July 29, 2008
Everyone's Got a Story
About twice a week I get e-mails from aspiring screenwriters that go something like this:
Dear Mr. Avrech:
I have a great idea for a movie, can I tell it to you? I just need someone to write it down for me. Are you available? Maybe we can collaborate and then split the profits.
Here's my response:
Dear Aspiring Writer:
No. No. And no.
Sometimes I just write a single “no.” Less is more, you know what I mean?
Okay, this response might appear a bit blunt, maybe even cruel, but that's how I roll because I'm your basic anti-social writer happiest when chained to my desk and laptop, spinning my Hollywood yarns.
And gee willikers, would an aspiring surgeon write to a physician claiming to have a great idea for surgery and generously offer to split the profits?
I don't think so.
Now, when I get these cyber proposals I have formulated a new response:
Dear Aspiring Writer:
Contact Mrs. Ruchama K. Feuerman.
Everyone's Got a Story is Mrs. Feuerman's collection of 41 short stories from Jewish writers.
Ruchama K. Feuerman, author of that fine novel Seven Blessings, has been conducting writing workshops for fifteen years, and this volume is, in itself, a kind of advanced workshop for writers. At the start of each section Mrs. Feuerman offers tips and exercises on how to unleash the inner writer.
Just one excellent sample:
When creating characters, it's vital to know what your main character wants—really, really wants—and what's his secret flaw.
This is basic stuff, for novelists, short story writers, and screenwriters, but believe me, I have slugged my way through too many books, and too many scripts where this basic dramatic law is ignored.
This volume is a goldmine of tips for writers—all are clearly stated and free of grad school jargon. Not once does Mrs. Feuerman refer to “deconstructing the narrative.”
Thank G-d.
Hey, even I was taking notes.
Interpolation
The other day I was talking to my agent and he was telling me how much he likes my latest script. I go: “You know what, I think I'm finally getting the hang of this screenwriting gig.”
And I wasn't being my usual snarky self, I really meant it.
I confess: yours truly is always learning how to be a better writer.
End Interpolation
Anyhoo.
These short stories are remarkable; the volume is chock full of tales that are, for the most part, ignored by mainstream secular publishers, stories that are intensely Jewish, stories that explore with elegance and depth, hidden corners of the Jewish world.
Here are a few characters we meet:
In The Interview by Pia Wolcowitz, a member of the Bobover Chasidic community, the daughter of survivors learns a valuable lesson as her parents are taped by a coolly efficient Holocaust videographer. A fine and subtle meditation on survival.
A young man's journey to observant Judaism begins with speeding cars in Tara Eliwatt's unexpected Racing for My Father.
Crafted like a mystical mini-thriller, Gila Arnold's The Star and the Crescent details the journey of a seminary girl in Jerusalem whose devotion to prayer eventually brings her face to face with the ultimate challenge—a homicide bomber.
Bitter Harvest reveals the torment and helplessness as a loving father witnesses the unimaginable: his son passes away before is eyes. This story, a wrenching memoir, was authored by Alan D. Busch, long time Seraphic Secret reader and commenter.
There are so many fine stories in this collection that I feel guilty in singling out so few for praise. In truth, every story is a gem and Mrs. Feuerman has done a brilliant job of collecting such high quality work. Everyone's Got A Story offers good reading, and a guide to better writing—all in one handsome volume. Highly recommended.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:23 AM | Comments (38)
April 29, 2008
Israel-Arab Reader
Seraphic Secret recommends this fine volume. We received it a few days before Pesach and during the holiday read close to half the book. The original documents are real eye openers. If you care about Israel, if you care about history and truth, well, this book is essential reading.
Seraphic Secret often links to Professor Rubin's articulate articles. We have an ongoing correspondence with the good professor about Israel, terrorism, strategy and yes, even movies and old time Hollywood. Thus, it's a distinct honor and pleasure to bring this excellent book to our reader's attention.
“THE ISRAEL-ARAB READER”
Seventh edition
Edited by Walter Laqueur and Barry Rubin
Now available from Penguin publishers is this new edition of one of the most highly respected, widely used reference books on the Middle East, documenting the Arab-Israel conflict and peace process from its inception to the present day.
The book provides almost 300 primary texts covering more than a century of history. It documents the British mandate and early attempts to handle the conflict; Israel's independence and the outbreak of wars; international diplomatic efforts to make peace including the 1990s’ peace process and its breakdown. Materials are presented reflecting the positions of Arab leaders and states, Europeans, Israel, Palestinians, the USSR, and the United States. The texts of international resolutions and agreements, as well as accords made during the peace process, are also provided.
The result is a comprehensive work suitable for reading, reference, and teaching.
To order click here: Buy Now!
For detailed information on this book, follow this link: GLORIA Publication Catalog
Hedy Lamarr strongly urges you to purchase The Israel-Arab Reader. Scan courtesy Dr. Macro.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:20 AM | Comments (9)
September 18, 2007
Jihadists Endorse Hillary and Barak
My favorite bit of comedy from the Democrats is that support for Israel is a bi-partisan issue.
This is a Big Lie.
True, there are Democrats who support Israel. But the party as a whole, has made a landslide plunge to the left, has swallowed the poison pills of multi-culturalism, and moral equivalence. In this toxic brew Jew/Israel-hatred has infiltrated the Democratic party like a virus. Just scan the threads of the Daily Kos to get a sense of this wretched all-consuming medieval mindset.
But the proof that the Democrats are not good for Israel, not good for America and are favored by jihadists everywhere is readily available.
It's so naked that the Democrats, many of them Jews—what a shock—are in total denial.
Ask the jihadists.
This from the Cinnamon Stillwell, one of 27 Conservatives in San Francisco.
Last week, I was lucky enough to receive an advance reading copy of WorldNetDaily.com Jerusalem bureau chief Aaron Klein's soon to be released book, Schmoozing With Terrorists: From Hollywood to the Holy Land, Jihadists Reveal Their Global Plans—to a Jew!
While I haven't yet read the entire book, one particular chapter caught my eye. Noting how closely America's foes follow U.S. domestic politics, Klein interviewed a number of Palestinian and other assorted terrorists about their views on the 2008 presidential election. And guess who the terrorists endorse, above all others, for president? That's right. Hillary Clinton.
The chapter in question is titled, "Terrorists Go Ga-Ga Over Hillary Clinton," and indeed they do. They base their support on the belief that Hillary will pick up where her husband, former President Bill Clinton, left off, in regards to the failed Oslo Accords, thereby assisting them in their goal of annihilating Israel. They also base it on the understandable assumption that Hillary will effect a premature withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, which, they note, would be seen as an American defeat. In the process, the jihadists make a very strong case (at least for those are aren't on their side) for not following their advice.
Taking it a step further, the jihadists also endorse fellow presidential hopeful Barack Obama and heap praise upon the Democratic Party, and the left in general, for its, shall we say, rather weak-kneed approach to fighting terrorism. For Republicans, they have nothing but contempt. A badge of honor, if there ever was one.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jeremayakova
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:51 AM | Comments (14)
August 07, 2007
Celebrating the Warrior
I don't often do this but I'm reprinting an entire article from The New York Times. I'm surprised that they published this piece but I get the impression that Edward M. Rothstein has a great deal of editorial freedom.
In any case, the book he reviews and ponders The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West sounds fascinating and I've already ordered it. Rothstein muses on the necessity for the West to make ruthless war on the jihadists in order to triumph — an argument Seraphic Secret has made time and again. We urge all our readers to read this essay and we look forward to devouring the book that triggered such common sense thinking.
I have highlighted the passages in bold-type for they strike me as particularly powerful and relevant.
Reconsidering the Role of the Warrior in Our Post-Enlightenment World
by Edward M. Rothstein
August 6, 2007
In one of the final events of the recent Lincoln Center Festival, a lone Mongolian bard named Burenbayar came onstage and chanted The Secret History of the Mongols. He had memorized the 13th-century text during long hours grazing animals on the steppes of Central Asia. And as is true of many ancient sagas, he sang of arms and the man — that is, of warfare and heroism.
His subject was Genghis Khan, a conqueror of many peoples who was both barbarically ruthless and soulfully sentimental, reveling in revenge by tearing out an enemy’s heart and liver with his bare hands while also forgiving, again and again, the bloody treachery of an envious childhood friend. He was at all times a warrior whose goal was conquest and whose demands could not be assuaged, except by victory.
Almost every culture has such figures in their past, men like Odysseus, King David, Muhammad and Aeneas, whose triumphs were often attained through extreme, horrific battle. Such founding figures often also display powerful streaks of sensitivity and elevated vision along with prophetic abilities; on their broad chests and battle-readiness rest the later triumphs of their civilizations. But warriors don’t have to display such qualifying attributes; throughout history they are revered.
Except for now, it seems, and particularly in the West. Today we are so wary of the warrior that we would find it unthinkable to celebrate him with elaborate descriptions of the beheading or disemboweling of his enemies. Instead we think of the warrior as a fanatic, an extremist with a streak of the berserk.
In The Suicide of Reason: Radical Islam’s Threat to the West (Basic Books), a new book in which the idea of the fanatic warrior plays a central role, Lee Harris points out that the word berserk comes from Icelandic accounts of Norse warriors of the 12th century who were so fierce in battle they fought without armor and raged like wolves. They were called “berserksgangr.” These days we tend to think of all warriors as berserk.
It isn’t that we don’t recognize, at some level, a need for warriors. At least in our cinematic fantasies warrior heroes abound. But they are kept on a short leash; they need a license to kill. Though they keep testing constraints on acceptable behavior, when they violate them, people around them tend, as the films put it, to “die hard”; freelance warriors like those played by Bruce Willis pay a steep personal price.
It is a measure of how distant we are from the ancient Greeks, Mongols and Romans that the most complete contemporary incarnations of the warrior are supervillains. Such evildoers display, as their ancient models do, a fierce tribal loyalty; a scorn for any life that stands in their way; a blood lust that megalomaniacally affirms human expendability. “Do you expect me to talk?” James Bond asks Auric Goldfinger, who has strapped Bond to a table where a knifelike laser beam gradually approaches his crotch. The villain laughs in amazement and says: “No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die.”
