The memoir of Rachel Semo Wool, For Better For Worse, is about her family's history going back to Bulgaria before the first World War. It is fascinating the amount of detail she has both remembered and been able to collect about her relatives and how they lived life in Jewish Bulgaria all the way through til 1945.
Rachel reminisced with family members to flesh out the parts she could not remember or those experiences that happened before she was born. Rachel or Shelly the family nickname for Rachel comes from a long and large extended family that lived for the most part in Sofia, Bulgaria. She herself is the second daughter of Dr. Yosef and Flora Semo. Her story starts with the matriarch of the family Baba Vintura who was orphaned at the age of 12 in 1870. When her brothers married, her parents left her in their care and moved to the Holy Land, Palestine. Vintura's brothers quickly married her off and so starts the story of Rachel Semo Wool's family saga.
This book is a wonderful chronicle of how life was lived in Europe during the early part of the 20th century. How marriages were arranged and how children were treated and behaved. The importance of work in comparison to schooling, and manual labor jobs in relation to professional positions.
Even if the reader doesn't know who any of the family members are in this book, and none of them are famous, this is a wonderful history of the average life in Bulgarian society.
Rachel's mother Flora spoke about her childhood and how she met and married her husband. Though Rachel is surprised by her mother's behavior, Flora explains that at the time that was how a child would behave and listen to her parents wishes. It is surprising in modern day by comparison, especially when you think about your own interactions with your parents or your child's responses to your trying to give advise as a parent.
Flora was given a special chance to go onto advanced education and studied dentistry for a year in Nancy, France. She loved her experience to be on her own, studying and socializing on her own far from home. But after the year, her parents required she return home. Her mother was afraid that if she studied for five years and then returned home she would never find a husband. That was the priority. Flora listened to her parents even though she was disappointed. Her daughter never understood and questioned her mother, "Why did you come back? Why did you give up your education? You were doing so well and had such a good time in France! Why didn't you graduate and get your degree?" First Flora explains that you just didn't behave that way in those days, "Resist?...What could I do? They paid my tuition! ....My father was busy with so many important things! My duty was to let him be. If he felt something was wrong, he reacted and tried to help out. If he didn't notice, I tried not to bother him."
Such a different way of thinking than children in present day society. each generation has changed the way parent treat their children and even Rachel couldn't understand her mother's behavior. Flora gave a further explanation, "It wasn't serious in France. ...In Bulgaria - at twenty five and with a nose like mine - I would have remained single, or gotten married to some old guy or a widower, and surely not an academic. Here, in Israel the conditions are totally different, and it's hard to explain what it was like there so many years ago. I agree that nowadays a girl should remain independent, provide for herself , and choose a suitable husband."
So from a historical perspective this is an interesting story. This is the story of a large extended Jewish family who were financially secure and well educated. Who with most of their entire family survived two World Wars and emigrated to Israel before the declaration of the state. They did suffer some setbacks and loses but that on the whole they were successful and happy.
Sunday, May 22, 2016
The Gallery of Vanishing Husbands
What a wonderful novel by Natasha Solomons! This is a story of about love and betrayal. It is also more deeply a story of about inner strength, self confidence and how other people perceive you.
Solomons uses the medium of painting to show how we can see beyond the person's exterior personification to their inner being.
Juliet Montague stands out in her community because she is a young married woman with two children whose husband has deserted her. In a religious Jewish community a person in this position is called an aguna, not married and not divorced. " The elderly Rabbi Shlonsky cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since he entered the house. 'In Jewish law only men can divorce women. Until your husband returns or dies or divorces you, then you are stuck. You are married and not married."
She is in limbo because a woman must have a legal paper signed by the husband releasing her from her marriage, but Juliet's husband has run off with the family money and a portrait painted of Juliet when she was a child.
The loss of this portrait becomes like an inability for people to see Juliet. She feels like she is invisible to the people who surround her. Without a husband she does not fit into the community she grew up in and and is raising her children in. She becomes rebellious and starts going against the accepted practices of her extended family and friends. Her parents are embarrassed by her behavior, but she begins to find happiness and recognition in the art world.
