Ma France à moi
J'essaie encore de comprendre comment copier/coller/lier/relier un lien audio/video... ARRGGHH! Bref, deux essais pour la même chose...Mais j'aurais bien voulu ne donner le lien que pour l'entretien accordé à Patrick Chaboudez plutôt que toute la page. Je rame!
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Interviewee par la Radio Suisse le 28 mars 2007
Mercredi 28 mars :
Cette Française est directrice des cours à l'Alliance Française de Washington. Elle a gardé dans la voix quelques intonations de l'Occitanie et un brin de nostalgie pour Toulouse, où elle a passé son enfance. Elle vit depuis 12 ans aux Etats-Unis, dans la région de Washington. Et si elle se sent très attachée à la culture française, à sa littérature, elle a pris ses distances avec la France. Elle envisage d'ailleurs d'adopter la nationalité américaine et se voit très bien prendre sa retraite aux Etats-Unis.
http://info.rsr.ch/fr/rsr.html?siteSect=2011&sid=7626839&cKey=1174050624000
Cette Française est directrice des cours à l'Alliance Française de Washington. Elle a gardé dans la voix quelques intonations de l'Occitanie et un brin de nostalgie pour Toulouse, où elle a passé son enfance. Elle vit depuis 12 ans aux Etats-Unis, dans la région de Washington. Et si elle se sent très attachée à la culture française, à sa littérature, elle a pris ses distances avec la France. Elle envisage d'ailleurs d'adopter la nationalité américaine et se voit très bien prendre sa retraite aux Etats-Unis.
http://info.rsr.ch/fr/rsr.html?siteSect=2011&sid=7626839&cKey=1174050624000
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
About Women: 3 Books Recently Read
Where the Girls Are, by Susan J. Douglas is one of the first entertaining books I have read about “growing up female”. Books about feminism or the place of women in contemporary society too often leave the reader with a good but dry appreciation of the Women’s Lib’s chronology or history. Growing up female with the mass media, which also happens to be Douglas’ subtitle for the book (the title itself is an excellent pun on the movie ‘Where the Boys Are”) has the following advantage: it is a deep and witty review of all the songs, TV shows and major movies that pertained one way or the other to the female image up to 1992. For those of us who grew up in France but somehow managed to get a glance of what was done, TV wise, in the States, it is interesting enough because we may not have resented how sexist some of these shows, such as Charlie’s Angels, The Bionic Woman, etc were. Not all shows bore a male chauvinistic trend, and I am happy to report that some of my favorite childhood and teenage shows got positive marks: Bewitched, L. A. Law and Hill Street Blues. Even Peyton Place, one of the earliest TV series, very loosely based on the book of the same name, exposed feminist ideas. I was not surprised that both Dallas and Dynasty got fiercely attacked by the author. Indeed, these two 1980s shows were rooting hard for the Reaganistic conservative values that kept women subdued as mere trophies to the winning shark-male. My only regret when I reached the end of the book is that its analysis of the media stops in 1992. I would love for the author to write an addendum about the TV shows of the late 1990s and early 2000s: with the advent of political correctness and quotas for protected minorities, there are more females on TV, in politics, and TV shows such as Law and Order, ER, etc do give strong lead parts to women. However, as much as the songs of the 1970s and 80s (from Joan Baez to Madonna) expressed opinionated feminist and feminine points of view (yes, even Madonna!), the current trends that bring us Barbie-like Britney Spears, or trashy rappers’ groupies, seem to go along with the revival of the current Presidency’s conservative views. Is that to say that the female image and the place of women in society are threatened?
