combination of domestic life and the sense of urgency about money and financial issues and the commerce of marriage. I think people experience that in different ways in different times but there’s something that perseveres. This particular wave of Austenolatry is huge and very energetic. Like any wave it will calm down a bit, and some other literary fad will emerge.

But, do I think Jane Austen will disappear into recesses of forgotten literature? Until this type of novel disappears, I don’t think she will either. She invented it; she perfected it.

Read the full article here.

Sense and Sensibility in Connecticut

A Different Kind of Love Triangle, on the front page of the NTYBR this weekend, is a review of "The Three Weissmans of Westport" a loose take on "Sense and Sensibility,' transplanted to a very Jewy family in that WASPiest of states, Connecticut (hmm, sound like a familiar premise?):

"In Cathleen Schine’s novel, two sophisticated Manhattan sisters, one wildly emotional, one smartly sensible, come to the aid of their beloved aging mother."

Good on the Times for putting this front and center.

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The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
My HLP is a huge Chabon-booster and I do like the man's baleful soul- eyes, so I thought at long last I'd tackle this well-regarded epic saga about secular American Jews and their secular God: Commercial Art. It's about two cousins who create some of the most memorable comic book characters in history, and their strange personal and professional journeys of creation and destruction.

Although the beginning was slow, I did fall in love with Chabon's humane approach to his protagonists, Joe and Sammy, his clever, robust and well-crafted language, his vivid descriptions of the comic book world of the 30s and 40s. I also liked reading about the buxom, smart and capable Rosa Saks, the lady of the tale, particularly since there are no misogynist overtones to her characterizations (ahem! Philip Roth.)

And behind it all the horror of what is happening to Europe's Jews is like a faint, persistent drumbeat that lends an extra pathos to the journey.

There's just enough absurdity here to work without rendering it ridiculous or overwrought, and just enough tragedy to wrench the heart but not feel like an overload.

Well deserving of all the plaudits, this one!
View all my reviews >>

Roundup in Bookish World

Some truly amazing links today in the world of literary pop culture.

First, Twilight-mania continues:

• Jezebel uses Twilight to look at the teenage trend-follower vs. stalwart trend-ignorer phenomenon:

  "For every group of girls screaming at a mall appearance, there's an equally fierce group of deliberate trend-buckers, defining themselves by their scorn for what's popular."

'Tis true. There's not much room for nuance in the early teen years. Of course, some of us didn't fall on either side of the dividing line, but quietly lusted after teen idols (I think Leo DiCaprio was the Rob Pattinson of my era) while remaining somewhat buttoned up about it. In other words, no posters, no screaming, no obsessive re-watching. Just dreaming and heart-fluttering.

• EW covers the "Twilight" premiere madness quite well. Read the insane comments for a laugh.

• Speaking of books beloved by teenage girls (but somewhat ignored because of the fangirls' skin color) USA Today interviews Sister Souljah, author of The Coldest Winter ever about her new bestselling prequel, Midnight. Souljah refuses to call herself an "urban lit" writer. She says
  

  "Shakespeare wrote about love. I write about love. Shakespeare wrote about gang warfare, family feuds and revenge. I write about all the same things."

  Still, whether it's categorizable or not, Coldest (with some help from Zane) kicked off a hugely popular genre. Urban lit is an undebiable phenomenon that owes a lot to Souljah. My students loved this book, and I definitely want to read it myself. Check out the sidebar for her wicked response to the phrase, "Sister Souljah moment."

• Jeffrey Goldberg puts George Eliot at the top of a silly but funny list of Philo-semites--a topic near and dear to my blog-heart. I nominate fictional characters Sir Wilfred Ivanhoe and Annemarie, from Number the Stars, in the category of "imaginary philo-semites."
  

Religious Nutbags Are All The Same!

I've got religious extremism on the brain--it's the high holidays, after all, and I just saw Religulous (which was a very good, if confused, film).

