Once upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid

Once Upon a Tale: 12 Illustrated Parables from the Dubno Maggid, by Gadi Pollack is a frum, or religious cartoon, based, as the title says, on the stories of the Dubno Maggid.   

The stories have a typical trajectory of Hasidic legendary tales.  The events in the world that we see, seemingly random, are really a part of God’s scheme to further both His will, and for the betterment of people. Usually, the conclusion of the story shows how God has been acting all along, pushing the story ahead, without the actors being aware of the divine script they follow until the very end.

Gadi does a good job in telling these stories, and his illustrations are brilliant and warm.  The Hebrew original is relatively easy to read with an intermediate knowledge of Israeli Hebrew, and some reading knowledge of more religious forms of the language, like Rabbinical Hebrew.

Flipping Out : Israeli Youth in India

This disturbing BBC documentary, Flipping Out, shows the problems of occupation in Israel of Palestinian territories, this time from the prospective of former soliders going to India following their three years of mandatory service.

For most, it is a rite of passage. A breathing space between the army, going to school, getting a job, and getting married.  But for some, it becomes a place to hide, to take drugs to mask mental problems, PTSD, depression, psychosis, caused or worsened by military service.

This is a sad film, which shows the terrible cost of living in Israel, at least for the individuals depicted here.  Once more, this film shows the price paid by the occupier.  It is a big toll; and young people pay the price.

New Territory for Malamud

New Life is Bernard Malamud’s college novel, based on his experience teaching in a land grant college in Oregon in the 1950s.  Coming after his success with The Assistant, and before his even greater success with The Fixer, this novel can be a bit of a letdown.  The college professor, the departmental intrigue, the faculty wife having an affair with the outsider to the department, are all elements of the “collage novel” we have seen before.   In this sense, there is nothing new here.

But Malamud is careful writer, laying each brick of the story carefully on the other, giving this all too conventional tale his own unique solidity.  He is fearless in what he puts his characters through, and his fairness to show how each on his responsible for his or her misery is unwavering. 

So, though New Life does not quite stand up to his great novels or short story collections, it is worth reading.  Malamud steers clear of overtly Jewish themes, by and large, and charts through some new territory.

A Book of Common Prayer

Joan Didion takes on quite an agenda in A Book of Common Prayer, only to not fulfill the vision of the novel.

First, there is the structure.  The novel is written in a fragmented format, but this does little to add to the plot, nor advance the interests of the characters, or give the novel any sense of forward momentum.  Rather, it confuses the reader, wondering where he or she is, and at what time.

Then there is character development.  Overall, the characters are written very sketchily --- with nearly shorthand annotations.  There is never the feeling the Didion is giving us much detail about their motivations and drives.  This is particularly the case with Charlotte, the main character.  So important are her actions, yet the narrative says little about what makes her act as she does.  This goes as well for her daughter.  She does something key to the entire novel, yet we don’t really learn why she does what she does, and how she got to that point.

Overall, the novel fails to please.  Certainly, Didion does many things well.  The sense of foreboding, the idea that bad things will occur, that bad people are around and ready to do their work, is always present.  This tension will prevent most people from putting this novel down.

The Alpha Diaries

A very open, real look at the cost of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories, The Alpha Diaries follows the routine of Israeli Army reservists during their term of service.  The film follows Alpha Company as they perform the difficult task of house to house searches for terrorists in Palestinian towns and villages.

The films main message is that these men would rather not do this difficult and dangerous duty, were it not for a sense of loyalty to the men they serve with, and fear of punishment from the army.  Certainly, you can see the toll it takes on the men to go through Palestinian houses and examine people’s possessions, as they cower in the room, wide eyed and afraid, woken up in the middle of the night by heavily armed soldiers.

This documentary certainly proves the adage that an occupation harms both the people occupied, and the occupier.  It starts a cycle of dehumanization on both sides that is hard to stop.

Superstition Review Guest Blog Post

Superstition Review, founded and run by the always capable and kind Patricia Murphy, asked me to write a guest blog post.  

I wrote about the demands of writing and the idea of non-dual Judaism, two topics close to my head and heart.