Fiction Recommend: Memory Wall

Memory Wall

Anthony Doerr

267 Pages

Scribner, 2011

One day about a year ago, I was riffling through books in the fiction paperback section at Barnes & Noble, a bit bored, none of the passages I read piquing my interest, when I opened a book titled The Shell Seekers. I turned to a page somewhere in the middle, picked a passage at random, and began to read. I don’t remember precisely what the particular paragraph was about (other than that it was nature-related), but I do remember my startling reaction to it: the unconscious holding of my breath, the delicious chill that rippled down my spine. I had a visceral response to the words I was reading, the kind you get when discovering an unbearably beautiful line of poetry or music that is so eloquent it hurts.

I bought the book of course. And that’s how I was introduced to the work of Anthony Doerr.

Not My Battle (In the Gothamist)

I am naïve sometimes. Each time I guilelessly believe something only to be jolted with the truth, I feel like a simple-minded child.  Here’s my latest experience:

This morning I read a short piece in the Gothamist about Rabbis plastering the Williamsburg streets with posters telling women to dress modestly. Although the piece was a mere three paragraphs short and featured a single quote by Baruch Herzfeld who said, “These men think they are doing God’s work, but they are fanatics — everyone in Williamsburg hates them,” it managed to garner 145 comments (at the time I’m writing this), with a fair share poking fun of Hasidim. Nothing unexpected (and some comments were actually hilarious). Nothing unexpected, either, that half the people who wrote seemed to have no clue about the Orthodox Jewish or Hasidic construct.

Anyhow, I perused the thread, promising myself that I would not join the discussion. “The battle is not yours to fight” and all that.

Protesting Naipul's Sexist Statements

Nobel laureate, Sir V. S. Naipul, made news last week when he unabashedly opined that no female author was equal to him, and that female writers, collectively, wrote badly. “Women writers are different,” he claimed, because of their “sentimentality, the narrow view of the world.”

I envisioned, the moment I read this, indignation—palpable and manic like a hemmed in frog—bouncing off countless women’s skins. I saw these women pounding their keyboards, writing irascible comments on blogs, web sites, twitter, facebook, or anywhere else they could spew their outrage against the revolting statements made by this “abominable” man.

Indeed, nearly every online newspaper that covered this story was inundated with furious, passionate comments, mostly from women. To these women, it didn’t matter that they themselves weren’t writers; they felt personally insulted, regardless. And added to the pain of the insult itself was the anger that the criticism was unjustified. One only had to read the work of Joyce Carol Oates, Barbara Kingsolver, Toni Morrison, Deborah Eisenberg, Alice Munro or Margaret Atwood (to name just a smattering of modern day female fiction writers) to know how absurdly baseless Naipul’s remarks are.

Mouth Full of Argument and No One to Argue With

So this is a conversation I had with a friend about a week ago:

Me: Did you see the post on Blog X?

Friend: You mean where he put up a picture of a poster in Williamsburg that tells women to move to a side when men are likely to bump into them?

Me: Yep, that’s the one.

Friend: Ugh, disgusting. The frummies keep making up new chumrahs every day.

Me: But that poster is just put up by one meshugane guy. Same guy who hires a car with a microphone every chol hamoed, shouting that no one should go and see the plays and presentations performed at different venues. He’s a fruitcake.

Publications Represent The Ideal: My Response to Amy Davidson in the New Yorker

I received an email from a friend informing me that my Photoshopped Hillary post was mentioned in the New Yorker. Intrigued (and not a little flattered), I clicked on the link my friend provided. Well, turns out, I wasn’t exactly mentioned in a New Yorker article (*sigh*), but someone did recommend my post in the comment section on a piece called, “The Bin Laden Raid and the Vanishing Women,” by Amy Davidson.

Although it was quite deflating to find out no one at the New Yorker had noticed my lovely blog, I was actually glad I’d gotten to read Davidson’s short essay. Not because it was an enjoyable, funny little read—although it was!—but because I disagreed with a point she made and wanted to comment on it. Unfortunately, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t register with the site, and you have to be registered in order to comment. (If anyone knows how to go about registering, please let me know. My email to the mag went unanswered.)