We watch these figures or read about their exploits with a certain sense of superiority. We like to think we have transcended this kind of ruthlessness; we are no longer tribally bound, but universally concerned; we don’t imagine eliminating our enemies in battle, we imagine driving them to the bargaining table. The West, riven by tribal and religious wars for centuries, imagines that humanity is capable of overcoming that past. Genghis Khan has been superseded by Jimmy Carter. The world’s remaining barbarians, even those in our midst, will eventually come to learn the virtues of the Enlightenment, the powers of reason and the prospects of a democratic future.
On the other hand Mr. Harris’s arguments should give us pause. And his book demands close attention even by those who would mistakenly consider him another form of berserk. By taking a long view of history Mr. Harris argues that the modern view of how to vanquish enemies is based on false ideas: first, that history progresses; second, that it progresses toward greater influence of reason; and finally, that reason, through its powers, can overcome all opposition. Our smug disdain for the warrior, he suggests, is based on a mistaken view of the powers of modernity and the Enlightenment.
In Mr. Harris’s view these errors are affecting the crucial confrontations now taking place between jihadists and Western liberal culture. We keep straining, he says, to see terrorists as if they were just slightly more extreme versions of ourselves, reflecting our own convictions, as if the jihadist were advocating destruction in the name of a version of liberalism.
A Palestinian blows himself up in a pizza parlor, a Shiite drives a car bomb into a crowded plaza of Sunnis (or vice versa), videotapes display beheadings and Internet sites herald massacres. Such horrific deeds are taken almost as proof of suffering, poverty, frustration. The surest cure for terrorism, the argument goes, would be to ameliorate injustice; in the meantime violence can be curbed with well-considered policing.
But Mr. Harris suggests that the jihadist is more accurately thought of as a fanatic, a warrior of the old school, whose technique has been remarkably successful over the centuries. Such warfare accepts no rules other than fealty to the tribe and accepts no compromise other than victory. Islam, he points out, has made “permanent conquests in every part of the world into which it has expanded with only three exceptions: Spain, Sicily, and certain parts of the Balkans”: three areas where Islamic fanaticism was confronted with opposing fanaticism.
Mr. Harris argues that by failing to characterize Islamist warfare accurately, the West deludes itself, even employing another Enlightenment idea — tolerance — to grant harbor to those who seek to destroy it. And the West implicitly affirms that, in the end, reason will triumph.
But why? The Enlightenment had inordinate faith in itself and the evolutionary progress of history. But look closely at the few places in the world where these ideas have triumphed, Mr. Harris writes: their success is more fluke than destiny. Democracy and reason displaced warfare and fanaticism not because of their superior powers, but because of rare historical circumstances difficult to replicate (including, he argues, in Iraq). Their survival, far from being inevitable, is always tenuous; liberal societies will always need to live with war.
So Mr. Harris mounts a challenge, and even if we harbor less apocalyptic visions, that challenge is considerable. If we believe, as Mr. Harris affirms, that the societies that have arisen out of Enlightenment ideas, whatever their flaws, really are morally superior to others, if we are convinced that the values of the West are rare and crucial and fragile, then to what extent are we willing to make a stand on their behalf?
In the most extreme case, how does a liberal society embrace the practices of the warrior, which are inimical to its most fervent beliefs? Wouldn’t this destroy precisely what’s being defended? Mr. Harris can’t fully imagine the ways in which liberal society will evolve under such circumstances, but he believes we will soon need to find out. And one way or another somebody like Genghis Khan will be involved.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:45 AM | Comments (12)
July 29, 2007
Images Before the Shoah
The pictures, in black and white, are softly focused, but the images are sharp and striking.
These are our ancestors in Poland before the Holocaust. They are ordinary workers, scholars and doe-eyed schoolchildren; there are graves of holy Rabbis, the miraculous grave of a Polish nobleman who converted to Judaism, there's a yeshiva for young girls — I marvel at their fashionable haircuts. The photos of Polish synagogues are a revelation, each is a gem, a vernacular masterpiece — all destroyed by the Germans. These well educated Teutonic barbarians were not content to destroy Jewish lives, they were determined to stamp out every trace of authentic Jewish life. The Germans understood that Torah was and always will be the life-blood of the Jewish people.
The Jews of Poland were, for the most part, poor in material possessions, but their spiritual life was rich beyond imagination.
You gaze at these pictures and with each click of the cursor you want to reach through time and space and cry out a warning: “Jews, flee before it is too late; it is coming, a whirlwind of such terrible immensity that you and your entire world will be reduced to ashes.”
But of course, there is no rescue for this Jewish world — lovely faces, ordinary scenes, sublime architecture — frozen in grainy black and white.
It will all be wiped away: six million times.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Mordechai Schiller
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:51 AM | Comments (13)
July 20, 2007
Wild Boys Into Men
Seraphic Friend Tony Woodlief has written a great pamphlet. I've read it—twice—and encourage all my readers to order this fine work, and support the The New Pamphleteer. This is a cutting-edge conservative enterprise whose work echoes the early political pamphlets circulated by Tom Paine and other great American figures.
How does a hapless 21st century dad raise three young sons to manhood without taming their natural wildness? Modern society seems more interested in turning wild boys into mild boys, rather than harnessing their natural aggressiveness in traditional male virtues like protecting the innocent and seeking justice. Author Tony Woodlief describes his near-obsessive quest to find books, toys, movies, and other resources that teach boys to develop their character without losing what he calls “The Cowboy Gene.” In the course of that struggle, he finds out the true meaning of fatherhood.
To read an excerpt and order this wonderful pamphlet, go to The New Pamphleteer, here.
Oh, and Tony recommends my novel The Hebrew Kid and the Apache Maiden as a book that should be read by boys — for it will help teach them how to be men.
Karen and I wish you all a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 02:41 PM | Comments (4)
Jane Can't Get Published
Observing the decline of Britain is a sad, infuriating spectacle. The great people who stood alone and fought so heroically when the rest of Europe was being swallowed by the Nazi conflagration is but a pale shadow of its former self.
Yes, now we have an island seething with intellectual Jew-haters who disguise their medieval venom under academic credentials by labeling it anti-Zionism.
This same mind-set has now seen fit to remove Winston Churchill from the grade school syllabus, and replace his towering political and moral genius with politically correct sludge.
The British government now in power, with Orwellian mastery, refuses to use the phrase "war on terror"—as do the Democrats in America—and to further enable the aggressive jihadists down the street, the words "Islamic terror" are officially banned from all official government communiques. As do the Democrats in America—unofficially.
Indeed, the first casualty in war is the truth.
If all that wasn't bad enough, we now learn that the British, whom we thought were at least well-read Jew-haters and appeasers, are also, sigh, illiterate.
Jane Austen, weep for your not so great Britain.
She might have sold millions of books in the past 200 years, but a daring experiment has found Jane Austen would struggle to secure a book deal today.
David Lassman, a frustrated author and director of the Jane Austen Festival in the English town of Bath, sent off manuscripts featuring several chapters of Austen's most famous work to 18 publishers and agents, claiming it was all his work.
To his amazement all publishers rejected the manuscripts, and most failed to spot that he had ripped off opening chapters of Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey and Persuasion.
“I was staggered,” Mr Lassman told The Guardian newspaper.
“Here is one of the greatest writers that has lived, with her oeuvre securely fixed in the English canon and yet only one recipient recognised them as Austen's work.”
Mr Lassman decided to send off the manuscripts, which contained only slight alterations to Austen's words, in frustration at having his own original thriller rejected.
“I know it isn't a masterpiece but I think it is publishable,” he said.
“Yet nobody wanted it. I was talking with some friends and we wondered if Jane would find a publisher or agent if she were around today.”
The original article can be found here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, David Paulin.
Seraphic Friend Dr. Carol has just sent us this disturbing article about the rising tide of Jew-hatred in Britain.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 06:01 AM | Comments (13)
May 30, 2007
The Zogerke, the Liver & Yom Kippur
In the 1840's there were among the simple folk many women [in Europe] who did not know how to pray in Hebrew. Still, they felt a great need to pray on the Sabbath, and especially on the High Holy Days. And there were literate women who made a business of their learning, praying aloud for the others for a small fee. Such a woman was called a zogerke (literally, a reciter). In the smaller Jewish towns there might not be such a woman, and then a man (a zoger) had to crawl into a barrel that was put right in the middle of the women's section [of the synagogue]. From the midst of this fortress, surrounded by women, he read out the prayers. As may be imagined, this custom often resulted in comical incidents. That barrel was an inexhaustible source of new jokes.
On Yom Kippur the zogerke was supposed to recite the prayers in a tearful voice, so as to bring the women's gallery to weeping and remorse. Now in our community there was a woman, the wife of the butcher, who was hard of hearing. She begged the zogerke to pray a little louder; she'd give her an extra large liver from the shop if she would do it for her. The zogerke answered in her weeping prayer voice, weaving her reply into the recitation:
“The same with the liver, the same without the liver.”
A moment later the men were startled to hear the entire women's gallery sob aloud in full voice:
“The same with the liver, the same without the liver.”
A little while later one of the women was on her way home and met another woman just arriving at the synagogue.
“Where are they? What prayer are they up to?”
“Nu, the prayer about the liver.”
“Liver? Last year we didn't say anything like that!”
“Today, efsher (maybe), because it's a leap year.”
Rememberings: The World of a Russian Jewish Woman in the Nineteenth Century, by Pauline Wengeroff
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:11 AM | Comments (12)
April 08, 2007
Hollywood Vanity
In her fine book, Film Journal, the great photographer Eve Arnold records a photo session she had with Marlene Dietrich in the mid-sixties. Dietrich was no longer a young woman, but still a lovely and vigorous star.
Arnold, a thorough professional, snapped dozens of still photographs of the great actress.
When Arnold developed the prints, she knew in her gut that Dietrich would not be happy. Dietrich was acutely aware of her image; she knew lighting and angles better than most professional camermen.
In fact, Dietrich would probably be furious.
Arnold sealed the photos and negatives, and sent word to Dietrich that she, Arnold, had botched the job and the pictures were no good.
Arnold left the envelope at Magum studios in Paris with instructions that the pictures be locked away and no one allowed acess.
Well, Marlene Dietrich was a movie star and naturally had to have a look at the photos. She made her way to Magnum, charmed or intimidated everyone in sight, and managed to scrutinize the images.
