Identity – Page 3 – Finding My Wings

The fascination with Shylock

Whether you are someone who seeks out Shakespeare’s work or is uncomfortable with the language and cadence, Shakespeare’s stories and words permeate our culture. Few of Shakespeare’s characters evoke such strong feeling as Shylock, the titular character in The Merchant of Venice. When first performed over 400 years ago, Shylock was the personification of all the prejudices about Jews – clannish, money-grubbing, dirty, ugly, sanctimonious – the list goes on and on. In different eras and in different cultures, Shylock has at times received more nuanced and sympathetic treatment. Luminaries of stage and screen have taken on the role, each giving it his own take.

This year there are two very different productions with Shylock at the forefront in the Washington area. This past week, a new play based on The Merchant of Venice has been staged at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. District Merchants by Aaron Posner, brings the story to Washington in 1873, a time of great political and economic upheaval immediately following the Civil War. The Folger’s strong reputation and Posner’s skills in rethinking the work of others on the stage encouraged us to see the production. In one word GO!

The massive pillars that filled more than half the set served two purposes: first, a reminder of Washington and the fundamentals that created the US, tested by the Civil War; and two, it effectively brought forward and contracted the size of the stage, increasing the interplay between the actors and audience in what is already an intimate venue. The quintessential issues of justice and prejudice, family and peoplehood, generosity and greed flow naturally through this retelling. Each of the eight cast members lived his/her character. The melding of Posner’s and Shakespeare’s words was completely successful. Whether the Shylock’s story is set in the 16th, 19th or 21st century, its power remains the same.

For traditionalists, in late July Shakespeare’s Globe on Tour will present The Merchant of Venice at the Kennedy Center. The show is advertised as “..this new production of Shakespeare’s play dramatizes competing claims of tolerance and intolerance, religious law and civil society, justice and mercy.” Isn’t it always so?

Were this not enough, there is a new version of Shylock’s tale for those who prefer the armchair view. The Crown Publishing Group’s Hogarth Press has commissioned the retelling of eight of Shakespeare’s best-loved plays by some of the world’s most renowned novelists. British novelist and 2010 Man Booker Prize-winner Howard Jacobson was chosen to tackle The Merchant of Venice. His novel Shylock Is My Name was released in February. I’ll go out on a limb and predict at least one of my book groups will tackle it during the 2016-17 season. Watch this space for my assessment.

For the Anne Tyler fans out there, her take on The Taming of the Shrew will be published tomorrow. Vinegar Girl, set in contemporary Baltimore, should be a great mashup, proving again how modern masters can bring the timelessness of Shakespeare to today’s audiences.

‘The UnAmericans’ deserves your attention

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The UnAmericans by Molly Antopol (W.W. Norton & Company, 2014)
In 40 words or less: In eight stories, Antopol crosses continents and decades bringing together politics, love, longing and the human condition.
Genre: Short stories
Locale: Various
Time: Various
Read this to experience the richness of an excellent collection of short stories.

I admit it. It took far too long for me to pick up Molly Antopol’s extraordinary collection of stories. From the opening sentences, each story in the UnAmericans drops the reader into a distinct location and time. Throughout the collection, Antopol brings in elements gleaned from her family’s Eastern European experience and their leftist leanings when they arrived in the U.S. Several stories in the collection take place in Israel, each depicting very different family situations. The precision with which she creates the wide range of settings is extraordinary in writings of this length.

The first story, The Old World, brings together a lonely dry cleaner and a woman longing for her life in Ukraine before Chernobyl. Antopol deftly weaves in each character’s backstory, bringing in the disapproving daughter and son-in-law to underscore the businessman’s vulnerability.

Both The Quietest Man and The Unknown Soldier are twists on the classic theme of divorced fathers seeking to elevate themselves in their child’s eyes. The Unknown Soldier is set as an actor-father leaves prison, having been jailed as a result of the McCarthy hearings. His celebratory road trip with his son does not go as planned, each wanting it to be the other’s trip of a lifetime. In The Quietest Man, a young woman has sold her first play. Long divorced, she has spent little time with her father over the years. Her parents were Czech activists and her father was a celebrated lecturer on their arrival in the U.S. While in the spotlight he neglected his family. Over the years, as new world crises arose, his fame declined. Now her father brings her for a visit seeking reassurance that his image isn’t tarnished in her writings.

With all the different timeframes and settings, there are recurring themes throughout the book. Family is key. Standing up for your beliefs should be lauded, fakery punished. Love isn’t always what it seems. It is how these themes are revealed that differentiates Molly Antopol from most other writers. Antopol was recognized by the National Book Foundation as “5 Under 35” author for this book. She won the New York Public Library’s Young Lions Fiction Award, was longlisted for the National Book Award, and finalist for numerous other awards. The UnAmericans appeared on more than a dozen “Best of” lists in 2014. My only criticism is I enjoyed the stories so much that I rushed to read through them rather than taking more time to savor each one.

