| A
wide range
of novels was featured at Jewish
Book Week in London, from 23 February to 2 March 2008.
The selection reviewed below raises a number of interesting questions
about the Jewish experience and the meaning of Jewish literature, but
the books are reviewed first and foremost as works of literature in
their own right.
What is (Jewish) literature?
'In Praise of Diasporas', Jewish Book Week, London, 2 March 2008
Adam Thirlwell argued that, rather writing than for the reader, great
writers always write against the reader, meaning that expectations
based on identity or ethnicity are bound to be confounded, except perhaps
in mediocre literature. Might it even be said that Jewish writing is
an attempt to escape Jewishness?
Dolan Cummings
Variations
on an immigrant theme
Away, by Amy Bloom
The immigrant story is an established trope in
American literature, but Amy Bloom does something subtly different.
Rachel Savage
Mothers,
daughters and Jewishness
Dora B: A Memoir of My Mother, by Josiane Behmoiras
The mere fact mother and daughter ‘are’
Jewish leaves them open to persecution, which raises the question of
whether there is such a thing as a specific Jewish identity.
Kiranjeet Kaur Gill
So
we are not disappeared
The Ministry of Special Cases, by Nathan Englander
Kaddish is paid by more prominent Jews to efface
the names of their ne’er do well parents from gravestones. Both
his trade and his obstinacy place Kaddish and his family outside of
the community, in a time when neighbours won’t talk to each other,
and loyalty to friends and loved ones can vanish in an instant.
Sam Haddow
A
willing victim
Kalooki Nights, by Howard Jacobson
A conversation between Zoë and Max where
they disagree on how they first met is Pinter-esque in its comic depiction
of the human tendency for revisionist narratives, unable to decide if
the man they saw who didn’t jump off the roof was in fact Chinese
or African, or if Zoë was ever a kiss-o-gram.
Maria Borland
The
choice between surviving and dying
Refusal by Soazig Aaron
Well-meaning as Angélika is, she herself
becomes a nuisance to her own story as she constantly tries to glean,
infer and ‘understand’ the suffering Klara underwent in
the holocaust, by inviting Klara’s recollections into her own,
functional and relatively sedate world.
Sam Haddow
Caricatures
of a New York Jew
Beware of God, by Shalom Auslander
Auslander's auto-text generator has been set to
book-length-Jewish-wisecrack, and it feels as though the time taken
over the result would be measured better in the millisecond of a sub-atomic
particle flying down optic cable than the rather longer and more considered
passage of thought from head to hand.
James Topham
Characters
in history
The Archivist's Story, by Travis Holland
Holland's desire
to have the characters do the exposition leads to absurd exchanges such
as when a couple wrapped in a post-coital clinch meditate on the coming
war and thank their stars because, ‘At Least there is still the
Non-Aggression Agreement’ (I remember the days lovers were just
happy to always have had Paris).
James Topham
Older
reviews of books featured at Jewish Book Week 2008
Gods
Behaving Badly
by Marie Phillips
The style is pure read-me-standing-up-on-the-tube,
don’t-want-to-put-me-down fun. The content is altogether more
metaphysical. Phillips asks herself, what if all religions are not equally
valid, and wonders what would happen if the one that was literally true
turned out to be ancient Greek.
Timandra
Harkness
The
Dissident by Nell Freudenberger
it is a supreme irony that Cece Travers, in her eagerness to be understanding
and welcoming to the artist, imprisons Zhao in the role of the Dissident
by her own expectations, which are entirely incongruent with Zhao’s
view of himself.
Andrew Wheelhouse
Everyman
by Philip
Roth
The
fear of Death, Roth shows us, might be the fear of the life we could
have, maybe should have led. His ‘unchangeable’ story of man stalked
by thoughts of his own demise may be a lesson in ‘how to die’. It is
also - perhaps because of this - a lesson in how to live.
Simon
Cooke
Disobedience by Naomi Alderman
The strength of the book is where Alderman displays her insight into
Jewish religion and customs, which adds depth and meaning to the situations
of the characters. The novel has more originality and freshness when
Alderman allows her own presence to be diminished.
Nathalie Rothschild
The Autograph Man
by Zadie Smith
Alex Li-Tandem, the Autograph Man, is one of those
romanticised losers you often encounter in novels. His self-absorbed,
haphazard lifestyle, complete with adolescent job, is endured by his
friends, who all, through oversights or mistakes on Alex's part, are
made in some way to suffer for it.
Stuart Simpson
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