She was imperious and pitying: "Sad," she said, "but poor Eve has really lost her touch."
I want to thank Seraphic friend Toronto Pearl for giving me Eve Arnold's book, Film Journal, as a gift. I will always cherish it. This fine volume focuses a unique lens on a specific corner of Hollywood life. Highly recommended.
For the last two days of Passover, Seraphic Secret will be off-line. Thus, we will not be writing until Wednesday. We wish all our readers a lovely and meaningful Pesach.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 05:23 PM | Comments (2)
March 25, 2007
Quick Cuts
Here are some books I've read in the past few days that I'd like to recommend. As you can see, they run the gamut:
Wisdom from the Batcave: How to Live a Super, Heroic Life by Cary A. Friedman. This is Batman as mussar, ethics. A slim and lovely volume that goes to the core of why we love this crime-fighter. Rabbi Friedman does a superb job of teasing moral lessons from the darkly lit Batcave.
The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook, Edited, Translated and Introduced by Ben Zion Bokser. This fine book consists of letters, aphorisms and excerpts from larger essays and other writings selected to provide a wide-ranging introduction to the thought and writings of Rav Kook, one of the great Jewish thinkers of the Twentieth Century.
The Golden West, by Daniel Fuchs. This might be one of the best books ever written about Hollywood by a working screenwriter. Fuchs wrote three well-received novels. They did not sell. He was brought out to Hollywood in 1939, and he stayed. He was not bitter. He was not angry. He was grateful for the sunshine, for the opportunity to make a good living. Fuchs understood the business and he also understood that the men and women who made the movies were a special breed inventing a new kind of culture. If you care about the real Hollywood, do not miss this book. There's also a fine introduction by John Updike.
On the Reliability of the Old Testament by K.A Kitchen Hey kids, guess what, the Torah is, uh, reliable. Actually, this is an extremely serious and scholarly refutation of the "minimalist school" by a Professor of Archeology, Classics, and Oriental Studies, University of Liverpool, England. My father has another name for the minimalists: Jew-haters.
A War Like No Other by Victor Davis Hanson. How Athens and Sparta fought on land and sea. It's all here: tactics, torture, targeted assasinations, terrorism. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Every page drips with lessons for our war on terror. Hanson is our Clausewitz, our greatest philosopher on war.
I'm Just Here for the Food by Alton Brown. Okay, I've finally learned how to crack an egg without getting eggshell in my omelette. Alton Brown is the Clausewitz of the kitchen; a warrior with a spatula.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:14 PM | Comments (10)
March 19, 2007
Jane Austen Quiz: The Answers
Last week we posted this:
Here's a little Pride and Prejudice quiz from So You Think You Know Jane Austen?
1. What first begins to attract Darcy to Elizabeth?
2. What bond forges an immediate friendship between the aristocratic Darcy and the mercantile Mr. Gardiner?
3. What are the implications of Darcy's remark "I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these"?
4. Why does Mr. Bennet tease and tantalize his wife so?
As promised, here are the answers:
1. Her fine dark eyes and her brilliant complexion (usually a primary attraction in Jane Austen heroine's).
2. Angling. There are trout in the stream that runs through the Pemberley grounds. Mr. Gardiner, presumably, fishes along the Thames. Darcy offers to supply him with some tackle.
3. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, tourism to the Continent was curtailed. A gentleman turned to his books.
4. Because, in his way, he is a domestic tyrant. Teasing also seems the means by which he controls his irritation at her stupidity (and his own stupidity for having married her).
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:31 AM | Comments (0)
March 16, 2007
The Annotated Jane
Well, it looks like I'm going to have to buy another edition of Pride and Prejudice.
According to an article in today's NY Times by William Grimes, The Annotated Pride & Prejudice is quite a source book for Jane Austen fans.
Mr. Shapard explains absolutely everything. He restores the proper contemporary meanings to word like "condescending" (polite to inferiors) and "vicious" (inclined to vice). "Fun," it turns out, was a vogue word, the "awesome" of its day, which is why the flighty Lydia Bennet—the foolish sister who runs away with the despicable George Wickham—uses it a lot. Mr. Shapard sorts out the differences among a phaeton, a gig, a chaise and a curricle, distinctions as clear to Austen readers as the difference between a Volvo and a Porche is to us.
All the details of day-to-day English life around 1796 come under inspection: currency, card games, fashions, dance steps, etiquette, mealtimes, and the subtle gradations of social class.
Here are some other interesting Jane Austen books mentioned in the same article:
Jane Austen: The World of her Novels
So You Think You Know Jane Austen?
What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew
And here's a little Pride and Prejudice quiz from So You Think You Know Jane Austen?
1. What first begins to attract Darcy to Elizabeth?
2. What bond forges an immediate friendship between the aristocratic Darcy and the mercantile Mr. Gardiner?
3. What are the implications of Darcy's remark "I cannot comprehend the neglect of a family library in such days as these"?
4. Why does Mr. Bennet tease and tantalize his wife so?
Answers after Shabbos.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 07:57 AM | Comments (6)
December 26, 2006
Tanakh Companion: "Book of Samuel"
I happen to love learning the Ne'veim, the Prophets. Always have. It's the story-teller in me. The Ne'veim are filled with great characters, epic narratives, and let's face it, blood and guts and battles galore.
A new series has just been published by the Ben Yehuda Press, The Tanakh Companion to The Book of Samuel. There's a fine introduction by Rabbi Nathaniel Helfgot in which he explains the methodology used by the various scholars in the book:
"... the methodology shared by most of the authors (and the one that dominates most sophisticated Modern Orthodox study both here and in Israel) has been appropriately termed by my esteemed teacher, Rabbi Shlomo Carmy, "the literary-theological method to the study of the Bible."
"This approach makes systematic use of all the literary tools and methods that have come to the fore in the last hundred years while maintaining a firm control of all the classical exegetical literature. This study not only builds upon the insights of Midrash and classsical exegesis, but strives to engage the text directly as well, in order to tease out the profound religious meaning of the text."
The text from the Book of Samuel is presented in English and in Hebrew. This is an invaluable and thoughtful graphic design too often overlooked by some of our, ahem, more religious publishers, guaranteeing a wider readership for this worthy volume.
This is a book of essays, lectures really, by such fine scholars as Avraham Weiss on "Avigayil: Savior of David." David Silber on "The Birth of Samuel and the Birth of Kingship." Joshua Berman on "David's Request to Build the Temple."
Every single one of the thirteen essays in this book is a finely-cut gem.
Ben Yehuda Press has as its motto: Bible study in the spirit of modern and open Orthodox Judaism. This is a fine new Jewish publisher and I highly recommend this volume as a valuable addition to your Torah library.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 11:09 AM | Comments (10)
December 18, 2006
New Counterinsurgency Manual Released
The Pentagon has released a new counterinsurgency manual, jointly produced by the Army and Marine Corps. As the Foreward notes, "It has been 20 years since the Army published a field manual devoted exclusively to counterinsurgency operations. For the Marine Corps it has been 25 years. With our Soldiers and Marines fighting insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, it is essential that we give them a manual that provides principles and guidelines for counterinsurgency operations. Such guidance must be grounded in historical studies. However, it also must be informed by contemporary experiences." Experience, indeed. Steven Aftergood's "Secrecy News" blog of the Federation of American Scientists has the entire manual, and I will save it in the CT Library on this site.
To read the rest of this CounterTerrorism article, please click here.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
December 07, 2006
Rachel Corrie: Usable Goods
"Rachel Corrie's death is neither piteous nor pointless: it is pure bonanza. A predatory organization that callously endangers its human shields by placing them before the hideouts of war, it purports to preach non-violence -- except on its website, where it openly defends "armed struggle." Arafat, the warlord and terror chieftain who launched the intifada that was the ultimate ground of Rachel Corrie's death, lauded her as a "martyr"; for Arafat too, in the enduring propaganda blitz against the life of the Jewish state, she was usable goods. Media-savvy herself, she understood, as we have seen, the notion of a usable death: "the difficulties the Israeli army would face if they shot an unarmed US citizen."
You must read Cynthia Ozick's review of My Name is Rachel Corrie.
And of course you must read Yehudit's face to face with Rachel Corrie's American Gothic parents at the always invaluable blog, Kesher.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:10 PM | Comments (7)
November 29, 2006
The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature
Okaaaay! Any chance to mention our favorite writer, Jane Austen -- we'll take it.
Sure the Iranians are calling for the death of Israel and every Jew on the face of the earth, the North Koreans are scary as heck, the PA and their seventeen "security services" are hoping to be the new Einsatzgruppen, and Olmert and Co. are about as dumb a ruling party as the Jewish state has ever had--but hey, what else is new?
We've always got Jane, and honestly, this book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature, sounds like a wonderful antidote to the childish, self-indulgent academic leftists who, for too long, have poisoned the groves of academia.
FP: What are some of your favorite works of English literature and what do they mean to you?
Kantor: Jane Austen’s novels are right up there. The conventional wisdom now is that Austen was a really very “subversive” author—that her books are full of secret rage against “the patriarchy.” Nothing could be further from the truth. As I argue (with lots of examples from Austen’s side-splittingly funny novels) in The Politically Incorrect Guide, Austen is an astute observer of human nature who was well aware that most men would be immensely improved if they were a little more patriarchal than they are. Austen’s novels may be the most fun books in the English language. And they’re also a boost to your moral intelligence. They really inspire you to aim for personal integrity.
"...English Professors are a threat to our civilization"
To read the entire interview at Front Page Magazine, please click here.
Hat Tip: Seraphic Friend, Jeremiah
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:23 AM | Comments (5)
October 20, 2006
Seraphic Book Review -- Plus Deleted Scenes
From today's Los Angeles Jewish Journal, here's my review of Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom's Between The Lines of the Bible: A Study From the New School of Orthodox Torah Commentary, Published by Yashar Books, Inc. Brooklyn NY.
The original title of my review was: "The Unbearbale Pleasure of Torah Between the Lines."
I wrote a sidebar that was meant to achieve a few simple things:
1. To disclose that I daven with Rabbi Etshalom in the Young Israel of Century City Early Minyan.
2. To reveal that Rabbi Etshalom is a sophisticated and fun man, not an ivory tower scholar.
3. To infuse a little fun into an otherwise straightforward review.
4. And, let's face it, I can never pass up the opportunity to recommend a few great American, Japanese and Chinese films.
