Elliot’s Reading Week of 6-20-21: An Ozick story and Appelfeld's first translated novel

 Elliot’s Reading Week of 6-20-21

I hate to say this but the New Yorker fiction this week, a longish short story by the nonagenarian writer Cynthia Ozick seems to be something of a pity piece. The story - initially about a small group of classmates studying library sciences agrees to meet for an annual (?) reunion, then becomes about the life of one of the women in the group as she takes her first library job and is courted and won over, after initial reluctance, by a library patron - is a mess structurally and topically. None of the characters seem real, and the plot just wanders around ending up nowhere. But, enough. It’s amazing that CO is still writing in her 90s. I admit, I’ve never been a huge fan of her Jamesian work, but I’m still impressed by her dedication - I am a long way from my 90s, but I know that I have no more novels of even stories in me, so good for her. But she’s had rough treatment lately: Her new novel received a significantly negative review in the NYTBR, which the author concluded with almost an apology but noted that she’s a “pro” and can take criticism. Apparently, no - as the review ran a # of how-dare-you letters, including one for CO herself. Hey, if you are a pro - then just take it! Wondering here, for the record, if the NYer publication is just a way to say: We’re on your side. (I’ve had my share of bad reviews - and rejections - and am no pro when it comes to taking solace.)

Aharon Appelfeld’s first novel translated into English, Badenheim 1939 (1978), tells of the Austrian summer resort/spa of the same name, same year - a strange novel in which none of the characters is clearly defined, each is a type (musician, hotel owner, bakery worker, prostitute, et al.), a cartoon, a stick figure - quite intentionally. The narrative opens w/ the various characters arriving at the spa for their summer vacation, though we quickly realize that things are not as they were in previous summers; the planned entertainments (concerts, mostly) never quite get off the ground. Shortly into the novel, those gathered in Badenheim are told that they must register w/ the Sanitation Division; it soon becomes clear that only the Jewish people (most of the characters in this instance), must register. Some people are wary about this, but others counsel patience and say that this registration is all for the good. Eventually the residents receive word that they’ll all be moving to Poland - and, again, some are dubious while others try to reassure their neighbors: Poland is beautiful, cultured, literary, a great place to live! Of course we can see what’s happening and we get, I suppose, a glimpse into the indifference and delusion of those who cannot even imagine what the future holds in store. What led me to this novel was my (re)reading of Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, in which his journey to Israel was built upon his commitment to interview AA over a series of recorded sessions; Roth includes some of his Q&A w/ AA and thus makes him part of the story of Operation Shylock - and now, on reading Badenheim 1939, do I see that AA and his novel probably were an (or the) inspiration for Roth’s novel, which posits a Roth impostor who promotes scheme to encourage the Eastern European Jews to exodus from Israel and return to their Eastern Europe denizens, such as Poland, where they supposedly would be welcomed w/ open arms: AA’s novel shows us why no Jew in Israel would consider that scheme for a moment and, what’s worse, the fate that might await those returning from Diaspora. 

Elliot's Reading Week of 6-13-21: Two long stories an a Yehoshua novel

 Elliot’s Reading Week of 6/13/21

Stephen Crane’s long short story (oxymoron?) The Blue Hotel can’t quite stand up to his nail-biting, mysterious Open Boat but it’s a fine, engaging narrative that would do any writer proud; Crane is rarely taught or read these days, but he seems today to me at least a writer worth taking another look at. Blue Hotel is a Western (his writing shows the range of his journalistic experience), set (mostly) in the eponymous hotel on the Nebraska frontier in the early 20th century - a small town at a railroad junction. The story takes place on the night of a blizzard and focuses on three new overnight travelers checked into the hotel. It quickly becomes apparent that one of the men, the Swede as he’s known, suffers from paranoid delusions; he suspects that someone’s going to kill him - and he’s a scary presence to say the least in this tiny, out-of-the-way setting. The story culminates in a series of fights - no spoilers here - and though it wraps in the style of its era, with a neat conclusion and a twist of fate (unlike, say, the more fashionable and advanced open endings of Joyce and Hemingway that have come to dominate English-language short stories over the past 100 years) that not all will find satisfactory - too many loose ends and red herrings for my taste - the story evokes well its time and place and the interactions of a a group of men whose equilibrium has toppled and whose lives are in danger. 

Isak Dinesen’s famously weird story Sorrow-Acre (ca. 1940?), set sometime in the 19th century (I think…?) in ID’s native Denmark, is a story that shows the horrors of the false ideology of the class relationships in what amounts to a medieval, feudal, agrarian society. In essence a young man, Adam (a little heavy-handed there) return home to his family estate in Denmark (he’d been in England as part of the Danish delegation), in part to  maintain a relationship w/ his uncle whose son and projected heir has died after a lifelong health struggle. The uncle had arranged a marriage for the son - and now, surprise! - he takes the son’s place and marries the 20-year-old in hopes that she will provide the son and heir he requires. We certainly suspect, following the pattern of many such romances, that Adam will break up this loveless marriage and carry off the bride and the estate - but no, that’s not what happens. The uncle is about to punish a young man from among his many peasant tenants whom he suspects of arson; the man’s mother pleads for mercy, and the uncle sets up a condition: If she can harvest an entire acre of his corn in one day, before sundown, he will pardon the son - a task that all believe be impossible. She embarks, never the less, in what amounts to public torture; Adam intervenes, pleading w/ his uncle to go easy, but to no avail. So now we expect another ending - that Adam will take over by force, or that the peasants will do so, or someone at least will step forward and end this woman’s public torture. But - no - the uncle remains rigid, the peasants remain passive, and Adam is frozen; at the end, he declares that he’s going to America. Well, thanks for this vote of confidence in the U.S., and, yes, this story is powerful and sad - sorrowful, I almost wrote - but I think it’s terrible that the peasant farmers are so submissive and that Adam just turns his back on the suffering as if nothing can change, as if he can do nothing to stop this travesty, as if the horrible uncle has the right to determine the life and death of those who work his land. ID’s sympathies are in the right place, but her working of this material will, or should, make you angry. 

