My Father’s Paradise review

Sticking with the theme of Jewish emigres, My Father’s Paradise by Ariel Sabar (Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, $25.95) dovetailed quite nicely with the biography of Isaac Bashevis Singer previously reviewed. This book provides a fine counterpoint to the better-known tragic history of the Jewish population in Europe. In Kurdistan the Jewish population lived peacefully among Muslims and Christians for thousands of years, but that peace ended abruptly with the division of Palestine and Israel. Yona Sabar had his bar mitzvah and became a man at the same time that he signed away his Iraqi citizenship, an act that was required of the Jews who uprooted their families and moved to Israel. The Sabar family was treated better by their Muslim neighbors in Zakho than they were by their new Jewish neighbors in Jerusalem, however. Kurdish Jews landed at the bottom of the heirarchy in Jerusalem, and Yona’s father and grandfather struggled to adapt to their new surroundings. Yona worked during the day and attended high school at night, eventually earning entrance to Hebrew University. His knowledge of Aramaic garnered the attention of his professors and allowed him to attend Yale University on a scholarship. The study of Aramaic, hitherto only a spoken language, was such a new field that Yona was subsequently hired as a professor in a new department at UCLA. A clash of cultures was inevitable between Yona, the last Jew to have his bar mitzvah in Zakho, and his son Ariel, a product of 1980’s Los Angeles. This book is part of the attempt at reconciliation that it chronicles, a meshing of personal and political histories written with the deft skill of a professional journalist. It is a compelling work that brings to the forefront an overshadowed dimension of history and current events.

Isaac B. Singer: A Life review

Isaac Bashevis Singer had so many identities it is difficult to contain all of them in a single biography. A Pole who emigrated to America, he is all but dismissed in his homeland. Descended from seven generations of rabbis, he embraced a secular lifestyle. A champion of the Yiddish language, he was rejected by the traditional Yiddish community. Singer wrote his stories in Yiddish then rewrote them in English, creating two distinct works rather than a set of translations. It would seem appropriate to write his biography in two volumes in order to capture the duality of his nature. Isaac B. Singer: A Life by Florence Noiville (Northwestern University Press, $14.95) is a single volume, and a slender one at that, but there is a disjointed feeling to the book. That may be attributed to Noiville or Catherine Temerson, who translated the book from French, or it may be the paradoxical legacy of Singer himself. This is not a concise analysis of Singer’s life and writing; readers interested in such critical writing should read Jonathan Rosen’s article in the June 7, 2004 issue of The New Yorker instead. This is a book for the reader who is interested in another perspective on an author so unique that no comprehensive interpretation of his life can be written by mortal hands!

Road Test

There were no new posts last week because I was camping in Wyoming, but that provided a perfect opportunity to evaluate one of the new books I ordered this summer: Sipping Spiders Through a Straw by Kelly DiPucchio with illustrations by Gris Grimly. The artwork evokes a Tim Burton film, but this is no Halloween book; it is a book of campfire songs for monsters which has summer written all over it. With gross lyrics set to familiar tunes and disturbing imagery, I figured this book would be ideal for the group of 12 and 13 year old Boy Scouts with whom I went camping last week. I didn’t get the raving exclamations I expected, but the book did prove to be engrossing to the boys. We didn’t actually use it around the campfire, as the illustrations are more enjoyable in better light and this group of Scouts was surprisingly not inclined to have a campfire most nights anyway. When it came time for the troops to present skits and songs at a commissioner campfire, however, our boys were more than adequately equipped! In the end the book drew more interest from the assistant scoutmaster than it did from the scouts themselves, but there’s no harm in that; scoutmasters go camping more than the scouts do!

The Greatest Thing in the World review

Looking at the last three books I’ve posted, one might reasonably assume that I’ve been on a Soviet kick lately. That’s true in both the short term and long term, considering I’ve been interested in Russian literature for over half of my life. Yet it is not the only kick I’ve been on this year. Take the 19th century Scottish kick, for example. In the past year I have read Thomas Carlyle, Sir James George Frazer, George MacDonald, and now Henry Drummond. I’ve read these authors more for their subjects than for their common background, but I do find that to be noteworthy as well. I read MacDonald because he was admired by an author whom I admire, C.S. Lewis. I read this book by Drummond because it impressed another man I admire, John D. Clemens, my grandfather. A few years ago my grandfather felt compelled to record some of the influences that helped him curb his temper. He put his recollections into a letter that he sent out to his extended family. I read this letter recently and discovered that this book by Henry Drummond had so impressed him that he intended to acquire enough copies to provide one to each of his descendants. Unfortunately he passed away before he could accomplish this goal. As a book buyer I found myself in the unique position of being able to carry out this wish of my late grandfather.

Simply buying the books isn’t enough to honor his legacy, however. His desire was that we read it and allow it to have a positive influence in our lives, as it did his. This book is a meditation on 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which is the apostle Paul’s teachings regarding charity. Drummond asserts that love is greater than charity, as a whole is greater than one of its parts. Those who define charity as being the pure love of Christ will not need to make that distinction; Paul’s charity and Drummond’s love are interchangeable. Love is the greatest thing in the world according to them both. The book expounds on all of the aspects of love as defined by Paul. In regard to temper, Drummond says that it is the denial of love, and is therefore one of the most harmful sins, one that afflicts even the most noble characters. “The peculiarity of ill temper is that it is the vice of the virtuous.” This book helped my grandfather rid himself of the vice of temper, and I intend to follow his example.

A Hidden Gem

The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin by Vladimir Voinovich is a book that I had to rescue from our clearance table. In one sense going clearance is a suitable end result for poor Ivan Chonkin, the bumbling peasant turned inept soldier, but this is an excellent book about the most unlikely of heroes. It is a hidden gem, disguised from the average customer by a clumsy title and odd cover art. Vladimir Voinovich is not a name that most readers would recognize either, but he was a daring and talented satirist. Having read some of his short stories as a student of Russian literature, I knew this was an opportunity to pick up a first-rate book at second-rate pricing. This book may have limited appeal as far as demographics are concerned, but those who can appreciate it will be laughing out loud at this display of Soviet obtuseness! Chonkin is given sentry detail over a plane that has malfunctioned and landed in a small collective farm. The army bureaucracy cannot transport or repair the plane promptly, so the utterly disposable Chonkin is sent to stand guard. He is promptly forgotten by the army and enmeshed in the collective. When the army does take notice of Chonkin again it sends a regiment to flush him and his non-existent gang out of their midst! Voinovich paints a wickedly funny portrait of the Soviet Army and collective farms, but he saves his best shots for Stalin, his favorite target. In scenes that resemble a Monty Python sketch, Voinovich repeatedly spoofs Stalin, the glorious leader who is still revered by some Russians. Chonkin himself is a lump of coal that will never be a diamond, but this book is a gem to be treasured by those readers who delight in riotous satire!