Anyway, the Journal cut the sidebar because they did not have the space.
But I do. And here it is.
Full disclosure: I’m a member of the Young Israel of Century City where I attend the early minyan. Guess who’s the Rabbi of the early minyan? Yup. Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom. Okay, you’re thinking I have to give this book a good review. Well, truth is, I didn’t have to review the book at all. I did it because I admired and learned a great deal from this fine volume. Besides, Rabbi Etshalom and I have a pretty proscribed relationship. After services, the minyan gathers in back and everyone positively dives for the cholent. Here’s an example of what Rabbi Etshalom and I talk about. As you’ll see, we Orthodox are involved in, um, truly profound Torah conversations.
Rabbi Etshalom: So Robert, what’s the best Civil War movie ever made?
Me: Ride with the Devil, 1999, starring Tobey Maguire, written by James Schamus and directed by Ang Lee. A neglected masterpiece.
Rabbi Etshalom: Okaaay. Never heard of it. I’ll Netflix it. Have you seen any really good martial arts movies lately?
Me: Hero, starring Jet Li and the stunning Ziyi Zhang. Look for the battle scene at the calligraphy school. Poetry in motion.
Rabbi Etshalom: Netflix again. I happen to love Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.
Me: The sword fight in the trees, a true b’racha.
Rabbi Etshalom: Can you recommend any great Japanese movies?
Me: Akira Kurosawa’s The Seven Samurai. The greatest movie ever made.
Rabbi Etshalom: Oh, I’ve seen it, of course.
Me: Rashomon.
Rabbi Etshalom: Are you kidding, a classic.
Me: Ugetsu.
Rabbi Etshalom: Noooooo, never even heard of it.
Me: Unbelievable film. It was produced in 1953, directed by the great Kenji Mizoguchi, and stars Machiko Kyo, absolutely the most talented and beautiful actress ever to appear in the movies. Mystical and terribly tragic. It’s like the most Jewish of Japanese movies.
Rabbi Etshalom: Great, this calls for more cholent.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:52 AM | Comments (17)
October 16, 2006
Woe to Live On
Recently, I called The Moonflower Vine, one of the finest American novels I had ever read.
This obscure book, the one and only novel ever written by the mysterious Jetta Carleton, appears to be autobiographical. But make no mistake about it, this is a supremely crafted work of fiction that is deeply imagined, vividly evoked in all its parts; a story that instantly grabs you, draws you into the lives and, yes, the passionate loves of five members of the Soames family: Matthew and Callie, the husband and wife, and their daughters, Jessica, Leonie, Mathy and Mary Jo the generous narrator.
The prose is light as air and yet at the same time dense and precise. Yes, Carleton's able to carry off these two seemingly contradictory techniques at the same time. Carleton slips into the minds of each character so effortlessly that we are never aware of her supreme craft. This, to me, signifies greatness in a writer: the ability to hide method. I have never cared for writers who make make their craft part of the story. This is material for grad students who have way too much time on their hands; grim and joyless professors who have forgotten the core love of stories, literary elites who no longer read yarns but, goodness gracious, get paid to "deconstruct texts."
INTERPOLATION #1
This is all just code for Marxist theory which the academics are currently relabeling. Afterall, their precious but murderous ideology sort of got a bad rap after word got out that their demigod Mao murdered some 60 million of his own people in the name of the, ahem, people's revolution. And the fall of the equally murderous and utterly corrupt Soviet Union was, er, not so good for the cause either. All those nasty gulags. But hey, that never seems to deter the true believers. They simply tell us and each other--endlessly, ponderously, insulting the facts and our intelligence--that that wasn't real communism.
Sound familiar?
Yup, just like the apologists for the jihadist throat-slitters, the fine folks who never tire of tellings us that that isn't real Islam.
Uh-huh.
END INTERPOLATION #1
Awareness of the author's craft has always sealed off a select group of great authors for me and made them, well, not-so-great. In fact, if not for some college lit courses, I would never crack the bindings of these author's books--for their works are boring, unpleasant, unreadable, in truth, unbearable. Here's a short list: everything Samuel Beckett ever wrote , the James Joyce of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, whole chunks of Faulkner, and the "mature" Henry James novels, The Golden Bowl, The Ambassadors, and The Wings of the Dove are a true misery. Did you know that James referred to himself as The Master? I suppose he had to--his book sales were dismal.
Anyway, I've received over a dozen private e-mails thanking me for recommending The Moonflower Vine. So far not a single Seraphic friend has scolded me for making them waste their money on purchasing the book, no one has told me that I've stolen hours from their lives. In fact, each and every Seraphic friend has so adored Moonflower that they have demanded that I recommend another obscure and great novel.
Not so easy.
The pressure is on.
I take my blogging responsibilities seriously. Ask Karen, at four in the morning when I should be sleeping I toss and I turn and feel guilty that I have yet to come up with just that right combination of greatness and obscurity.
It would be easy to reach into the back of my bookshelf...
I'm doing it riiiiight now, and pluck out--
--here we go, that fabulous but now obscure (Nobel Prize-winner, 1928) Norwegian novelist Sigrid Undsted and tell you to read her magnificent three-volume work Kristin Lavransdatter. Undsted's portrait of a single woman's life, and of course Norwegian society, in the 14th century is a true epic and at the same time an intimate portrait of a single soul.
But I'm not recommending this great trilogy. That's too easy. Besides, it's not in the American grain.
Okay, go ahead and read it if you want to. It's stupendous. And besides, how many Norwegian novels are you ever going to read?
Answer: Very few.
Do you remember Yom Kippur? My list of the Ten Top Civil War Movies, except there are only eight movies on the list because there aren't ten great Civil War movies.
Anywhooo.
Of that list, my highest recommendation went to Ride with the Devil. It is Ang Lee's best film. James Schamus wrote the script and in the comments section I pointed out, twice, I think, that there is a classic piece of dialogue. Here's the set-up.
Jake, Tobey Maguire, a Missouri bushwacker, has just married Sue Lee, played by country Western singer Jewel. On their wedding night, Sue Lee, a widow, senses Jake's sexual innocence.
Sue Lee: Are you a virgin?
Jake: Girl, I've killed fifteen men.
Afterwards, I wondered, was this brilliant exchange original dialogue or skillfully lifted from the the novel from which it was adapted?
Over Shabbos, I sat down and read Woe to Live On by Daniel Woodrell from which Ride with the Devil is based.
Read it straight through in three hours.
(And yes, that dazzling bit of dialogue is straight from the novel.)
I am here to say that Woe to Live On, a novel of the Civil War is:
1. Obscure
2. Great.
3. American.
4. Poetic.
5. Timeless.
6. Savage.
7. Lush.
8. Disciplined.
9. Understated.
10. True
Caution: Whereas The Moonflower Vine can be comfortably read by either male or female readers, I should point out that Woe to Live On is a classic "man's" novel. It has scenes of violence that are stomach churning--not in detail but because they are so very casual, as is violence in war.
The time is 1860, the place, the border states of Kansas and Missouri--
Interesting, The Moonflower Vine also takes place in Missouri.
Hmmmm.... Does anyone see a pattern emerging?
--While the regular armies clash in the east in the great battles of the Civil War, Jayhawkers and southern Bushwackers turn the border states into a wasteland, savaging all in their wake. They call themselves irregulars but they were American terrorists.
INTERPOLATION #2
Both the Northern and Confederate Armies treated these "irregulars" with the exact same measure of justice that men who did not wear uniforms deserved. When captured there were no long drawn-out trials, no prison terms , certainly no habeus corpus.
The irregulars were hung from the nearest tree. No precious lead was wasted on these spoilers of the rules of war.
North and South understood that a man without a uniform was an argument for chaos. As different as their ideologies the Army of the Potomac and the Army of Northern Virginia agreed that a man under a black flag deserved nothing but contempt -- and swift justice.
Alas, such moral clarity has been lost, hence we are a weaker and more vulnerable civilization.
We see ourselves as principled and compassionate, thus stronger. But our enemies see not justice and compassion but weakness and decadence.
Their perception is correct.
Our vision is dim and delusional
END INTERPOLATION #2
Woe to Live On is the story of sixteen-year old Jake Roedel, it is a unique and terrifying coming-of-age story. It's the story of love and war and we at Seraphic Secret consider this brief but powerful novel to be a uniquely great American work.
Read it and let us know what you think, for we are always anxious to hear from our wise readers.
Oh, and Virtual Jerusalem is running what has to be the most humilaiting dating experience ever in the How I Married Karen series.
This is the chapter that, I imagine, my offspring read, cringe, and publicly deny that I am their father.
Who can blame them?
To share in the humiliation, click here for Chapter 18, Flushing in Brooklyn.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 01:01 PM | Comments (8)
October 05, 2006
The Lover and the Beloved
If you want to understand what's happening in the world right now, just read William Manchester's Winston Spencer Churchill: The Last Lion Alone, 1932-1940.
This superb volume book chronicles Churchill's courageous and lonely battle against pacifism, disarmament and appeasement. Churchill was politically isolated in Parliament, often jeered and scorned when he warned of the growing Nazi threat.
He fought men who had stooped to the acme of gullibility and self-delusion.
And it's happening once again as Islamic imperialism darkly threatens western civilization.
But I want to veer away from politics for a moment.
I want to ask a question -- about love.
Early in the book, Manchester writes about Clementine Churchill, Winston's loving and mostly loyal wife, and her brief three-month affair with a wealthy art dealer, Terence Philip.
Manchester quotes La Rochefoucauld: In any affair one partner is the lover and the other the beloved.
Long afterward Clementine conceded that the initiative had been hers.
Clementine said: "He made me love him."
Thus Philip, seven years younger, was the beloved.
The question I pose to my wise readers is: In marriage does this maxim also hold true?
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 03:41 PM | Comments (20)
July 21, 2006
Jane Austen & The War of Tammuz
The War of Tammuz, Hizbullah, Katyusha rockets, IDF casualties, kidnapped soldiers, UN barbarians; my every waking hour is preoccupied with Israel and her fate and how most of the world and the frenzied left in America have lined up against Israel, against Jews.
I wake in the middle of the night with lower back pain, a swamp of agony like you wouldn't believe.