The Photoshopped Hilary Clinton Brouhaha

Ultra-Orthodoxy (aka Hasidism) is one of the most misunderstood denominations, and the brouhaha over the photoshopped Hilary Clinton picture is the latest example. The general assumption is that women being refused “face space” in ultra-orthodox publications is due to a tacit attempt to “silence” the female voice as well as the overall lack of respect for women in ultra-orthodox society. Although several pundits—Albert Friedman, publisher of Di Tzeitung, and Dov Hikind, NYS Assemblyman, among them—have attempted to explain that not publishing images of women is merely a modesty standard that the Orthodox abide by, few people are listening.

And small wonder. Hilary Clinton is not what one would think of as a sex symbol. To say that cutting her picture is necessary in order not to incite lustful thoughts seems, to the world at large, a ludicrous explanation. Furthermore, feminist discourse has (thankfully, in my opinion) become commonplace, and so, the phrases “silencing the woman” and “dominant male ideology” are part of the layman’s lexicon, springing instinctively to mind in a situation such as this. Never mind that bookstores catering to the Orthodox are filled with books about inspirational women and/or by female authors, belying the silencing of women claim, and that the ultra-orthodox were on the whole, exceedingly supportive of Hilary during her run for presidency, negating the lack of respect for women claim. These facts are dismissed and ignored. As is typical with stereotypes and preconceived opinions, the popular viewpoint prevails, despite evidence to the contrary. 

New Look

Hello Readers,
A friend let me know that the design of my blog makes it difficult for people to read my posts on their phones. I actually loved the design, but function is more important than style. So I'm trying out this new look. If you have an opinion on it, please share.
RFiedler

The Nature of Hasidism: Guest Post by HH

What is Hassidisim (the Beshtian Judaic movement as opposed to the modern societal subculture)? There seem to be inconsistencies about the nature of Hassidism.

Hassidism is generally thought of as a folk movement, but the early-generation disciples (Hassidim) were strictly scholars. The romantic and archetypical future Hassidic leader is tortured by a poignant hankering to an eluding spirituality his young soul cannot achieve through Torah study alone until it finds contentment with the teachings of a Hassidic court. And Hassidic leaders are said to have plied their prowess to lure the elite, and many a strife erupted over the seduction of the rabbi’s-prodigal-son into the cult. Stories do abound about charismatic rebbes traversing the shtetels to inspire peasants, and profound maxims that ennoble the value of the simple Jewish soul are quoted. However, those were merely services provided by the movement to the populace. Hasidism has not, it seems, invited those peasants into its own ranks, leastways not during its early stages.

Documentary Recommend: Waiting For Superman

I don’t know who most of the readers of this blog are, but I suspect that few have gone to a U.S. public school or have sent/are sending their kids there. Still, it’s important to be aware of the sobering reality of our public school system, particularly how it fails minorities and those without decent financial resources. These people—the ones strapped in this morass of failure from which it is exceedingly difficult to climb out of—are our neighbors, our fellow passengers on the trains, our checkout cashiers, our deliverymen. They are also the ones we’re terrified of. The ones who burglarize our homes, taunt our kids in their schoolyards, even occasionally beat us to the point of needing hospitalization. To understand their reality, it is worthwhile to check out David Guggenheim’s documentary, Waiting for Superman. It may not make us less terrified, but it will at least give us some insight. And it may possibly help dispel bigotry and hatred and narrow-mindedness.

Food for Thought

I often have lunch at a particular restaurant and nearly every time I go, I spot a woman there. She appears to be in her 50s. She is tall, thin, beautiful, with that regal graciousness that certain women seen to inherently possess. She is always alone, always reading a book or magazine, and always orders the identical dish. She eats slowly and elegantly, as if she is savoring each spoonful. One time, just after she left, I struck up a conversation with the waiter. He informed me that this woman has been coming in for lunch every single day and eating the same exact dish for at least twenty-two years, which is when he started working at this restaurant.

This astounds me. What does this say about a person that she follows a specific regimen for more than two decades, never varying any part of it? And what does it say about me that I’m so, so curious about her?