For a 30 something in the early 2000s, Elizabeth Gilbert could be the perfect illustration of the contemporary female image. She gathers the classical standards of beauty (in the eye of the male beholder: blond, blue eyes, slim and tall) with the achievements of a successful and career-oriented modern woman. She is a recognized author and journalist, an early achiever rather than a late bloomer. However, at 30 she has a mid-life crisis: a marriage that breaks on the realization that she did not want children after all followed by an unhappy love affair become wake-up calls that will lead her to Italy, India and Indonesia. This initiatic voyage is related in her new book, Eat, Pray, Love. Her wit helps the reader get over the fact that for all her complaints and genuine depression, she still is luckier than the average woman, especially in countries such as India and Indonesia. She mentions two particular examples of female hardships, and as much as the time she spends in India is a time of “praying” in an ashram, her constant narcissism can get on the reader’s nerves. I laughed as much as I became angry at her for falling into the ambushes of today’s society. The fact that she confesses not having been able to live without a male relationship from the age of 15 is in itself revelatory: how can you truly be a free woman, if you always need a man’s approval, or a man’s “appreciative” eyes to exist?
For true laughter, I will recommend Nora Ephron’s latest book, I feel bad about my neck. This last one allies the feminine and the feminist points of view with experience, wisdom and humor. Nora Ephron is better-known for having directed such chick flick as Sleepless in Seattle. Her book is a small treasure of essays on the art of aging…in and with style!
Sarah Diligenti-Pickup © December 2006
For a 30 something in the early 2000s, Elizabeth Gilbert could be the perfect illustration of the contemporary female image. She gathers the classical standards of beauty (in the eye of the male beholder: blond, blue eyes, slim and tall) with the achievements of a successful and career-oriented modern woman. She is a recognized author and journalist, an early achiever rather than a late bloomer. However, at 30 she has a mid-life crisis: a marriage that breaks on the realization that she did not want children after all followed by an unhappy love affair become wake-up calls that will lead her to Italy, India and Indonesia. This initiatic voyage is related in her new book, Eat, Pray, Love. Her wit helps the reader get over the fact that for all her complaints and genuine depression, she still is luckier than the average woman, especially in countries such as India and Indonesia. She mentions two particular examples of female hardships, and as much as the time she spends in India is a time of “praying” in an ashram, her constant narcissism can get on the reader’s nerves. I laughed as much as I became angry at her for falling into the ambushes of today’s society. The fact that she confesses not having been able to live without a male relationship from the age of 15 is in itself revelatory: how can you truly be a free woman, if you always need a man’s approval, or a man’s “appreciative” eyes to exist?
For true laughter, I will recommend Nora Ephron’s latest book, I feel bad about my neck. This last one allies the feminine and the feminist points of view with experience, wisdom and humor. Nora Ephron is better-known for having directed such chick flick as Sleepless in Seattle. Her book is a small treasure of essays on the art of aging…in and with style!
Sarah Diligenti-Pickup © December 2006
Bridges Between Books
As always I started this summer with a reasonable pile of “new” books. What I call “new” does not necessarily mean that the books had just been released. In general, I call them “new” because they finally came out in paperback; I eventually acquired them for pennies in a yard sale and at last found the time to read them. This is what happened this summer when I decided to dive into a few of these already ancient novelties, such as “The Secret Life of Bees”, by Sue Monk Kidd, The Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz, “The Question of Bruno”, by Aleksandar Hemon and “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time”, by Mark Haddon, to quote but just a few.
Many will probably have read the books I am about to review and will probably deem extraordinary that I can find connections between Lily, the adolescent girl living in the US Bible Belt in 1964 (The Secret Life of Bees), and Christopher, the adolescent autistic boy living in England in our current times (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time). Indeed, all seem to indicate that they have nothing in common: geography, times, their perception of the world, the way they interact with people, and so on. Somehow, I felt that there were similarities between these two characters. Lily is not autistic but still suffers from psychological trauma, what one would call post traumatic disorder: not only did she lose her mother when she was 4, she is in fact responsible for her accidental death. Her memory is scarred by the event, as much as her body bears the mark of the tortures she endures at her father’s hands, while kneeling on grits. Her life is motherless and loveless, but for Rosaleen her proud African-American nanny. Christopher is autistic, on the highest part of the autism spectrum: he has Asperger Syndrome. Christopher shares the experience of psychological and physiological pain with Lily although in a different way. Christopher also lives with his dad, and thinks that his mother is “dead” and seems to only communicate best with Siobhan, one of his teachers at the special school he attends. Both characters are in fact prey and victim to the adults’ decision to hide the truth, or transform it, or lie about it.
