Jewish Writing is Over
Jewish-Americans did something in American literature that no other culture has done— they created world-class literature out of the immigrant experience. And that’s the only thing that mattered in Jewish-American writing. Had Roth and Bellow not been major talents, you wouldn’t have Jewish-American writing. It wouldn’t mean anything. It would just be parochial, local.
But we cannot have major talent writing this stuff anymore because there’s nothing to write about. What made them major was their gripe, the chip on their shoulders. The rage that they felt at the world for keeping them out. That experience became a great metaphor. There is no hyphenated Jewish experience anymore. I have two nieces who are both Ivy League babies and they’re in the ruling class. There’s nothing they can’t do. Nothing.
So there’s nothing to talk about. There’s really nothing to write about. Yet you have young people who keep on doing it. All I’m saying is, it doesn’t count. Take Michael Chabon, or Jonathan Safran Foer. They’re cashing in on a world that’s long gone and they’re writing with open nostalgia. They’re making things out of it that belong to their grandfathers. It’s a habit to go on assuming that this is legitimate writing. But I truly feel it is not.
Vivian Gornick in the Boston Review.
Very interesting and thought provoking, never looked at it from this angle. Looking forward to reading the book.
Thanks
Comment by Ruchi Chauhan — August 20, 2008 @ 3:24 am
I completely agree with Gornick’s assertion but I don’t agree with the title you gave this post. Gornick may be right when she says that new-age Jewish writers are re-writing(or perhaps dumbing down) the work that has already been done. But does that really mean the death of Jewish writing?
Perhaps not. It is naive to even quote Safran in the same context as Roth. While Roth has his cult like readership(that includes me as well); Safran for a young writer is quiet a delight.
Comment by Aishwarya — August 22, 2008 @ 8:52 pm
Vivian,
You are right, but partly, about the End of Jewish-American Writing. Yet, Roth’s big book, American Pastoral, was written just over 10 years ago, so was Michael Chabon’s big book and Jonathan Safran Foer’s big book. How, all the books had a common strand: The Past of Jewish Misery, in the 1940s to 1970s, all written, with complex imagined hindsight, in the 21st century.
This, I guess, will go on. The past is going to be a fertile territory for writers across the world, pre-modern as post-modern.
This is the same with Indian writing on the Partition of 1947. There are few writers left who faced it first-hand. The new writers have not yet come to terms with that. When they do, they will go back to the past.
Comment by sourabh — August 23, 2008 @ 3:08 am