Juliet is celebrating her thirtieth birthday and on an outing to buy a new refrigerator she meets a young artist at a sidewalk show. She decides that she wants to have a new portrait painted. "After the business with George, the rabbis decided that she must become a living widow. He was the one who had vanished but to her dismay she found it was she who had been quietly disappearing piece by piece. At that moment, on her thirtieth birthday, she decided that she wanted something more than fridges, more even than paintings of girls reading in the sunlight, Juliet Montague want to be seen."
This decision reshapes her life and changes the direction her children's lives will take. Each of her children, a daughter, Frieda and her young son, Leonard. George, the vanished father, is the always on the periphery of their lives but the characters int his story make their own decisions right or wrong and learn how to live with their choices. We are introduced to the art world of portrait painters who, Solomon says, if they are really good can see past a person's exterior and see into their soul.
Reading this novel made me really think about how other people perceive me and what the message is tat I am trying to portray when I dress and act a certain way. Am I putting out my true self? Do people see me the way I see myself? What a terrific story!
Solomons uses the medium of painting to show how we can see beyond the person's exterior personification to their inner being.
Juliet Montague stands out in her community because she is a young married woman with two children whose husband has deserted her. In a religious Jewish community a person in this position is called an aguna, not married and not divorced. " The elderly Rabbi Shlonsky cleared his throat and spoke for the first time since he entered the house. 'In Jewish law only men can divorce women. Until your husband returns or dies or divorces you, then you are stuck. You are married and not married."
She is in limbo because a woman must have a legal paper signed by the husband releasing her from her marriage, but Juliet's husband has run off with the family money and a portrait painted of Juliet when she was a child.
The loss of this portrait becomes like an inability for people to see Juliet. She feels like she is invisible to the people who surround her. Without a husband she does not fit into the community she grew up in and and is raising her children in. She becomes rebellious and starts going against the accepted practices of her extended family and friends. Her parents are embarrassed by her behavior, but she begins to find happiness and recognition in the art world.
Juliet is celebrating her thirtieth birthday and on an outing to buy a new refrigerator she meets a young artist at a sidewalk show. She decides that she wants to have a new portrait painted. "After the business with George, the rabbis decided that she must become a living widow. He was the one who had vanished but to her dismay she found it was she who had been quietly disappearing piece by piece. At that moment, on her thirtieth birthday, she decided that she wanted something more than fridges, more even than paintings of girls reading in the sunlight, Juliet Montague want to be seen."
This decision reshapes her life and changes the direction her children's lives will take. Each of her children, a daughter, Frieda and her young son, Leonard. George, the vanished father, is the always on the periphery of their lives but the characters int his story make their own decisions right or wrong and learn how to live with their choices. We are introduced to the art world of portrait painters who, Solomon says, if they are really good can see past a person's exterior and see into their soul.
Reading this novel made me really think about how other people perceive me and what the message is tat I am trying to portray when I dress and act a certain way. Am I putting out my true self? Do people see me the way I see myself? What a terrific story!
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Lilac Girls
Lilac Girls written by Martha Hall Kelly is another fascinating novel that brings the reader back to the time of life leading up to and during World War II. This novel though takes a very different angle on this time period in history. Lilac Girls follows the lives of three different young women, each coming from different circumstances, each in a different country experiencing the war from avery different perspective.
Living in America, is a young New York socialite, Caroline Ferriday, working at the French consulate. She is determined to help the war effort by sending care packages to French orphaned children. As the war increases in intensity, and Hitler invades France Caroline works harder and harder to raise money to help the French children and then also a man important to her. The character in the book of Caroline was inspired by the real woman, Caroline Ferriday who did bring the "Rabbits" or Lapin Ladies to the United States for surgeries to correct the horrible surgical tests they were subjected to during the war. Martha Hall Kelly writes in a romance and fleshes out the Caroline's character for the novel but the facts about her are all true.
Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager is determined to help the war effort as a courier for the underground resistance movement. Working in a movie theatre selling tickets could be a good cover for her more dangerous assignments. A calm exterior and quick thinking is important as suspicious neighbors are watching ready to report unusual activity.