Psychosomatic?
I crawl out of bed, grab the closest Jane Austen novel, Pride & Prejudice, and try to control the intensity of the pain by concentrating on Jane's impeccable prose, on her astonishing characters, on the perfection of her structure.
It works, to a degree.
This morning, comes the e-mail below from an old Seraphic Friend.
And so I feel justified in suspending my obsessive coverage and comments of the war zone, of the moral idiots who do not or cannot recognize evil because they live lives that are too leisured, too disconnected from any physical threats. Indeed, the most pivotal moment in their lives is whether to get a double or triple latte. To them, Hizbullah are interesting for the fashion potential of the turban Shiek Nasrallah wraps round his head, not that he might be storing chemical and biological weapons courtesy of Iran via Syria.
Seraphic Secret interrupts The War of Tammuz for Jane Austen and things about Jane Austen always matter.
Karen and I wish you all a lovely and meaningful Shabbos.
Dear Robert:
Since you are at fault for getting me so involved in "Pride and Prejudice," I had to write to you and give you my review of the book and the recent film adaptation starring Keira Knightley.
It is already a cliche to say that movies based on books are poor adaptations. There are also always the purists who complain of this or that change of detail. I have subscribed to this cliche on many an occasion. However, when it comes to the recent adaptation starring Keira Knightley, I was shocked to discover how thrilled to tears I was to discover how much I enjoyed the film and how pleased I was to discover its faithfulness to the Austen's novel. Often I judged its faithfulness by emotions engendered by certain scenes that were identical in every way to the emotions created by those passages in the book, only more so.
Some thoughts:
1) One remarkable achievement of the novel was its portrayal of the love and affection Elizabeth and Jane bore for one another. I have noticed the tendency all novels have to put the main protagonist on a pedestal that leaves every single other character in the story, save the love interest or on occasion the extraordinarily wise sagacious character, seem faulty or stupid or weak by comparison. Jane and Elizabeth's relationship break that rule. Keira Knightley and Rosamund Pike both do such an astounding job of portraying that sisterly closeness that I was in tears at certain parts of the film. Knightley's stunning smile that just breaks out like the sun suddenly coming above the horizon whenever Jane is happy does a much better job of demonstrating the love than my imagination could.
2) Matthew MacFadyen's Darcy was believable in all respects, cold and tender. Our first sight of his ability to smile splendidly, when Georgiana sees him for the first time, doesn't seem to contradict his previous behaviour.
3) The Bingley siblings were a delight to behold. I did not perceive the book's Caroline to be as haughty as the movie's Caroline.
4) I hated the movie's Lydia as much as the book's Lydia. Slutty and stupid.
5) Dame Dench's Lady De Burgh could not have been done better. The movie's Mr. Collins evoked more sympathy than the book's version. But both do a splendid job of portraying the clueless buffoon he is.
6) A few changes I noticed: The movie gave the Lizzie-Darcy relationship a "love at first sight" quality I did not at all perceive in the book. Perhaps I missed it when I read it...
7) Keira's acting when she tells Darcy off at the first ball, speaking of dancing even with people you don't find tolerable merits her an Oscar even without the rest of the movie. The movie Lizzie's feelings are tangibly hurt far more than the novel Lizzie.
8) The statement made in the film by one of the younger daughters about being embarrassed by Mrs. Bennet, while the latter was in the room, made me feel for her in a way I never did when reading the book. Mrs. Bennet's comment to Lizzie about coming back to her when she has five daughters she needs to marry was poignant and added a new dimension to understanding her, as well as making me think worse of Mr. Bennet, who in comparison doesn't seem concerned about his daughters' futures.
9) One glaring error in the movie that deserves mention is the director's decision to put the Pemberly maid's comments, about how wonderful Darcy is, in the background noise of the scene, as if it didn't really matter. I only knew to listen because I was expecting it. Someone who had not read the book would think Lizzie's impression of Darcy was improved by the Greek statues!
10) The character of Charlotte was very ably represented. A far stronger character than the book's.
If you have any thoughts you have time to share, I would be appreciative.
Have a good Shabbos.
Eli
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 04:05 PM | Comments (7)
April 11, 2006
The Duel
"On July 16, 1940 George Orwell noted that many intellectuals of the London Left were completely defeatist, ready to give up, while the middle-class people were not."
This quote is from page 172 of John Lukacs's The Duel, an utterly absorbing study of the titanic eighty-day struggle between Churchill and Hitler, 10 May - 31 July 1940.
Hitler's powerful army had invaded and now occupied Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium, Holland, and France.
And now Germany was poised to invade England.
Chamberlain and Halifax, appeasers, stepped aside and Winston Churchill, an outsider, mocked as a "mongrel" by the British upper classes because of his American mother, formed a government and became a bulwark against the Nazi tide.
If not for Winston Churchill, Western Civilization as we know it today would probably not exist.
Reading this fine book is at times depressing for people do not change. The appeasers of the left are still with us. The ways in which Winston Churchill were mocked are achingly familiar.
True, George Bush does not have the oratory skills of Churchill, but he does recognize evil and he understands that the barbaric mindset, and the rising tide of terrorism and state sponsored terrorism of the Arab world can no longer be tolerated.
To most of the western world in the late 30's it was easier to believe that Herr Hitler could be dealt with, could be negotiated with. There were peace parties all over Britian, especially in the churches, well meaning dolts who made sure that Britian was not prepared for war. And as a result millions died, deaths that could easily have been avoided. These peace parties, ultimately, are mass murderers.
And they are still with us. A branch of the Presbyterian Church just met with Hamas in Beirut about divesting from Israel. These Church people are collaborating with mass murderers, collaborating with a government whose covenant calls for the destruction of Israel.
To me what's most interesting about this book is that Churchill always understood Hitler whereas Hitler never really understood Winston Churchill; no Hitler spent much more time simply hating Churchill.
And Hitler absolutely never understood the first thing about America. Which ultimately crushed him.
I look at the Arab world and I pretty much see the same scenario playing itself out in the long run. Political Islam has a only a surface understanding of America and Americans. Their contempt for America, and especially for American women and their freedoms, trumps all.
For if they were to truly get to know us, truly understand us, they would instantly become one of us; and so they keep their distance with a blinding hatred that in the end will lead to their demise.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:10 AM | Comments (25)
April 07, 2006
Red Zone
Today, April 7, is Iraq Liberation Day. Three years ago, Iraq was liberated from the iron fist of one of the most repressive regimes this world has ever seen.
To honor this liberation I'd like to recommend the finest book written about post Saddam Iraq: Into the Red Zone by Steven Vincent.
Vincent was a critic for glossy art magazines when the twin towers came crashing down. So deeply was he effected by the atrocity, that he moved heaven and earth to get to Iraq so he could understand and report on what he saw.
Vincent is a rarity from the NY art world. He recognizes evil when he sees it.
Vincent is also particularly sensitive to the nuances of the battle of words that define how wars are fought. He scolds the mainstream media for labeling the murderers in Iraq as "insurgents." Call them what they are: "fascists" or "paramilitaries." Calling them insurgents, he notes, gives them a romantic air, and gives them a legitimacy they do not deserve.
Vincent reserves his most scalding criticism for the so-called "peace activists" who flood Iraq with their "fact finding" missions.
"Really, was Saddam that bad?" says one of these clueless anti-American leftists.
For the truth about these Canadian/Mennonite/Christian/Communist/Lenninist "peace" groups is that they only appear to bash America and Israel, but never true tyrannies.
And of course, not one of these peace groups raised a voice when Steven Vincent, this good and supremely talented man, was kidnapped and murdered by fascist thugs.
May his memory be a blessing.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:24 AM | Comments (18)
March 28, 2006
Another World
It's funny, I love novels, I love movies, and yet, perhaps my favorite book of all time is a non-fiction work that I've read maybe six or seven times. Perhaps I like it so much because the world it presents is so utterly foreign that it reads and feels like fiction.
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman sits on a corner of my desk. It is a well thumbed paperback, spine cracked, pages spilling out. I think this is the third copy I've owned. Every once in a while I pick it up, open it at random, just read, and I am absolutely transported to a different world. The medieval world of crusades and castles, cathedrals and chivalry, but truly a time of chaos, where war and passions and assassinations ruled state craft. This is the only book I've ever read where I've actually felt as if the medieval mind I'm meeting is an alien thing.
The men who ruled their states seemed to have little impulse control, and committed terrible murders with little thought for long term consequences. Suffering was great and the serfs were expected to do most of it; whereas the nobles took it as their birthright to, well, enjoy themselves at everyone else's expense. The clergy were almost entirely corrupt and debauched, and naturally everyone hated the Jews.
Decency, or what we think of as goodness, was in short supply.
Heaven, hell and demons, were as real, as physically present as the most ordinary objects of every day life.
Women were, of course, treated like objects of commerce. It was no fun being a woman in the 14th century. If you were a noblewoman you were sold into marriage or you were thrust into some cold convent. If you were a female serf, you were lucky if your husband did not beat you to a pulp.
This is a great book and though we in the west have changed, human nature has not. The 14th century lives on in many parts of the mideast and Africa.
I recognize it in the sectarian slaughter in Iraq, in the killing fields of Rwanda, in the so-called honor killings all over the Arab world, in the homicide bombings in Israel, in the Janjaweed terrorists of Darfur.
Gosh, my fingers are actually getting numb just thinking of all the 14th century type states that still pockmark our globe.
Read this fine work. It is at once foreign and tragically, totally recognizable.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 10:29 AM | Comments (43)
March 27, 2006
The Best Plot Device... Ever
Last week, in the comments section, in an almost throw-a-way line, I said that it seemed to me that the most common literary device in the European novel revolved around the question of: "What do we do with our unmarried women?"
I received several private e-mails asking me if I was serious about this observation and if so, could I supply some more examples.
Well, I am serious.
The more novels I read, the more obvious it becomes that the standard plot device, and I have used it myself, see my movie, A Stranger Among Us is, The Umarried Woman Question.
Let us proceed.
Roxana by Daniel Defoe, 1724. This is an amazing novel about a beautiful woman who manipulates the social system and the accidents of her life to survive. This novel is dark. There is great psychological, sociological and economic insight. Roxana and Defoe have not progressed where the main character can lead an independent life, but all the right questions are posed.