I just thought I'd highlight some seasonal ridiculousness showing how extremist Jews and Muslims disagree on everything except how to (mis)treat women.

Via feministing;

• The Associated Press reports that in Israel's Orthodox Jewish community, there are groups of extremists out to "stamp out behavior they consider unchaste."

They hurl stones at women for such "sins" as wearing a red blouse, and attack stores selling devices that can access the Internet.

In recent weeks, self-styled "modesty patrols" have been accused of breaking into the apartment of a Jerusalem woman and beating her for allegedly consorting with men.

Via Salon's Broadsheet, reporting on some similar action in Saudi Arabia:

But, as Sheikh Muhammad al-Habadan has found, [the niquab] isn't a satisfactory way to battle fleshly temptation, as it leaves [women's] eyes visible to men -- and eyes are incredibly seductive, especially when they are the only part of a woman's body that is revealed. His solution: one-eyed veils.

Last week, the cleric made the call for Muslim women in Saudi Arabia to adopt a veil that covers all but one eye. Habadan believes that "showing both eyes encouraged women to use eye makeup to look seductive," the BBC reports.

These guys have so much more in common than they act like they do, what with the bombing and the threats and the settlements. Can't they come together over their hatred of the wimmin and the gays? And while they're at it, join up with the members of the FLDS, my favorite sect, and the extreminist evangelicals in this country, and have a heterosexual god-fearing cuddle fest.

As Suzanne Riesman puts it:

Peace be upon us. Not only between various religions of the world, but between the factions within them. May the universal religious war on women end in 5769.

Shana Tovah

Ah me, the mixed emotions of a secular Jew on the high holidays.

Still, I love me some apples and honey, and I was happy to hear the Shofar. The Jewish New Year is so much more logical than the Roman one--fall is definitely a time for reflection and endings and beginnings, whereas the dead of winter is a time for being stuck in an idiotic rut!

Let's hope this year brings some good news, in our own lives and in the life of this country.

Dawn Eden's Parents: "Oy vey."

I learned today that anti-feminist, pro-chastity, desperate for Zoloft cultural irritant Dawn Eden was born to reform Jews and her last name was originally Goldstein. Add that to the fact that her ma and pa named her Dawn Eden and she used to be a journalist who wrote about Rock'n' Roll, and one might deduce that they were Reform Jewish ex-hippies.

So in order to make their every living moment hell, she found Jesus and became a Catholic born-again virgin, ignoring that whole Jewish "sex is good" thing.

It doesn't get more American Pastoral than this, folks. What a shonda. Those poor parents. Vey is mir.

Daniel Deronda--reviewed and re-Jewed.

I love me a sexy Hebrew.

Greetings readership. It's been a long time, as they say, and there's much to catch up on that will never truly be caught up upon, because time is ephemeral and stuff. (Again, what I've been doing.)

To prove my mettle, I return to you with a full-on discussion of Daniel Deronda, a very wonderful and complex work by George Eliot that helped me get through the December blahs. And of course being an egalitarian bookworm chick, I followed up my dense reading with a dense viewing of the obligatory Andrew-Davies penned BBC miniseries, which wickedly sexed up the villain to such an extent that he may qualify as the worst. husband. ever., even for a BBC miniseries. Which as we all know is saying a lot.

As all the critics like to remind us, Deronda is a novel with two parts, the connecting thread of which is our eponymous hero, Daniel. Said critics also agree pretty unanimously that the "Jewish" half, wherein the gentleman/prince Daniel, like Moses, discovers his true identity and redeems his people, is not nearly as well-written or brilliant as the half which narrates the bitter redemption of beautiful, selfish, Gwendolyn Harleth and her journey among the aristocracy. Write what you know, as they say. While Eliot is able to perfectly illuminate the miserable lot of women by using real characters (Gwendolyn might be the most psychologically astute portrait of shallowness in literary history), when she gets to the Jooz, she's so busy trying to portray them as exotic and wise and sinless and mystical that she forgets to make them people.