Newly graduated from medical school, Herta Oberheuser, accepts a job for a government medical position that seems like the answer to all her employment problems until she realizes that she is trapped in a male dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power. On the other side of the coin is Herta, also a real person whose character Kelly has developed for the novel with her imagination, but who did perform the horrific experiments on the women of Ravensbruck. Trying to delve into her mind and understand why and how someone could be so heartless and cruel is what the author creates for the reader here.
Lilac Girls follows separately at first each of these young ladies as they run up against the unthinkable. Each of the three main characters encounters the Nazi regime in a different way and as the novel moves forward the three stories interconnect. Caroline and Kasia are trying to bring justice to those who history mistreated. Herta is caught up in the Nazi machine and the cruelty of the time. this is an incredibly well told story that shows yet again a different side to the Holocaust and how so many different groups of people were subjected to terrible situations.
Also amazing is the story within the story of the "Rabbits" at the concentration camp Ravensbruck. This part of the book is based on real life women. Once again there is new information being written about and this time in this book, it is not the persecution of just Jewish women but of Polish Christian women as enemies of the state. Author Kelly explains in her notes, "The Rabbits were women who while at Ravensbruck were used as test cases for operations. They were known as Rabbits because after the tests were conducted on them they hopped around the camp and because they were the Nazi's experimental rabbits."
Living in America, is a young New York socialite, Caroline Ferriday, working at the French consulate. She is determined to help the war effort by sending care packages to French orphaned children. As the war increases in intensity, and Hitler invades France Caroline works harder and harder to raise money to help the French children and then also a man important to her. The character in the book of Caroline was inspired by the real woman, Caroline Ferriday who did bring the "Rabbits" or Lapin Ladies to the United States for surgeries to correct the horrible surgical tests they were subjected to during the war. Martha Hall Kelly writes in a romance and fleshes out the Caroline's character for the novel but the facts about her are all true.
Kasia Kuzmerick, a Polish teenager is determined to help the war effort as a courier for the underground resistance movement. Working in a movie theatre selling tickets could be a good cover for her more dangerous assignments. A calm exterior and quick thinking is important as suspicious neighbors are watching ready to report unusual activity.
Newly graduated from medical school, Herta Oberheuser, accepts a job for a government medical position that seems like the answer to all her employment problems until she realizes that she is trapped in a male dominated realm of Nazi secrets and power. On the other side of the coin is Herta, also a real person whose character Kelly has developed for the novel with her imagination, but who did perform the horrific experiments on the women of Ravensbruck. Trying to delve into her mind and understand why and how someone could be so heartless and cruel is what the author creates for the reader here.
Lilac Girls follows separately at first each of these young ladies as they run up against the unthinkable. Each of the three main characters encounters the Nazi regime in a different way and as the novel moves forward the three stories interconnect. Caroline and Kasia are trying to bring justice to those who history mistreated. Herta is caught up in the Nazi machine and the cruelty of the time. this is an incredibly well told story that shows yet again a different side to the Holocaust and how so many different groups of people were subjected to terrible situations.
Also amazing is the story within the story of the "Rabbits" at the concentration camp Ravensbruck. This part of the book is based on real life women. Once again there is new information being written about and this time in this book, it is not the persecution of just Jewish women but of Polish Christian women as enemies of the state. Author Kelly explains in her notes, "The Rabbits were women who while at Ravensbruck were used as test cases for operations. They were known as Rabbits because after the tests were conducted on them they hopped around the camp and because they were the Nazi's experimental rabbits."
Wednesday, May 11, 2016
“Shylock is My Name”
So I am about to do something here that I try never to do. I am going to review a book I did not like. I really wanted to like this book and was quite excited when I bought my copy, but try as hard as I could I did not find it an enjoyable read. In the past I have always thought that I would only review books I could recommend, but this time that doesn’t seem fair. I am sure there are others who will love this book.
A few years ago I read Jacobson’s novel, The Finkler Question. I also did not really enjoy that novel. But I had read it for a book discussion and the controversy of some people loving it and some not and others not feeling they had even understood it made for a great discussion.