A.B. Yehoshua is one of several excellent writers living and working Israel today; he’s had some success in the U.S., but he deserves more - and sad to say despite his sympathetic portrayal of all cultures living today in Israel he will never win a Nobel Prize or any significant international literary award because of current attitudes toward the State of Israel. I should and will read more of his work, but will note that I was really impressed by 2 of his novels, Mr. Mani and Open Heart, and now have read a 3rd, A Woman in Jerusalem (2004) and will add it to the list. This novel, like his Open Heart in particular, involves a man on a quest or a mission, which ABY follows closely as the tales widens and then snaps shut. In this novel, we follow closely the efforts of an H.R. director in a commercial bakery (note that none of the characters in this novel is named; all are identified by their role in the story or their profession, e.g., the owner, the secretary, the woman … ) who is informed that a woman killed in a recent suicide bombing and who’d gone for some time as unidentified was in fact an employee of the bakery; a tabloid paper is planning to publish an “expose” showing that the bakery has been indifferent to the fate of one of its low-stature employees. The owner - a wealthy and seemingly generous man - assigned the hr manager to learn about the woman and ensure that she receives proper burial, which leads to an odyssey of a journey with the woman’s body toward burial in her native land (a former Soviet state, unnamed). This novel unwinds in the tradition of “burial” novels - obviously As I Lay Dying comes to mind; there also was a more recent novel about a family in Syria transporting the patriarch’s body across the war-torn land - looking it up right now: Death Is Hard Work, by Khaled Khalifa (2016). ABY’s take on this mini-genre is beautifully written, mysterious at times (various dream sequences and “voices” of a witnessing chorus) and surprising in its good will and generosity of spirit - about which whether that’s realistic at all others will have to decide; I have no idea. As a final note: It’s fun in reading this novel, set in the present in its day and now 17 years old, to note how much our technology has evolved: Among other innovations now passee note in particular the miracle of satellite phones that allow you to talk - with a crystal-clear signal! - with anyone on Earth, or at least in your area code. How far we’ve come. 

Elliot's Reading Week of 6/6/21: More on Roth's Operation Shylock and two classic long stories/short novels

 Elliot’s Reading Week of 6/6/21

A few notes catching up on this week’s reading, starting w/ Philip Roth’s Operation Shylock, about which one must wonder: Can Roth keep this plot aloft for the full length of the book (some 350 pp) or will it crash all around him? Every reader can appreciate the clever, intricate set-up of this novel, in which an imposter claiming to be Roth has turned up in the new in Israel where he is pushing a scheme to have Jews leave Israel and re-settle in their pre-war villages in Eastern Europe. Roth arrives in Jerusalem explicitly to complete a set of interviews with Israeli novels Appelfeld (this is real, actual) and is pursed and tormented in various ways by his alter ego, whom he names Moishe Pipik (Moses Bellybutton). The plot, as Roth is planning to put all this behind him and leave Israel, takes an odd turn as Roth is listed by MP’s paramour, who seduces Roth (or is it the other way around?), which makes MP a now-dangerous antagonist; Roth gives us about 20 pp. recounting the plot and explaining how ridiculous and improbable these events are - a weird post-modern divergence! I have read this novel before +20 years ago I think and can’t recall how Roth got out of this jam but at this point it seems he’s cut off various pathways. We’ll see.

Have also been reading a # of classic short stories (or short novels perhaps), notably Heart of Darkness and The Open Boat. Conrad’s HofD from the early 20th century today would require numerous trigger warnings, generally because of racist language; that said, however, it’s not a racist story. The entire piece is narrated by an old mariner, Marlowe, describing his early adventures as a young man on his first voyage as captain in an old “rust bucket” steamship traveling up the Congo on behalf of a Dutch trading company specializing in Ivory. We see from the start the cruel presence of these merchants and the terrible exploitation of black labor and disruption of an entire culture and way of life - all for a a material used for piano keys and billiard balls! At the apex of the novel, the steamer arrives at the most remote camp where they pick up the legendary merchant Kurtz - upon which Marlowe sees that K has created a system of brutality (partly by trading guns for ivory!) and hero-worship, which K., in his dying breath, renounces - a message that M is unable to deliver when he returns to Europe: a strange and enigmatic tale but in the end one of great sympathy for the tormented African people whose lives have been disrupted by European greed. 

As to Stephen Crane’s The Open Boat, from the same period: Crane is by no means a popular author today, written off as a “mere” journalist and author of potboilers. What a miscarriage! Sure, Open Boat has a few strained images and passages that feel odd and quaint today, but it’s a terrific account of four men in a lifeboat struggling to get safely to shore - in a day when there was none of the safety and survival gear mandatory today. It’s a complete nail-biter story - based apparently on Crane’s experience - and I don’t think anyone could or has ever surpassed this story for construction, vision, and empathy. 

I did pick up on a few other pieces as well, but none that held my interest for long: A real dry spell these past few weeks in NYer stories; a look at Robert Coover’s most-famous story, The Babysitter - Coover has been a favorite of mine and was a personal friend when I was a books editor, but this story, innnovative as it was inits day and as it still is (composed of a series of one-paragraph sections, out of chronological order, about the goings-on among various families on a Saturday night in an Everytown suburb) - but today this story is nearly unreadable because of its depicted crude, violent mistreatment of women. The recent well-reviewed novel, The Recent East, despite a rare look at life in former East Germany ca 1990, is definitely not a novel meant for me or my now-ancient generation.