I was almost more enamored of her stereotypical depiction of the somewhat "common" Cohen family and their silver shop than by the exalted Mordecai and Mirah. This conundrum, not coincidentally, really reminded me of Uncle Tom's Cabin (Harriet Stowe and Eliot were correspondents), with its pure, sinless oppressed blacks, and its solution of sending them to Liberia, just as the sainted Deronda and Mirah go off to Palestine. All this is complicated stuff-- there's more than a lot of unintended racism in both novels, which use the innocent "other" to throw into relief the corruption and decay of their societies. However, Stowe and Eliot are also responding to the bigotry of their peers and may have felt they didnt have room for nuance.

It's tempting to say that the moral of Eliot's literary failing is that art shouldn't be sacrificed for politics. However, we can't deny that public reaction to these novels was much stronger than it would have been to op-ed pieces because people were moved by them.

Anyway I'm glad I tackled this book. George Eliot may be the most formidably intelligent of the 19th century novelists, and the novel has enough redemptive literary qualities that one can enjoy it both as a work of art and a relic of its time-- (AND a retort to the Trollopes and Dickens' of the world who put nasty Jewish characters in their book.)

But on to the BBC version... it was just so gorgeously well-done. Nice work, Andrew Davies. Hugh Dancy is a very pretty man, and he captured sensitive Daniel Deronda perfectly while Romola Garai was also an excellently spoiled Gwen. I really enjoyed seeing six degrees of Austen adaptations. Amanda Root (aka Anne Elliot--Persuasion) was a simpering Mrs. Davilow. And of course the actor who played Henleigh Grandcourt (Mr Rushworth---Mansfield Park) was perfectly sinister. And lastly, slimy Lush was played by David Bamber (Mr. Collins--Pride and Prejudice) to creepy, obsequious perfection. Another fun factoid-- Jodhi May, who played Mirah, was bitchy, plain Cousin Grace Stepney in The House of Mirth.

Ivanhoe, Rebecca and Rowena: Worst. Threesome. Ever.

Ivan-ho!

I dug into this hefty classic before and after my marathon immersion in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was an interesting juxtaposition because, of course, both are epic adventure novels with castles, dungeons and heroes up the wazoo. But how much better our boy wizard is than the flat, uninspired Ivanhoe, who makes the idiotic choice of ditching our (and Walter Scott's) favorite, the noble Jewess Rebecca, for the insipid-poorly-drawn Rowena. Ultimately, Rebecca is the heart of the novel and its saving grace--and her amazing portrayal redeems Thackeray from the anti-semitic caricature he does of Rebecca's father, Isaac of York-- who works the whole O my daughter! O my ducats! thing ad nauseum, much like his inspiration, Shylock.

But I must confess, dear readers, despite my cynicism and modern-day skepticalisticness, when Rebecca was on trial for sorcery and Ivanhoe rushed into defend her my very heart was palpitating, my skin was clammy with excitement, my mind was full of anticipation and misgivings. And when he at last galloped in on horseback, I shouted with joy. Walter Scott sure knew how to spin a good yarn, and the yarn-spinners are the soothers of society.

Anyway, perhaps my favorite discovery after reading Ivanhoe was William M. Thackeray's brilliant parody/sequel, Rebecca and Rowena. It's both respectful and also merciless in its depiction of Rowena as a cold, domineering wife, Ivanhoe as an alcoholic, henpecked husband who dreams of his old adventures, and gentle mockery of all the resurrections, plot twists and inconsistencies in the original.

Check it out here.