Now this new book was being promoted and it sounded so interesting. The reviews described it as, “a clever and entertaining retelling of the "Merchant of Venice”. I even went to see Howard Jacobson speak at Temple Kehillath Israel in Brookline, MA in anticipation of this new book and the plot as he was describing it was enticing. So I am doubly disappointed that I again find that I just do not like Jacobson’s writing style.
So I am sure you are saying to yourself, what were you expecting, Shakespeare created Shylock as the ambiguous money lender. Through the years he has become the epitome of the negative Jewish stereotype, how the gentile world portrays the anti-semantic metaphor, greedy, vengeful and legalistic. So when Jacobson modernizes the character of Shylock, what can you expect. In the novel we have Shylock who has remained alive for four centuries meeting his modern day equivalent, Simon Strulovitch, an art dealer and conflicted father, in a cemetery.
Strulovitch is concerned with his daughter, Beatrice’s disassociation with her heritage and family becoming involved in a romantic relationship with a football player, just as Shylock was concerned with his daughter, Jessica running away.
I find that though Jacobson is described as writing “comic novels about Jewish dilemmas”, I just have a hard time finding them funny. His books portray Jews in a negative light, not humorous, and degrading not uplifting.
For example, first there is a discussion about money and wealth. Plurabelle, the modern day Portia, and D’Anton, the updated Antonio, are talking about a gift he has brought her when he comes to visit. She lives in a splendid home and says she is sad. She wonders if they are unhappy because they are the advantaged. D’Anton wonders if they are really the advantaged, “For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.”
The conversation I would say takes a turn toward the negative when they bring the subject of Jews in and say that Jews have to be the center of every drama, human or theological. Then in what must be meant as humorous, Plurabelle says, “So they don’t count is that what you are saying?” and when D’Anton says he doesn’t think so she counters with, “Oh yes they do,” she laughed. “That’s all they do. They just sit and count...and count….and count..”
Jacobson does deserve credit for being very creative with the reinterpretation of Shakespearean classic. As Strulovitch tries to extract his “pound of flesh”, Jacobson is exploring the concepts of Jewish identity and anti-semitism. In this novel Jacobson In the original story we have never been really sure if Shakespeare was himself anti-semitic and using the Shylock character as the vilification or if Shakespeare was letting Shylock speak to justify the anger of Jewish persecution.
I have given you some suggestion of the plot and will let each of you make your own determination of whether to read the book or not and how you feel after reading it.
Friday, April 15, 2016
Max's Diamonds
Now in his 80s after a career as an attorney, author Jay Greenfield is publishing his first novel, Max's Diamonds. Thanks to a small independent publishing company Chickadee Prince this novel will be reaching readers. It is a suspenseful plot that takes us from Brooklyn, NY at the end of World War II up to the 1990s, showing the progression of how Jews in United States thought about themselves and how they fit into American society. This is a story of inner conflict. The guilt of being a survivor of the Holocaust, of being a child of survivors, and the conflict of wanting to fit into American society but always feeling different.
This is the story of Paul Hartman, son of Czechoslovakian immigrants who escaped Nazi Europe and settled in the Arverne neighborhood of Rockaway Queens, NY. We hear the story from Paul's perspective, who as a young boy of 10 years old, looses his father to a heart attack and grows up first with the guilt of thinking it is his fault, then with the feeling that he also is somehow responsible for the death of Max.
Arverne is home to many Jewish immigrants who are struggling to make a living in America. Paul and his family run a grocery store and share a small apartment when cousin, Max, a survivor of the Holocaust comes to stay with them until he can get adjusted to life in the US. Paul is haunted for the rest of his life by the memory of Max, his tattooed number from Auschwitz and his mysterious cache of diamonds.
Paul's last memory of the lesson his taught him, "to beat them at their own game". So as he goes along this is the message drives him forward. It is a time of anti-Semitism in this country and Jews are trying to assimilate, to join clubs, attend universities and get jobs that have been closed off to minorities. At a time in history when Jackie Robinson is the first black to play professional baseball. Paul gets accepted to Columbia and then to Harvard and then to a law firm as the first token Jew.