Pamela by Samuel Richardson , 1740. A fifteen-year-old waiting maid's employer dies. She is pursued and preyed upon by the son. Pamela preserves her virtue even after he abducts and imprisons her and attemps to bribe her! Not one to give up, he even attacks her in her bed while a housekeeper holds Pamela's hands. Pamela goes nuts. The son falls into remorse and the rest of the novel is about his reformation. This novel is about education, about models of good behaviour, but the main theme of abduction and attempted rape of the virginal girl just keeps us turning the pages. We just have to find out what will happen to the unmarried young woman. It's in our DNA.
Persuasion by Jane Austen, 1818. I've written about Pride & Prejudice many times. Persuasion is also a very great book. Anne Elliot is 27-years-old. She's on the verge of becoming a spinster. Her family have lost their money and now live in reduced circumstances. Anne remeets her old suitor, a career naval officer whom she hasn't seen in eight years since his marriage proposal was turned down as not prestigious enough. Captain Wentworth, however, is now rich and respected, and is looking for a wife.
Jane Austen was the most important writer in the English language of her time. Her importance is hidden by her clever style and rapier like wit. She focuses on the emotional lives of women at a time when women, especially virginal women, were not allowed to have emotional lives. Austen pays close attention to what her women want. Most novelists, even into the Victorian era, required that women be ignorant of love and choice until they were properly solicited with an offer of money and marriage. Austen's women are also ferociously intelligent and ambitious without impugning their virtue.
Persuasion is not as lighhearted as Pride and Prejudice nor as forgiving as Emma. But it is her most passionate and her most haunting book.
In brief, a few more great novels that address the question of What to do with our girls/women? And now, you will notice that some of the novels move off into a new territory which I call: Once we've married them off, oy-vey.
Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte, 1847. Actually, this novel wants to know, "What do women want?"
Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte, 1847. A wild story about intransient passion, male and female. Truly, one of the most surrealistic novels ever penned.
Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray, 1848. Becky Sharpe. No one has ever known what the heck to do with this little minx.
Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert, 1857. This is The Elvis, The King, of the I'm Married, oy-vey, What do I do now? novels.
Therese Raquin, by Emile Zola, 1867. This one ends with a Japanese like double suicide. One of the most depressing novels ever written.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:55 AM | Comments (38)
March 23, 2006
Detour
Novels were invented to be read by the common man and woman; they were written to be accessible; no specialized knowledge is needed to enjoy the pleasures of a good story.
As a child I would curl up in a corner of my bed, open a book and dive into the words. I particularly enjoyed the Tom Swift series, or The Hardy Boys. I loved the drawings at the beginning of each chapter and I would often read a chapter then go back and compare the drawing to the words.
When Karen and I founded Seraphic Press and published The Hebrew Kid and The Apache Maiden, we took great care to supply beautiful drawings for each chapter. I wanted to give readers that same special feeling I had as a child, a feeling I have seen eroded over the years, of a fine book, carefully made and lovingly published.
As I grew older and my tastes in stories matured. Among others, I discovered Jane Austen. Pride & Prejudice has always been a fine guide to personal integrity. Anthony Trollope knows exactly how marriage works--and does not work. I understand more about the French Revolution by reading Dicken's A Tale of Two Cities, than by plowing through a dozen dry histories. And when I read that there has been a typhoon in Japan I remember The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki.
It's odd, college literature courses took the pleasure of reading right out of me. The heavy theories. The turf battles fought by various mean-spirited professors. I didn't do well in these courses. I didn't get the narrow theories. The love of the words and stories was lost under an avalanche of "discourse."
It took years for me to get back to the love of reading after graduating from college. But once there, I was more certain of my love of words and stories than ever.
Sometimes, you have to take a short detour to get where you belong.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 09:03 AM | Comments (83)
March 08, 2006
Learning Patience IV
For our final look at Alistair Horne's Savage War of Peace, an encyclopediac study of The Battle of Algiers, we turn our gaze upon the Jews of Algeria for they were truly stuck between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
The Jews in Algeria comprised about one fifth of the non Muslim population. Tragically, they were trapped between the European colonists and the native Muslim people.
Many Jews could trace their ancestry back to the expulsions from 16th century Spain; some even claimed to pre-date the invaders who surged out of the Arabian peninsula in the 11th Century. No matter the exact dates, the Jews of Algeria were an old and established community with deep roots and an abiding love of the land.
By the 1830's the Jews of Algeria had become an underprivileged community, fallen into poverty, and it was with the advent of the French colonists that their opportunity arose to improve their status. By the 1870's more prosperous Jews from outside Algeria began to arrive and the quality of the lives of the native Algerian Jews improved considerably.
In the Second World War, Petain's antisemitic regime repealed decrees of Jewish Rights, The Cremieux Decrees, and Jewish teachers and school children were expelled from all European schools in Algeria.
The whole community was threatened with mass deporation to Nazi death camps--which thank G-d, never took place.
By the 1950's the Algerian Jews were tugged in several directions. The poorest tended to identify with the Muslims rather than the French colonials, and many were members of the Communist Party. The wealthiest Jews identified strongly with the Parisian life style and scorned the local Muslims.
By 1954 a majority of the Jewish intellectuals and professionals sided with the Algerian insurgents. In August 1956 a group of Constantine Jews wrote a public letter declaring that:
"One of the most pernicious manoeuvers of colonialism in Algeria was, and remains, the division between Jews and Muslims... the Jew has been in Algeria foe over 2,000 years; they are thus an integral part of the Algerian people."
Frantz Fanon wrote: "The Jews were to provide invaluable services as the eyes and ears of the revolution, often acting as double agents against the French."
This was not enough for the FLN. By 1960, they tightened the screws on the Jewish population, demanding that the Jews en masse, declare itself publicly for the FLN.
By now, the Jews were "uncommitted." There was never such a thing as a united front among the Jews of Algeria. Besides, there had been too much indiscriminate terror, too much throat slitting, too much rape; the Jews were not fools, they knew that such revolutions eat their young.
The Jews of Algeria found themselves subjected to the cruel logic of terrorism. Typical was this letter to a Jewish shopkeeper:
"Sir, if on Wednesday you do not hand us a sum of two million francs, your daughter will be abducted and will serve as a mattress for the army of liberation... If you do not follow our instructions, your shop will be blown up and we shall have your skins, yours and your wife's."
In the spring of 1960, a terrorist grenade was tossed in the Jewish ghetto. In March the following year Jacob Chekroun, the Rabbi of Medea was murdered on the steps of his synagogue. The following month an FLN boycott was imposed on Jewish shops.
Whole families were riven by conflicting loyalties. The Levy family of Algiers is a particularly poignant and tragic tale. The father would be assasinated by the French as an FLN sympathiser while his son was murdered by the FLN on suspicion of being a French agent.
The end of the Algerian Jewish community finally came with France's withdrawal from Algeria and her independence in 1962. And as always, when the day of reckoning came, all the Jews were lumped together into the same boat--a boat that would sail away from Algeria, never to return.
Over 100,000 Algerian Jews, most of them poor, backward, and disease ridden, fled their homes, and poured into metropolitan France.
But in a sense they were more fortunate than the other loyal Muslims who fought for France and who were now abandoned to their fate to be massacred in the thousands by the vengeful FLN.
The Jews of Algeria were the historic canary in the mine. To judge the decency of any society, look at how the Jews are treated. The French treated the Jews wretchedly and so did the Muslims.
Now, the children and grandchildren of these Algerian Jews are once again witness to their homeland being devoured by Muslim terrorists. The French will do nothing; they know not what to defend for they believe in nothing.
In ten years, I guarantee, the last of the Algerian Jewish community will be forced to leave the shores of France -- for Israel, America and Canada.
Thus will end The Battle of Algiers--for the Jews.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 12:40 PM | Comments (30)
March 03, 2006
Learning Patience III
Who were these leaders of the Battle of Algiers, these men who were so willing, no anxious to spill boiling rivers of innocent blood. This is not an academic question, for as we shall see, the cast of characters is sickeningly familiar. We continue exploring Alistair Horne's, Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962.
Mohamedi Said: Born in 1912, he had grown up with early memories of a French officer slapping his grandparents. Fanatically religious, he worked during the Second World War with the Pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem Hajj Amin Husaini, joining the Muslim S.S. legion formed by the Mufti. In 1943 he was parachuted into Tunisia as an Abwehr agent, was captured and sentenced to life in prison, but was paroled in 1952. Whether out of nostalgia for the good ol' days, or a whacky sense of fashion, he invariably appears in photos wearing a Wehrmacht steel helmet.
Ait Hamouda, AKA Amirouche: A skeletally tall montagnard with wide-set eyes and a thick moustache, he was also a deeply religious Muslim. Of remarkably quick and decisive intelligence, he assumed command of a small mobile unit, imposed iron discipline and made his men go on forced marches of seventy kilometers a day. Within six months he had over eight-hundred men under his command. Soon, he established a reign of terror in the Soummam region of Eastern Kabylia.
Ramdane Abane: Involved in a massacre that took place in 1945, he was jailed by the French. He studied Marx, Lenin and, surprise, Hitler's Mein Kampf. Released in 1955, he immediately made his mark as an outstanding political intellect. Something of an Algerian Robespierre, his sinister dictum was: "One corpse in a jacket is always worth more than twenty in uniform." From the spring of 1955 Ramdane Abane's philosophy was central to the Battle of Algiers, both in its external and internal operations.
Abane would tolerate no "deviationist bodies."
Which means, anybody who disagreed with his group, the FLN, died--horribly.
You would think that Abane and his group would turn their attention immediately to their prime enemy, the French.
But no, Abane realized that he had to impose iron discipline on the Algerian population. And after Phillipville, Abane and the other leaders realized, with great satisfaction, that terror worked.
Abane had no interest in bringing the masses to the movement through propaganda. Pressure and blackmail on the average poverty stricken fellah, peasant, worked much more effectively. The terror cadres "with the knife literally under his [the fellahs] throat, make him hand over 50,000 francs."
"They never sought to attach the rural populations to their cause by promising them a better life, a happier and freer future; no, it was through terror that they submitted them to their tyranny."
In 1956, a visitor was shocked at the silence he found in the typical Algerian villages, each one of them of which would be held by a local FLN thug who was responsible simply for collecting "taxes" and "food supplies."