My favorite excerpt:

In a word, she was always flinging Rebecca into Ivanhoe's teeth. There was not a day in his life but that unhappy warrior was made to remember that a Hebrew damsel had been in love with him, and that a Christian lady of fashion could never forgive the insult. For instance, if Gurth, the swineherd, who was now promoted to be a gamekeeper and verderer, brought the account of a famous wild-boar in the wood, and proposed a hunt, Rowena would say, "Do, Sir Wilfrid, persecute these poor pigs: you know your friends the Jews can't abide them! "

Kaaterskill Falls and religious nutbags.

I was super excited to read Allegra Goodman's Kaaterskill Falls because I'm a big fan of the "trapped in a crazy religious environment" sub-genre of novel.

However, I like to see the characters in such novels kick at their metaphorical prison walls. And even less than her soul brotha Chaim Potok does, Goodman never gives me the outright rebellion I crave. The craziest her protagonist gets is dancing with another women (at this point, while reading, I was hoping for a full-fledged lesbian affair) and catering a kosher party from a kosher store, which unfortunately is not quite kosher enough for the Rav of her particular Orthodox Jewish sect. What a sin!

At the end of the book, the character's essential faith in her community is broken, and she sees her religious leaders for the earth-bound, manipulative people they are, but there's nothing she can do about it. She's tied to her many, many, many offspring and her husband and her closed community, and so she is left to navigate her future cynically and sadly.

In a way, there's more realism and tragedy in that finale than there would be in an "A Price Above Rubies" style torrid affair, but I just had a hard time not seeing the leaders of the sect--or cult--get any sort of commeuppance at all.

This nitpicking, however is coming from a lapsed reform Jewess who wears her shortest skirts on Saturdays in Washington Heights--the very neighborhood where Goodman's characters all live--just to offend the felt-hatted Yeshiva bucher neighbors and their self-righteous, headscarf and long skirt-wearing wives (ugh, don't get me started!).

So I suppose my views must be taken with a grain of salt--Kosher of course.

The verdict, minus my bias: it's an absorbing realist portrait with refreshingly straightforward prose. And the latter quality certainly has a holiness to it that I can't overlook.

Holocaust Denier Conference is a world class gathering of thugs

And every time I read about this so-called-conference, I can't stop thinking about this scene from Blazing Saddles (apolos for the poor quality):

Trollope on Jews, Round 2

p. 459, Mr. Melmotte:

"This last article vexed Mr. Melmotte, and he proposed to his friends to send a letter to the "Breakfst Table" asserting that he adhered to the Protestant faith of his ancestors. But, as it was suspected by many, and was now being whispered to the world at large, that Melmotte had been born a Jew, this assurance would perhaps have been too strong."

Aha. The suspicion I've had all along that the story's chief villain, like his wife, is one of the "tribe" has at last been confirmed. Good good! Wouldn't have expected anything less from old Anthony T.

p.475, the LAWYER, Mr. Squercum, a "mean-looking man": "He seldom or never came to his office on a Saturday, and many among his enemies said that he was a Jew. What evil will not a rival say to stoop the flow of grist to the mill of the hated one?"

What evil indeed? O Tempora, O Mores! What times are these, that we may hurl slander upon our enemies by labelling them JEW whenever we please?

Anthony Trollope... Wit and Jew-hater

From page 29 of his great work, "The Way We Live Now."

"She was fat and fair,--unlike in colour to our traditional Jewesses; but she had the Jewish nose and the Jewish contraction of the eyes. There was certainly very little in Madame Melmotte to recommend her, unless it was a readiness to spe nd money on any object that might be suggested to her by her new acquaintances."

I'm so excited to be introduced to a new anti-semitic caricature in a highly-regarded work of literature! It's not enough that T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and Mel Gibson want us dead. There's good old pickpocket Fagin (although Dickens atoned by putting nice jews in later novels), Meyer Wolfsheim in the Great Gatsby, Robert Cohn in This Side of Paradise, and those assholes at the Harvard Crimson. Oh, and Borat.


But not Jane Austen; no, she was not anti-semitic chiefly, I guess, because she didn't know any of us.