Seeking and Finding ‘In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist’

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In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist by Ruhama King Feuerman (The New York Review of Books, 2013)
In 40 words or less: A rebbe’s courtyard in Jerusalem and a shard of pottery discarded on the Temple Mount are catalysts for life changing experiences for three lonely people.
Genre: Fiction
Locale: Jerusalem
Time: 1994
Read this book for a well-crafted story bringing in the many different peoples that make up Jerusalem.

There is a timelessness to Ruhama King Feuerman’s novel despite its contemporary setting. The courtyard of the title, on Nineveh Street in Jerusalem, is a place where seekers of all sorts congregate. A wise and ailing rebbe and his wife offer guidance and soup to an array of regular and occasional visitors. Isaac, a former haberdasher from the Lower East Side, arrives in the courtyard while looking for a new direction in his life. As luck would have it (and out of the goodness of their hearts), Isaac becomes the assistant to the rebbe, ferrying messages, keeping order and conversing with the visitors.

Among the visitors is Tamar, a young American who has moved to Israel and become more religious. She is effervescent in personality and dress and is in search of her bashert, the person who’s destined to share her life. She asks the rebbe’s guidance in finding him.

On the Temple Mount, Mustafa toils daily as a janitor, sweeping, washing, and hauling trash to maintain the holiness of the site. Mustafa has been an outcast from birth, his head awkwardly twisted almost over his shoulder. Rejected by his family who are concerned about the negative influence his condition may have on the marriage prospects of his siblings, he lives narrow existence of work, dinner and sleep with little human contact.

In the course of clearing out buckets of debris from questionable digging on the Temple Mount, Mustafa finds a shard of pottery that appears to have some value. Mustafa sees Isaac as someone who can explain what he has found. Looking for answers endangers Isaac and Mustafa but they are resolute in what becomes a quest for both. As with almost everything in Jerusalem, religious and political controversies, control of holy sites and distrust among groups become obstacles in their path.

Over the course of the novel, these three lonely, family-less people find connections with each other. The story has ample twists and turns, but it is the blossoming of the people and their friendships that gives it lasting strength. This is a slim book, tightly written and very well-suited for discussion among book groups.

‘All Who Go Do Not Return’: One Man’s View of a Hidden World

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All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen (Graywolf Press, 2015)
In 40 words or less: A rare portrayal of a former Hasidic Jew’s departure from the community and loss of faith.
Genre: Memoir
Locale: New York
Time: Contemporary

The copyright page of Shulem Deen’s wrenching memoir has an unusual statement: “Disclaimer: This is a work of creative nonfiction. Many of the names, and some minor identifying details, have been changed to protect the privacy of individuals. All the people in the book are real and the events described actually took place. ….” It goes further delineating other changes he may have made, not substantially altering the narrative.

I can’t count the number of memoirs I’ve read over the last decade. With each book, I’ve wondered how the author has been able to recount so many instances of daily living. Certainly with celebrity memoirs there are questions about what liberties may have been taken to embellish or airbrush out situations. What makes this memoir so different?

Shulem Deen is a writer and former Skverer Hasid. Most Skverer Hasidim are members from birth, with a large and extensive network of family members. Deen is the child of parents who chose an ultra-Orthodox life as adults, and not as Skverers. His father further distinguished himself by his teaching and associations outside the Hasidic world. This far from conventional upbringing set him apart from the community from the beginning. Glimpses he gives into his childhood suggest Deen was never one to easily acquiesce to communal rules, a personality trait that foreshadows his inevitable banishment from the Hasidic community and enforced estrangement from his family.

In the last five years there have been a number of memoirs, fictionalized accounts and outsider portraits of Hasidic life from the perspective of women who have left their communities for differing reasons. All Who Go Do Not Return is the first book to draw back the curtain on the details of the day in-day out influence of the Rebbe and his inner circle on the lives of all within the community. From the selection of potential spouses, enforcement of laws of family purity, decisions on who will pursue additional study and who must secure approved employment beyond the hall of study- it’s all there.

The intimate details of the creation of a family and its eventual dissolution are the most uncomfortable to read. The shidduch, match, results in total strangers starting up a household with virtually no knowledge of what a marriage entails – physically, emotionally, practically or financially. In the case of Deen and his wife, without an extensive family network or well-connected elders, their marriage started off at an even greater disadvantage. Even with the most supportive family, a select cadre of the Rebbe’s trusted provided guidance and made recommendations on everything from consummation of the marriage to how and when to pursue additional employment.