Throughout the whole story, Paul is never comfortable in his own skin. He always feels like he is being tolerated or used, in his personal relationships and his jobs. Though he is an extremely successful lawyer he still feels like he doesn't really deserve the accolades, and that it could all disappear at any moment. At one point there is a chance for Paul to start over and move to Hong Kong and he sees this as an opportunity for change, "There would be an opportunity for new friendships and perhaps, romances in a place where he wouldn't often feel like the other - like the New York Jew who, with help from his father-in-law, made it big in a firm dominated by Boston Brahmins. Although he had achieved great professional and financial success at B & K, Paul never quite felt he belonged here."
Greenfield has given us a well paced plot that keeps the reader engaged in the well defined characters, wanting to find out what will happen to each of them, Paul, his family and his employers. This novel also covers many of the subjects of American history, including immigration out of war torn Europe, and how the Holocaust was a well kept secret by the survivors. Greenfield looks at how in the 1950s Jews were discriminated against in colleges and professional offices. Also what it was like to be part of the American Jews or children of survivors, knowing what it was like to feel like a victim.
This is the story of Paul Hartman, son of Czechoslovakian immigrants who escaped Nazi Europe and settled in the Arverne neighborhood of Rockaway Queens, NY. We hear the story from Paul's perspective, who as a young boy of 10 years old, looses his father to a heart attack and grows up first with the guilt of thinking it is his fault, then with the feeling that he also is somehow responsible for the death of Max.
Arverne is home to many Jewish immigrants who are struggling to make a living in America. Paul and his family run a grocery store and share a small apartment when cousin, Max, a survivor of the Holocaust comes to stay with them until he can get adjusted to life in the US. Paul is haunted for the rest of his life by the memory of Max, his tattooed number from Auschwitz and his mysterious cache of diamonds.
Paul's last memory of the lesson his taught him, "to beat them at their own game". So as he goes along this is the message drives him forward. It is a time of anti-Semitism in this country and Jews are trying to assimilate, to join clubs, attend universities and get jobs that have been closed off to minorities. At a time in history when Jackie Robinson is the first black to play professional baseball. Paul gets accepted to Columbia and then to Harvard and then to a law firm as the first token Jew.
Throughout the whole story, Paul is never comfortable in his own skin. He always feels like he is being tolerated or used, in his personal relationships and his jobs. Though he is an extremely successful lawyer he still feels like he doesn't really deserve the accolades, and that it could all disappear at any moment. At one point there is a chance for Paul to start over and move to Hong Kong and he sees this as an opportunity for change, "There would be an opportunity for new friendships and perhaps, romances in a place where he wouldn't often feel like the other - like the New York Jew who, with help from his father-in-law, made it big in a firm dominated by Boston Brahmins. Although he had achieved great professional and financial success at B & K, Paul never quite felt he belonged here."
Greenfield has given us a well paced plot that keeps the reader engaged in the well defined characters, wanting to find out what will happen to each of them, Paul, his family and his employers. This novel also covers many of the subjects of American history, including immigration out of war torn Europe, and how the Holocaust was a well kept secret by the survivors. Greenfield looks at how in the 1950s Jews were discriminated against in colleges and professional offices. Also what it was like to be part of the American Jews or children of survivors, knowing what it was like to feel like a victim.
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
the Madwoman Upstairs
Catherine Lowell has written quite an entertaining plot with a slow reveal that takes the reader on a journey through the books of the Bronte sisters. Sometimes it feels like Lowell might have started out to write a history of the Bronte family and then decided to write fiction instead of nonfiction.
We start the story off following Samantha Whipple off to The Old College at Oxford University. Samantha is the last surviving relative of the Bronte family. Her father, who she still morning the death of, was a brilliant author himself and spent Samantha's youth home schooling her, analyzing the literature of the family writers. There are among literary fanatics and scholarly circles rumors that there is a treasure trove of memorabilia, a hidden fortune of diaries, letters and original drafts of the novels that have been left to Samantha. She enters Oxford also wondering about the legacy her father has left her. He had mentioned a book called the The Warnings of Experience, but she does not know it is real or was just his imagination. Is there any real inheritance or are there just the copies of Jane Eyre, Wurthing Heights and The Tenet of Wildfell Hall.