Coping with the loss (real or not) of their respective mother is the main literary connection between the two characters. But beyond the obvious, one cannot help but make another literary bridge: 1964 is the year of the Civil Rights Act; fighting discrimination becomes Lily’s way of freeing herself from her father’s violence. Christopher is also suffering from discrimination, even more insidiously as he appears normal to the common people. Set in the UK, the book can’t help but indirectly reveal that Europeans still need to improve their records on discrimination against the physically and psychologically challenged.
Of course, each book could be read separately for its own merits: the beautiful descriptions, the intricately analyzed feelings and lives of May, June and August, the obvious literary knowledge and connotations cleverly used by the author (the bees themselves could be the subject of an entire critical chapter), make The Secret Life of Bees an entertaining read. On the other hand, seeing the world through Christopher’s eyes and autistic mind is at the same time challenging because we have to train our mind to think like him, and very humbling, especially if like me, you have such a child at home while all the time you thought it was just another bout of teenage rebellion. It is never too late to realize that one’s way of thinking is not the ultimate reference but it sure is hard to know what is the best way to show such a child that you truly love him.
© August 2006, Sarah Diligenti-Pickup
Many will probably have read the books I am about to review and will probably deem extraordinary that I can find connections between Lily, the adolescent girl living in the US Bible Belt in 1964 (The Secret Life of Bees), and Christopher, the adolescent autistic boy living in England in our current times (The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time). Indeed, all seem to indicate that they have nothing in common: geography, times, their perception of the world, the way they interact with people, and so on. Somehow, I felt that there were similarities between these two characters. Lily is not autistic but still suffers from psychological trauma, what one would call post traumatic disorder: not only did she lose her mother when she was 4, she is in fact responsible for her accidental death. Her memory is scarred by the event, as much as her body bears the mark of the tortures she endures at her father’s hands, while kneeling on grits. Her life is motherless and loveless, but for Rosaleen her proud African-American nanny. Christopher is autistic, on the highest part of the autism spectrum: he has Asperger Syndrome. Christopher shares the experience of psychological and physiological pain with Lily although in a different way. Christopher also lives with his dad, and thinks that his mother is “dead” and seems to only communicate best with Siobhan, one of his teachers at the special school he attends. Both characters are in fact prey and victim to the adults’ decision to hide the truth, or transform it, or lie about it.
Coping with the loss (real or not) of their respective mother is the main literary connection between the two characters. But beyond the obvious, one cannot help but make another literary bridge: 1964 is the year of the Civil Rights Act; fighting discrimination becomes Lily’s way of freeing herself from her father’s violence. Christopher is also suffering from discrimination, even more insidiously as he appears normal to the common people. Set in the UK, the book can’t help but indirectly reveal that Europeans still need to improve their records on discrimination against the physically and psychologically challenged.
Of course, each book could be read separately for its own merits: the beautiful descriptions, the intricately analyzed feelings and lives of May, June and August, the obvious literary knowledge and connotations cleverly used by the author (the bees themselves could be the subject of an entire critical chapter), make The Secret Life of Bees an entertaining read. On the other hand, seeing the world through Christopher’s eyes and autistic mind is at the same time challenging because we have to train our mind to think like him, and very humbling, especially if like me, you have such a child at home while all the time you thought it was just another bout of teenage rebellion. It is never too late to realize that one’s way of thinking is not the ultimate reference but it sure is hard to know what is the best way to show such a child that you truly love him.
© August 2006, Sarah Diligenti-Pickup
Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, by Judith Warner
Our book club enjoyed record attendance when we discussed this book last month, not only because of the topic at stake but also because we had the great chance and honor (Thanks to Laure!) to receive the author, Judith Warner.