As the Deen family grew from one child to, eventually, five, the economic pressures to support the family on their own grew. To meet the demands, Deen became a tutor to young yeshiva students, allegedly on secular topics. He contends this was really just a front and that the governmentally funded sessions were dedicated to augmenting the boys study of Torah. This is consistent with the conditions currently under investigation in a number of New York yeshivot where it is alleged that the studies do not meet minimum standards for English, math and other secular subjects.

Eventually, the family’s financial needs required Deen seek employment outside the community. By this time he had begun to engage in forbidden practices: listening to the radio, discovering the Internet and very tame movies using a VCR and television. While he initially kept these practices hidden from his wife, she soon became suspicious and he shared the discoveries with her. These experiences made him more employable but only if he altered the distinctive wardrobe worn by the Skverers.

At the beginning of his exploration of the secular world Deen responds with curiosity and wonder at what he is experiencing. Over time he increasingly questions the legitimacy of the Skverer leadership and norms and his personal spirituality and faith. More and more he separates himself from communal prayer and activities. Not only does this place him under suspicion but it endangers the position of the rest of his family within the community. Ultimately he is forced to leave the community and expelled from all contact with the community’s members.

This book is a fascinating portrait of one man’s journey of self-discovery. In losing his faith he also lost his family. At times it is painful to read the details of the Deen family life. It is tragic when a loving parent is separated from his or her children. It’s small comfort to consider how unlikely it is that his wife or children will ever read the book. After all, such worldly reading is forbidden.

Americanah: An oh, so contemporary novel

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Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Alfred A. Knopf, 2013)
In 40 words or less: A story that gives life to the personal struggles two young people in contemporary Nigeria, America and Britain. Through their eyes issues of immigration, racism and multiculturalism are brought forward. Long but well worth the effort!
Genre: Literary Fiction
Locale: Nigeria, United States, Great Britain
Time: Contemporary
Read this for a meaty story of generations adapting to change and confronting change delayed.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is deservedly a darling of current literary circles. Each of her novels has won numerous awards and her recent book length essay, We Should All be Feminists, which started as a TEDx talk, is considered a seminal work (pun intended) on the topic. Her novel Half of a Yellow Sun, brings to life the devastating Biafran conflict that tore apart Nigeria in the late 1960s.

In Americanah, Adichie introduces Ifemelu and Obinze, bright, loving young Nigerians who must leave their homeland to seek opportunity abroad. While college students, Nigeria is ruled by the military and universities are often closed due to strikes and other disruptions and prospects for success afterwards are few. America post-9/11 is particularly unfriendly to young men from Africa so, despite his love for all things American, Obinze ends up in England. Ifemelu secures a partial graduate school scholarship and joins family in Brooklyn. Soon on her own in Philadelphia, she struggles – making ends meet, understanding American-English and norms, and confronting racism for the first time. Her connection to Obinze is her beacon. At her lowest moment, she cuts off communication, though never relinquishing the connection.

Ifemelu had a keen eye for cultural and political nuances of being an African woman versus an African-American woman in America. Arriving in the US a couple of years before the election of President Obama, her experience is imbued with the changes his candidacy and election brings. Throughout her time in several cities on the east coast, her warmth and wit bring her friends and rich relationships. Initially as a lark, she turns a blog into a forum for discussions on race, politics and people. Eventually leaving school behind, Ifemelu becomes a full-time blogger. After several years she makes the choice to return home.

Obinze’s acclimation to England is more difficult. Without family as a touchpoint and school as a focus, he scrambles to find work without a visa and gets drawn into the British equivalent of the green card marriage scam. Throughout he remains in love with Ifemelu and can’t understand the silence. Forced to return to Nigeria, there he achieves all the outward symbols of a very successful life.

There is a very contemporary feel to this novel. The characters are working to launch their lives in very uncertain times. Without the internet, they’d be unable to maintain and fracture connections. Politics has a role but is not all-pervasive. Religion is only mentioned in passing. This measured attention allows day-to-day life to shine through.

This is a long book, at 588 pages almost twice the length the book groups I work with typically choose. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie not only tells a story but informs the reader as well. Her characters are smart and expressive. Her descriptions of places and situations are vivid, almost as if a movie camera is panning the scene. The novel deals with immigration, multiculturalism, racism and the haves and have-nots. The view of daily life in Nigeria before and after her time in the US is so detailed that you can feel the heat and smell the food. And throughout there is the universal draw of family, both by birth and by choice. Consider the time required to absorb this novel an investment well made.

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