It was also a customary initiation ritual for a new recruit to be made to kill a designated "traitor", French officer, or colonialist in the company of a "shadow" who would dispatch the recruit himself and make sure the murder took place. It was a form of terror apprenticeship.
Yes, even after Philippeville, it was fellow Muslims who bore the brunt of FLN terror. Over the first two and a half years of the Battle of Algiers 6,352 Algerians were murdered by the terrorists as opposed to 1,035 Europeans.
The FLN announced that cigarettes and liquor were unIslamic and would no longer be tolerated. It was also a way of boycotting French products.
The punishment for any Algerian caught with liquor was having their lips severed. It was called, The Algerian Grin.
The punishment for smoking was the severing of the nose.
In the Casbah the Chardor was now mandatory on all women. The repression of women had begun.
Interpolation:
I guarantee that in the Palestinian Territories you will see the exact same pattern play itself out. Hamas is no charitable organization. Do not fool yourself. It is a ruthless terrorist group that sends out homicide bombers. They will not set up sanitation services. They will not organize medical services. They will not fix pot holes. They will not build any power grids. They have no idea how to build an infrastructure, for this is an organization whose roots are solidly embedded in savage clan and tribal rivalries.
Hamas will "collect taxes," they will "eliminate traitors," repress women, and steal every penny that comes their way. Oh and kill Jews. Here, read their covenant, it tells you what their plan is. I don't know about you, but when someone tells me that they're going to slaughter me, I tend to believe them. Especially when they have such a bloody track record already.
End Interpolation:
If we look at Iraq, this all makes perfect sense through the lens of the Battle of Algiers. The daily homicide bombers against civilians is how the terrorists control the population. It's how they tell the Iraqis that they must not cooperate with the Americans.
The terrorists cannot offer a better life, this everyone knows. They cannot offer medical services, dental services, freedom of speech, nor education. They cannot offer a society where banks and stock markets function properly, where contracts are honored, a society where you are are safe to walk the streets, a society where women are not treated like cattle.
No, all the jihadists offer is mutilation and death. And they count on this to frighten the homefront, and ultimately intimidate civilization into complete submission.
Second Interpolation:
It is interesting to note that every single country that has thrown off its colonial shackles is now in far worse condition than it was when the colonials were in charge. Congo, Mozambique, Sudan, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Angola, Togo, Chad...
Sheesh, I'm getting tired, I just can't type all the countries that are on my list. My fingers are going numb. Okay, this is terribly un PC. But every single country in Africa that is now "free" is an economic basket case. Even South Africa, the last hope of Africa, hanging on by its fingernails, is drowning in AIDS. Algeria has just emerged from a twenty year civil war where over a million people had their throats slit.
The lesson? These violent Thirld World Revolutions invariably bring even worse goverments and even more terrible repression to their people.
End Second Interpolation:
Terror works.
But it doesn't always have to.
Not anymore.
We have learned too much about its corrupt innards. We, in the 21st Century have seen too much evil to tolerate this malignancy any longer. From the death camps of Eastern Europe to the genocidal covenant of Hamas, we can no longer allow these savages to nudge history backwards.
But we must stare terror in the eye and fight back in every way possible. That means we must fight militarily, and we must fight back softly, offering the best of what we have and who we are. And in the end, we will will prevail for we are not the French trying to colonize a foreign shore, but a free people offering other people the choice of freedom, and that is something every man and woman deserves.
***
Pearl, a good and loyal friend to Seraphic Secret since the very beginning, has just informed us that her father is gravely ill. She asks that everyone please daven, pray for "Yaakov Arieh ben Chaya Malka."
In this community of fine and wonderful people. Pearl's goodness and generosity stands out. She made the long trip from Toronto to Los Angeles for the Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture.
Pearl's pain is our pain. We wish her father a speedy recovery.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:07 AM | Comments (28)
March 02, 2006
Learning Patience Part II
One could easily argue that Al Queda and the worldwide jihad pansurgency has its roots in the Algerian War. Alistair Hornes' magnificent book Savage War of Peace, Algeria 1954-1962 is a must read for a thorough understanding of what's going on in Iraq and in the Muslim world today.
The Algerian insurgents were, at the beginning, a mix of westernized intellectuals and Muslim fundamentalists, but soon enough the Muslim jihadists took over. Simply put, they were more brutal, willing to commit the kind of atrocities that would put them in the vanguard.
It is vital to understand that what's going on in Iraq today is part of an old and reliable guerilla playbook. If you don't understand the military and political stages, then you are fated to be crushed beneath the wheels of the jihadists. There is nothing improvised about the daily homicide bombing. It is a carefully thought out tactic that is part of a grand strategy that stabs at the soft heart of the western middle class.
And the Battle of Algiers is where the Muslim jihadists first perfected it.
The strategy for modern terrorism was well defined by the Brazilian guerrilla leader, Carlos Marighela, before he was hunted down and killed:
"It is necessary to turn political crisis into armed conflict by performing violent actions that will force those in power to transform the political situation of the country into a military situation. That will alienate the masses, who, from then on, will revolt against the army and the police and blame them for this state of things."
Marighela's philosophy is simple: using terrorism will inevitably provoke the forces of law and order to strike back with overwhelming force and repression, thereby alienating the hithero uncommited native population. The idea is to polarise the situation into two extreme camps and make impossible any dialogue of compromise by eradicating the "soft center."
Wrote Marighela: "The government can only intensify its repression thus making the life of its citizens harder than ever... The population will refuse to collaborate with the authorities, so that the latter will find the only solution to their problems lies in having recourse to the actual physical liquidation of their opponents. The political situation of the country will become a military situation..."
It was along this line of thought that the Algerians started their war against civilains--without mercy, without quarter.
The opening attack came in a small hot place called Philippeville.
Seraphic Warning: The following contains a detailed description of a massacre. It is horrible and nauseating and if you have a weak stomach, read no further.
Philippeville was a small mining center of about 130 Europeans and about 2,000 Muslims, who for years had coexisted amicably. Apparently, labor relations were extremely good with a rare degree of equality between Muslim and European.
It appears that the whole Muslim community was aware of what was about to happen on August 20, 1955. A number of Muslim families even left town.
But no one warned the Europeans.
Shortly before noon, four groups of fifteen to twenty Muslim men attacked the village, taking it completely by surprise. They were led by Muslim mineworkers who knew each house and their neighbors. Intimately.
Telegraph lines were cut, the emergency radio transmitter was found to be "out of order" and the village constable who was equipped with warning rockets had "disappeared."
The Muslim attackers went from house to house, mercilessly slaughtering all the European occupants: men, women, children, infants. All the time egged on by Muslim women with their eerie ululations. From the Mosque exhortations to slit the throats of women and nurses in the cause of jihad.
It was not until two o'clock in the afternoon that a French Para unit managed to reach the town. An appalling sight greeted them. In houses literally washed with blood, European mothers were discovered with their throats slit and their bellies slashed open by bill-hooks. Children had suffered the same fate, and infants in arms had had their brains dashed against the wall. A mother disembowelled, her five-day old baby slashed to death and replaced in her open womb.
Four entire families had been wiped out to the last member; only six who had barricaded themselves in a house in the center of the village and had held out with sporting rifles and revolvers had survived.
Men returning from the mines had been ambushed in their cars and hacked to pieces. Altogether thirty-seven Europeans had died, including ten children under fifteen, and another thirteen had been left for dead.
The reaction of the French army was immediate. Out in the streets they found:
"...bodies literally strewed the town. The Arab children, wild with enthusiasm--to them it was a great holiday--rushed about yelling among the grown-ups. They finished off the dying. In one alley we found two of them kicking in an old woman's head. We had to kill them on the spot: they were crazed..."
The reprisals were severe. The Algerians claim that as many as 12,000 were killed by the French. The French cliam, 1,273. We will never know the truth.
But the Philippville Massacre had its intended impact. The polarizing effect that Marighela spoke of immediately took place. The Battle of Algiers went on for eight long bloody years, and the brutality on both sides was unspeakable -- for there was a burning river of blood between the French and the Algerians after Philippville.
In Iraq right now, the terrorists are working from the exact same playbook. They are murdering innocent civilians indiscriminantely. The hope is that the Americans will clamp down with even greater ferocity and the population will turn against the liberators. For make no mistake about it, the average Iraqi is relieved that Saddam and his gang of torturers, rapists and killers are gone.
So far, the Americans are playing it smart. They are reacting calmly and professionally. The terrorists are getting desperate, thus the attack on the Golden Mosque. An attempt to spark a civil war.
But on the homefront, the mainstrem media have not a clue as to the grand strategy the terrorists are using. They see car bombs, body parts, chaos and assume that all is lost. They do not understand warfare, worse, they do not understand evil.
In fact they enable evil with their foolish dispatches.
But there are some of us who understand jihad, some of us who understand evil, comprehend that this is a hundred years war that will be fought on a hundred far shores. We must be patient and yes, steadfast. It takes time and blood to defeat evil, but it can and must be done or we will be thrown back to the seventh century and its barbarian masters.
*****
Pearl, a good and loyal friend to Seraphic Secret since the very beginning, has just informed us that her father is gravely ill. She asks that everyone please daven, pray for "Yaakov Arieh ben Chaya Malka."
In this community of fine and wonderful people. Pearl's goodness and generosity stands out. She made the long trip from Toronto to Los Angeles for the Ariel Avrech Memorial Lecture.
Pearl's pain is our pain. We wish her father a speedy recovery.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:04 AM | Comments (49)
March 01, 2006
Learning From the Real The Battle of Algiers, Part I
The Battle of Algiers, directed by Gillo Pontocervo, is considered a modern classic. Certainly the use of cinema verite is highly effective and the scenes of torture and terror bring chills to any civilized viewer.
But let's be clear, the film is a work of leftist propaganda, beautifully made, to be sure, but a film that seeks to excuse Islamic terror by theorizing that the French were so brutal that the Algerians had no choice but to resort to terrorism.
Sound familiar?
You better believe it.
When homicide terrorists first struck in Israel, the Arabs and their leftist enablers immediately claimed that the powerless Palestinians had no choice against the brutal and inhuman Israelis.
In short, the Israelis were blamed for Islamic atrocities.