Judith Warner lived in France and speaks fluent French. She enjoyed some aspects of our social system, such as our famous childcare (what do we do in the States when we have a baby? As women, do we stop working because there is either no affordable childcare or no childcare at all?). Judith Warner also enjoyed our more laid back attitude to life and child education, although some of us enlightened her on the French parental anxiety that seizes a parent once their children is of high school age (what will happen if our dear children cannot make it to a “grande école” or show more interest in becoming plumber or butcher or any other despised form of work in the eyes of the majority?). This educational anxiety is something both French and American parents share. However, what Judith Warner stressed, that we know only for those of us who live urban lives when in France, is the desire to find the “right school” from preschool to Ivy League and what consequence it has on a mother’s life. Driving the children around to more activities than they can really become experts at, finding the right doctor, the right preschool, getting the right kind of house, making sure that the life style is the right life style for what one would like one’s children to become, losing one’s identity as a woman on top of losing one’s job….these are some of the American mother and woman’s realities that Judith Warner details in her book. Her approach to a chronological study of motherhood behaviors in the US is fascinating although a bit difficult to relate to when one is French. It is probably the reason why the French translation of her remarkable book will only stress all the psychological effects, causes and consequences of Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, which will definitely make it look like “perfect madness”!
We had many more questions for the author, and it would be worth inviting her again to explore all these other topics. In the meantime, I can certainly recommend getting acquainted with the various voices, the result of a couple of years of interviews that she made not only in this part of the country, but also on the West Coast or in the Middle West, that angrily or less bitterly, give voice to deep frustrations. Although Judith Warner interviewed predominantly wealthy and well-educated women, these should be heard too: if they can express the need for change in this country in terms of childcare and pace of life, they could be giving a chance to less well-off or less educated women whose stress and anxiety levels must be even higher.
The American version of her book is now in paperback.
Sarah Pickup-Diligenti © April 2006
Judith Warner lived in France and speaks fluent French. She enjoyed some aspects of our social system, such as our famous childcare (what do we do in the States when we have a baby? As women, do we stop working because there is either no affordable childcare or no childcare at all?). Judith Warner also enjoyed our more laid back attitude to life and child education, although some of us enlightened her on the French parental anxiety that seizes a parent once their children is of high school age (what will happen if our dear children cannot make it to a “grande école” or show more interest in becoming plumber or butcher or any other despised form of work in the eyes of the majority?). This educational anxiety is something both French and American parents share. However, what Judith Warner stressed, that we know only for those of us who live urban lives when in France, is the desire to find the “right school” from preschool to Ivy League and what consequence it has on a mother’s life. Driving the children around to more activities than they can really become experts at, finding the right doctor, the right preschool, getting the right kind of house, making sure that the life style is the right life style for what one would like one’s children to become, losing one’s identity as a woman on top of losing one’s job….these are some of the American mother and woman’s realities that Judith Warner details in her book. Her approach to a chronological study of motherhood behaviors in the US is fascinating although a bit difficult to relate to when one is French. It is probably the reason why the French translation of her remarkable book will only stress all the psychological effects, causes and consequences of Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety, which will definitely make it look like “perfect madness”!
We had many more questions for the author, and it would be worth inviting her again to explore all these other topics. In the meantime, I can certainly recommend getting acquainted with the various voices, the result of a couple of years of interviews that she made not only in this part of the country, but also on the West Coast or in the Middle West, that angrily or less bitterly, give voice to deep frustrations. Although Judith Warner interviewed predominantly wealthy and well-educated women, these should be heard too: if they can express the need for change in this country in terms of childcare and pace of life, they could be giving a chance to less well-off or less educated women whose stress and anxiety levels must be even higher.
The American version of her book is now in paperback.
Sarah Pickup-Diligenti © April 2006
Fat Girl!, by Judith Moore.
As I was researching who was Judith Moore last year when I read the book, I found out that there were other items that bore the same title: “The Fat Girl’s Guide to Life” by Wendy Shanker, and Catherine Breillat’s movie “A ma soeur” which is translated into “Fat Girl!” for English and American audiences. It confirms that the subject is a growing concern and the depth of the reasons why some women (or men) are fat are not all a matter of overeating for the pleasure of overeating. I would also like to mention the play written by Neil La Butte, “Fat Pig” which was an absolute hit at the Studio Theatre this winter. Although the performances were extended, I never managed to get a seat for the days I chose. It was totally sold out.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer
To plagiarize (almost!) one of my favorite singers, Elton John, “[Death, the loss of a beloved one]…seems to be the hardest word”, or rather the hardest subject to tackle in literature, especially when related to the defining moment of the first year of the twenty-first century, 9/11.