Ensconced in the Tower, Samantha is studying with Professor James Orville who helps her unpack and understand the meaning of the novels. On her quest to find her inheritance and learn more about her father, she encounters many obstacles along the way. The reader along with Samantha interprets the meaning behind the words in Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey and Charlotte's Jane Eyre. We try to imagine how the sisters got along with each other and their brother, Bramwell. What were their lives like. Samantha has lead a lonely childhood and lived in a fantasy world with the Bronte sisters as her friends.
This is a fun well constructed story that slowly reveals the relationships of the characters and leads us and Samantha to the truth. Lowell has so many facts about the Bronte sisters and quotes from their books that the reader would be curious to read more about the Brontes after finishing this novel.
We start the story off following Samantha Whipple off to The Old College at Oxford University. Samantha is the last surviving relative of the Bronte family. Her father, who she still morning the death of, was a brilliant author himself and spent Samantha's youth home schooling her, analyzing the literature of the family writers. There are among literary fanatics and scholarly circles rumors that there is a treasure trove of memorabilia, a hidden fortune of diaries, letters and original drafts of the novels that have been left to Samantha. She enters Oxford also wondering about the legacy her father has left her. He had mentioned a book called the The Warnings of Experience, but she does not know it is real or was just his imagination. Is there any real inheritance or are there just the copies of Jane Eyre, Wurthing Heights and The Tenet of Wildfell Hall.
Ensconced in the Tower, Samantha is studying with Professor James Orville who helps her unpack and understand the meaning of the novels. On her quest to find her inheritance and learn more about her father, she encounters many obstacles along the way. The reader along with Samantha interprets the meaning behind the words in Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey and Charlotte's Jane Eyre. We try to imagine how the sisters got along with each other and their brother, Bramwell. What were their lives like. Samantha has lead a lonely childhood and lived in a fantasy world with the Bronte sisters as her friends.
This is a fun well constructed story that slowly reveals the relationships of the characters and leads us and Samantha to the truth. Lowell has so many facts about the Bronte sisters and quotes from their books that the reader would be curious to read more about the Brontes after finishing this novel.
Monday, April 4, 2016
The Passenger
Following in the tradition of novels that plop you down right in the middle of a character's life, Lisa Lutz spends an incredible amount of the novel slowly hinting at the part of the main subject's life that you have missed out on. The Passenger, is a well written suspense story with the perfect mix of current calamities to keep you reading and just the right amount of intrigue about our heroine's past to keep you trying to guess what happened before we all met.
The main character, who we will meet as "Tanya Dubois" is ending a bad marriage and starting out on a new life. As she travels around the United States trying to stay one step ahead of her past she meets up with Blue, a woman who has troubles of her own to escape and Domenic, a policeman with questions of his own to answer. As Tanya tries to decide who her friends are and who she should be wary of, she learns how to live on the run.
This psychological thriller will keep you entangled with Tanya as she changes identities, hair color and bounces around from place to place trying to outrun her past. Finding out what defines you as a person and who you can trust and you cannot are the backdrop of this novel. This book starts out written in a quirky humorous style that slowly changes as Tanya gets more desperate. You can feel the pace changing as she gets more deeply involved in her effort to stay alive and out of prison. Then as she comes to terms with her past and her need to clear her name and get on with her life.
The main character, who we will meet as "Tanya Dubois" is ending a bad marriage and starting out on a new life. As she travels around the United States trying to stay one step ahead of her past she meets up with Blue, a woman who has troubles of her own to escape and Domenic, a policeman with questions of his own to answer. As Tanya tries to decide who her friends are and who she should be wary of, she learns how to live on the run.
This psychological thriller will keep you entangled with Tanya as she changes identities, hair color and bounces around from place to place trying to outrun her past. Finding out what defines you as a person and who you can trust and you cannot are the backdrop of this novel. This book starts out written in a quirky humorous style that slowly changes as Tanya gets more desperate. You can feel the pace changing as she gets more deeply involved in her effort to stay alive and out of prison. Then as she comes to terms with her past and her need to clear her name and get on with her life.
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