Director Pontocervo was an assimilated Italian Jew from a wealthy family. But like so many secular Jews, he drifted into the fanatical religion of Marxism and The Battle of Algiers is his penultimate work of cinematic propaganda. It's right up there with Nazi filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will and Olympia, which celebrated Hitler and Nazism.
But let's look at the real Battle of Algiers, free from the powerful, but deeply dishonest cinematic imagery of the film where the Islamic terrorists are accorded heroic status. In truth, they were a bunch of sharia-spouting thugs, virulent women and Jew haters—in general, genocidal maniacs.
The finest history of the Algerian conflict is Savage War of Peace, Algeria, 1954-1962 by Alistair Horne.
It is the definitive account of probably the dirtiest colonial war of the 20th century. We tend to think of the French as a bunch of pussies, but oh boy were they brutal. Once the Algerians revolted, the French followed a scorched earth policy.
"...the [French] army, incorporating Sengalese units legendary for their ferocity, subjected suspected Muslim villages to systematic ratissage—literally a 'raking over', a time-honored word for pacifying operations. This involved a number of summary executions. Of the less accessible mechtas, or Muslim villages, more than forty were bombed by Douglas dive-bombers..."
And this was just the opening salvo of the battle. It got worse. Much worse. The level of ferocity—on both sides—almost unimaginable.
The Palestinians are a lucky people in that their enemies are Jews. Any other enemy, especially Arab enemies, would have wiped them off the face of the earth a long time ago. And it still might happen. When Jordan faces Hamas and Hizbullah in Judea and Samaria, you can be sure the Palestinians will almost certainly try to undermine the Hashemite Kingdom; and then you better buckle up for some real old fashioned blood-letting. You can bet that King Hussein will not use targeted assassination—uh-uh—it'll be mountains of Palestinian corpses choking the Jordan River.
But I digress.
The leaders of the Algerian revolt kept telling one another and their cadres to have patience. Democracies, they told their followers, cannot stand long wars; democracies have a built-in weakness. Elections. And wars are bad for elections. Democracies demand immediate results.
"We can hang on forever," Ahmed Ben Bella explained to his men, "we can fight and fight, whereas democracies like France have to go to their citizens and explain why their men are dying. And sooner or later, they will grow sick of it. Democracies are inherently weak for they have no patience."
This theme rises again and again in this amazing book, and though the French fought in Algiers for eight long and bloody years, Ben Bella was right. In fact, the Battle of Algiers almost brought revolution to the streets of France, and a mutiny in the French army.
Now, let's be clear, the War in Iraq/Afghanistan are not colonial wars. The French had a million citizens in Algeria living as priviledged subjects. The wars in Iraq/Afghanistan are wars of liberation against fanatical terrorists who are part of a world-wide pansurgency. The War in Iraq was a war to overthrow one of the worst dictators this planet has ever seen. Personally, I could care less about WMD's.
But the point about our lack of patience in democracies really hit home with me. Everywhere I go I hear people saying: "How long is this war going to take?" As if they are standing in line at MacDonalds.
Perhaps we are too used to instant solutions in our lives.
And the Islamic terrorists know it.
They count on it.
This is not The Battle of Algiers, and this is not Viet Nam. If we had pulled out of Iraq before the surge—opposed by Barack Obama and Joe Biden— well, no ally would trust us ever again, and the terrorists would have won an enormous victory.
And that would have been disastrous.
Truly, we need to learn patience.
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:43 AM | Comments (68)
February 24, 2006
Fun with Fyodor - Screenwriter's Cut, Bonus Footage
I've been reading Fyodor D. and oh boy, what can I say, not fun.
Several of Seraphic Secret's more literate readers, yes we have quite a few, pointed out that perhaps the translations we were using were doing a disservice to the fine Russian language. Was it Ezra Pound who said that it's the poetry that gets lost in the translation? Anyway, others suggested that perhaps we were just a wee bit, um, insensitive.
Very possible.
In any case, I thought that today I'd do a little mea culpa, and stroll down memory lane and present a kind of:
This is Your Life: Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky.
Fasten your seatbelts for this is grim as, well, grim as a Russian novel.
1) FD (1821-1881) is born in Moscow into a scheming, dysfunctional family. This makes for unhappy kids, but often fashions great writers. Anyway, FD's childhood is so miserable that he never mentions Moscow in any of his books. Not once. Which creates some pretty strange ellipses, especially in The Idiot when Prince Myshkin leaves St. Petersburg for six months in you know where.
2) FD's father, a physician, is, surprise, remote and violent. A totally creepy man, he is murdered by his own serfs when Fyodor is 17 years old.
3) Seven years later, FD publishes his first novel to great literary acclaim. He is instantly popular and fashionable. A sort of Russian Brett Easton. At about the same time, FD becomes involved with the Petrashevsky Circle, a group of revolutionary intellectuals who incite the serfs to rise up and murder, well, just about everyone--except the intellectuals. Duh.
4) 1849. FD is arrested and sentenced to death. He's subject to the famous "mock execution." Conspirators are blindfolded, and shoved up against the wall. The Commanding Officer calls out: "Ready, Aim..." The guns are primed. And then the Imperial Messenger comes galloping into the courtyard with a supposed "last minute reprieve from a merciful Tsar." Discerning readers will notice that this episode is used in The Idiot.
5) FD's sentence is commuted to a decade in sunny Siberia. Oh, forgot to mention that poor FD is epileptic. The condition worsens in exile.
6) 1859. FD returns to St. Petersburg. The literary world has, big shock, all but forgotten him. Like Hollywood, out of sight out of mind.
7) His wife, Marya Dmitrieyevna Isayeva, dies, slowly and horribly.
8) His brother, Mikhail, dies, slowly and horribly.
9) His epilepsy gets so bad FD's pretty certain that a) he's going insane or, b) he's dying, slowly and horribly.
10) Oh, also forgot to mention, FD's up to his neck in massive debt because he founded a slick magazine called Epoch, and gee, just what Mother Russia needs, another impenetrable literary/political/revolutionary journal that no one reads––except the government censors.
11) FD flees his numerous creditors, wanders through Europe: Paris, London, Vienna--which he claims to despise as "decadent." Though somehow young FD manages to consume barrels of decadent booze.
12) Oh, FD's also a compulsive gambler. Loses even more money that he does not have. Leaves IOU's in salons all over western Europe. Comments one irate casino owner: "Fyodor is a scoundrel! But his IOU's are just beautifully written!" FD also has a tendency to check out of hotels in the middle of the night, bills left, need we say it, unpaid.
13) 1867. FD marries his "stenographer," Anna Grigoryevna Snitkin, do you love that name, or what? Everywhere they go he introduces her as: "Staffmember, Stenographer and Soulmate, Snitkina." They have a beloved daughter, who dies almost immediately of pneumonia. FD crawls into bed for several weeks with a depression that only Snitkin can rescue him from.
14) FD writes constantly, though he's crushed almost hourly by Grand Mal seizures. FD is clinically depressed, and runs through manic binges of playing roulette, which he can ill afford.
15) Forced to enlist in the Tsar's army, FD's platoon is made up mostly of vicious ex-convicts, and others from the "lower classes." The only book he's allowed to read is The New Testament. He spends four long years in the army and this brutal experience changes the "structure of his soul."
Here's the thing I want to point out, and I'm certainly no expert. I don't even like FD's books on a word-by-word basis. However, on a conceptual level I get and admire him. Enormously. Ditto for Leo.
So: It seems to me that Fyodor's near-death experience takes a vain and self-important young writer and changes him into a person who now believes in moral and spiritual values. FD deeply believes that books, his novels, have to have a moral and spiritual center or they are just empty husks, depraved things--corrrupt and probably evil.
It also seems to this non-enthusiastic reader, that the unblinking emphasis on religion and values, these big ideas, are what make FD's novels... simply majestic**.
And conversely this is why so much contemporary literature is just plain bad; narcissistic, self-referential junk.*
Notice, if you will, that Mr. Tom Wolfe's last novel, I am Charlotte Simmons, is sneered at/dismissed/cold-shouldered by the NY literary elite. It's not hard to understand why. Mr. Wolfe writes in the grand, sweeping tradition of Fyodor and Leo.
Also, Mr. Wolfe's very great novel has, at it's core, the same big questions/ideas/themes that so preoccupied our Russians. Charlotte tortures herself with notions of good vs. evil, the religious life vs. secular society, and of course, the ever-present torment of carnal relations; when to give of the flesh, and to whom. And most vexing of all: the confounding relation between love and flesh, and flesh to love.
Mr. Wolfe treats these themes with the same unblinking earnestness as our Russians. Naturally, the chattering classes, far too sophisticated for such 19th century notions, are not even amused.
Quite simply, they yawn and ignore Mr. Wolfe's novel -- ignore America's greatest novelist.
**Am I a good person? Deep down, do I even really want to be a good person, or do I only want to seem like a good person so that people (including myself) will approve of me? Is there a difference? How do I ever actually know whether I'm lying to myself, morally speaking?
*See: Mailer, Roth, Updike. Granddads of the wretched movement.
**Notes From the Underground
Posted by Robert J. Avrech at 08:30 AM | Comments (59)
February 23, 2006
Prince Myshkin, Flying at You - The Screenwriter's Cut
The KGB & Me
"We're going to smuggle siddurim, prayerbooks, into the Soviet Union and if we get arrested, good, they'll send us to Lubyanka Prison and we'll go on a hunger strike and die and then the world will know!"
I'm thinking to myself: What about my favorite pillow. Will the KGB let me bring my favorite pillow into prison with me?
I am in high school and I've decided to get involved in the SSSJ, The Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. But I have to admit, most of the students, well, they really scare me, and I'm feeling vaguely ill at this, my very first meeting.
Eager and passionate, these Jewish kids fall into three distinct categories:
1) Hoods: These kids are so violent they've been kicked out of the JDL, The Jewish Defense League. If any of you remember the JDL, they were way extreme. These kids in the SSSJ are, let's face it, lunatics. They want to get arrested and horribly tortured by the KGB. Not only do they want to get thrown into Lubyanka prison, they yearn to get sent to Siberia!
2) Girl Hunters: There are a whole bunch of guys who have discovered that the SSSJ is a great way to meet girls. Look, when you're stuck in an **all boys Yeshiva seven days a week, from