That is the challenge Jonathan Safran Foer set himself for and wrote with a mastery that has yet to find another equal. Of course 9/11 as a topic has already been treated in literature and amongst the first was French writer Frederic Beigbeder with Windows on the World, and later on British writer Ian McEwan, with Saturday. What makes Jonathan Safran Foer stands apart is not his youth -Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is “only” his second book, but a masterpiece-, but his sensitivity. Mc Ewan’s usual gloominess and British sense of wit and Beigbeder’s incommensurable and insufferable arrogance, permanent self-congratulation and introspection “à la BHL” quickly leave the reader ill at ease if not truly annoyed in the case of the latter.
Foer’s story is antipodal to these other novels. 9/11, the ultimate traumatic event, is told as perceived by Oscar Schell, whose Dad died in the restaurant Windows on the World. At the time of the narration two years have passed, but Oscar is still a wounded child and still looking for clues. Or is he just desperately wanting for clues to exist, for the ‘goodbye” word that was never left on the answer phone messages by his trapped at the top of the world Dad?
The author manages to give us a view of the world according to Oscar, gifted and talented child, and like many of them, over anxious. His world is not an ordinary child’s; 9/11 and an IQ way above the average do not make it easy for a little boy to have friends of his own age.
The story of Oscar’s 9/11 also becomes the story of his paternal family’s many traumas: the Dresden bombings are intertwined to his own presentation of the effects of Hiroshima and to the general theme of 9/11. Oscar’s quest for clues is also his way of finding closure, to come to terms with his Dad’s death. What he will also achieve is bring healing to the wounds carried by his grand-mother and his grand-father. The author cleverly gave voice to these characters, in ways that will probably be imitated by other authors in the future: polyphony is quite original in itself, but when it comes accompanied with pictures, colors, and other meta-textual clues, it has no equal yet.
Sarah Pickup-Diligenti ©June 2006
That is the challenge Jonathan Safran Foer set himself for and wrote with a mastery that has yet to find another equal. Of course 9/11 as a topic has already been treated in literature and amongst the first was French writer Frederic Beigbeder with Windows on the World, and later on British writer Ian McEwan, with Saturday. What makes Jonathan Safran Foer stands apart is not his youth -Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is “only” his second book, but a masterpiece-, but his sensitivity. Mc Ewan’s usual gloominess and British sense of wit and Beigbeder’s incommensurable and insufferable arrogance, permanent self-congratulation and introspection “à la BHL” quickly leave the reader ill at ease if not truly annoyed in the case of the latter.
Foer’s story is antipodal to these other novels. 9/11, the ultimate traumatic event, is told as perceived by Oscar Schell, whose Dad died in the restaurant Windows on the World. At the time of the narration two years have passed, but Oscar is still a wounded child and still looking for clues. Or is he just desperately wanting for clues to exist, for the ‘goodbye” word that was never left on the answer phone messages by his trapped at the top of the world Dad?
The author manages to give us a view of the world according to Oscar, gifted and talented child, and like many of them, over anxious. His world is not an ordinary child’s; 9/11 and an IQ way above the average do not make it easy for a little boy to have friends of his own age.
The story of Oscar’s 9/11 also becomes the story of his paternal family’s many traumas: the Dresden bombings are intertwined to his own presentation of the effects of Hiroshima and to the general theme of 9/11. Oscar’s quest for clues is also his way of finding closure, to come to terms with his Dad’s death. What he will also achieve is bring healing to the wounds carried by his grand-mother and his grand-father. The author cleverly gave voice to these characters, in ways that will probably be imitated by other authors in the future: polyphony is quite original in itself, but when it comes accompanied with pictures, colors, and other meta-textual clues, it has no equal yet.
Sarah Pickup-Diligenti ©June 2006
A Late Divorce, by A. B. Yehoshua
Getting a divorce is not an easy decision, even though it sometimes looks and sounds like a soap opera. Some countries also have a very committed approach to the status of marriage and prohibit divorce or make it so difficult to obtain that couples stay together rather than engage in a difficult and costly procedure. Jewish law is even more particular in as much as the married couple must first obtain a religious divorce before getting a civil divorce.
A.B. Yehoshua’s novel is a masterful piece on such a subject. An old Israeli man comes back to Israel after a long absence to get a divorce from his institutionalized wife. This very short trip will last one week, culminating with Passover. It can also be seen as a parallel for the creation of the world: seven days to create the world, seven days to end a marriage and start another life thinks Yehouda, the divorce-seeking father. Each member of this very ordinary Israeli family relates the events in his or her voice: the young grandson, the son-in-law, the sons, the daughter-in-law, the daughter, the estranged wife, the father, even the son’s lover. By letting each character speaks out, Yehoshua brings to the surface many controversial aspects of Israeli life: the social and ethnic disdain with which Ashkenazi Jews consider Sephardic Jews, the intellectual contempt in which non-religious Jews keep their religious brothers, the distance between Diaspora Jews living in relative security in America and Israeli Jews confronted to economic hardship. Of course, with utmost respect for the protagonists, Yehoshua also manages to give us hindsight on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
However Jewish law seems at odds with the Western average view on divorce, other themes in the book explore the feud between tradition and modernity currently on-going in our Judeo-Christian society: Tsvi, the eldest son, is homosexual and his lover is a middle-aged family man who discovers his own sexual orientation late in life, as a distorted mirror-image of Yehouda seeking a late divorce. Asi, the youngest son, is a clichéd image of the Russian intellectual, with his quest for the permanent Laws of History and his over infatuation with his beautiful virgin wife Dina. Asi reminds the reader of both John Savage’s character in Andrei Konchalovsky’s movie Maria’s Lover as well as the rabbi allowed to seek “relief of unbearable urges” in the short story of the same name by Nathan Englander. The men in A Late Divorce are all poignant and moving, even Kedmi, the ever cynical son-in-law whose tactless jokes are an offense to the world’s greatest Jewish humorists, a sort of Woody Allen wannabe who would feel more at home in Manhattan than in Haifa. Amongst the female characters, Yehouda’s estranged and institutionalized wife remains a mystery: we are not convinced that she is mentally sick, or senile, or a psychopath, nor do we really get to understand the nature of her feelings towards Yehouda, or the reasons of her past and present actions. The reader is undecided when it comes to Ya’el and Dina, Yehouda’s daughter and daughter-in-law. Dina’s unbelievable status of virgin wife is not without reminding the reader of other religious stories, even though she might only be suffering from a medical condition that prevents her from fulfilling her conjugal duties. Each couple in the book, separated or living together, is an acute unnerving representation of the general society. They could be living next door to us, be adepts of other religions. They share universal motivations for their actions as well as universal values and dreams.
The oddest chapter in the book occurs when the narration suddenly jumps three years ahead, with the colorful but fleeting appearance of Yehouda’s American love interest, Connie, the woman for whom he was seeking a late divorce and his posthumous son. Because their appearance break the chronological narration, the reader‘s interest is even more teased. It is only through this chapter that the reader will understand that the seven days of Yehouda’s trip back to Israel had an unexpected ending. At the end of the story, one cannot but feel sorry for Yehouda that the rejuvenating experience he was enjoying in America with Connie will know an abrupt and even more incomprehensible end.
A. B. Yehoshua’s style is reminiscent of Faulkner in as much as he uses a polyphonic approach to narration. At times the characters are telling us what is happening, or dialoguing in front of our eyes, through their point of view, with another person. When Tsvi’s lover is given a voice, the chapter seems to be an exchange between him and Tsvi, and then him and Yehouda: the reader quickly realizes that he has access to only Tsvi’s lover’s words. The dialogue is in fact a self-introspecting monologue in a monumental tour de force. At other times they let us get inside their rambling thoughts: punctuation becomes sparse, to imitate the state of the mind, in a manner also found in James Joyce’s Ulysses. A. B. Yehoshua highly deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature.
© Sarah Diligenti-Pickup, October 2006
A.B. Yehoshua’s novel is a masterful piece on such a subject. An old Israeli man comes back to Israel after a long absence to get a divorce from his institutionalized wife. This very short trip will last one week, culminating with Passover. It can also be seen as a parallel for the creation of the world: seven days to create the world, seven days to end a marriage and start another life thinks Yehouda, the divorce-seeking father. Each member of this very ordinary Israeli family relates the events in his or her voice: the young grandson, the son-in-law, the sons, the daughter-in-law, the daughter, the estranged wife, the father, even the son’s lover. By letting each character speaks out, Yehoshua brings to the surface many controversial aspects of Israeli life: the social and ethnic disdain with which Ashkenazi Jews consider Sephardic Jews, the intellectual contempt in which non-religious Jews keep their religious brothers, the distance between Diaspora Jews living in relative security in America and Israeli Jews confronted to economic hardship. Of course, with utmost respect for the protagonists, Yehoshua also manages to give us hindsight on the Arab-Israeli conflict.
However Jewish law seems at odds with the Western average view on divorce, other themes in the book explore the feud between tradition and modernity currently on-going in our Judeo-Christian society: Tsvi, the eldest son, is homosexual and his lover is a middle-aged family man who discovers his own sexual orientation late in life, as a distorted mirror-image of Yehouda seeking a late divorce. Asi, the youngest son, is a clichéd image of the Russian intellectual, with his quest for the permanent Laws of History and his over infatuation with his beautiful virgin wife Dina. Asi reminds the reader of both John Savage’s character in Andrei Konchalovsky’s movie Maria’s Lover as well as the rabbi allowed to seek “relief of unbearable urges” in the short story of the same name by Nathan Englander. The men in A Late Divorce are all poignant and moving, even Kedmi, the ever cynical son-in-law whose tactless jokes are an offense to the world’s greatest Jewish humorists, a sort of Woody Allen wannabe who would feel more at home in Manhattan than in Haifa. Amongst the female characters, Yehouda’s estranged and institutionalized wife remains a mystery: we are not convinced that she is mentally sick, or senile, or a psychopath, nor do we really get to understand the nature of her feelings towards Yehouda, or the reasons of her past and present actions. The reader is undecided when it comes to Ya’el and Dina, Yehouda’s daughter and daughter-in-law. Dina’s unbelievable status of virgin wife is not without reminding the reader of other religious stories, even though she might only be suffering from a medical condition that prevents her from fulfilling her conjugal duties. Each couple in the book, separated or living together, is an acute unnerving representation of the general society. They could be living next door to us, be adepts of other religions. They share universal motivations for their actions as well as universal values and dreams.
The oddest chapter in the book occurs when the narration suddenly jumps three years ahead, with the colorful but fleeting appearance of Yehouda’s American love interest, Connie, the woman for whom he was seeking a late divorce and his posthumous son. Because their appearance break the chronological narration, the reader‘s interest is even more teased. It is only through this chapter that the reader will understand that the seven days of Yehouda’s trip back to Israel had an unexpected ending. At the end of the story, one cannot but feel sorry for Yehouda that the rejuvenating experience he was enjoying in America with Connie will know an abrupt and even more incomprehensible end.
A. B. Yehoshua’s style is reminiscent of Faulkner in as much as he uses a polyphonic approach to narration. At times the characters are telling us what is happening, or dialoguing in front of our eyes, through their point of view, with another person. When Tsvi’s lover is given a voice, the chapter seems to be an exchange between him and Tsvi, and then him and Yehouda: the reader quickly realizes that he has access to only Tsvi’s lover’s words. The dialogue is in fact a self-introspecting monologue in a monumental tour de force. At other times they let us get inside their rambling thoughts: punctuation becomes sparse, to imitate the state of the mind, in a manner also found in James Joyce’s Ulysses. A. B. Yehoshua highly deserves the Nobel Prize for Literature.
© Sarah Diligenti-Pickup, October 2006
Thursday, May 10, 2007
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