Writing As A Way Of Correcting Insults

 I heard a beautiful quote on the radio the other day. One of our major novelists Haim Be'er said that "writing is a way of correcting insults." I am not sure how he meant  it exactly, but I can think of several  options.

The first way is in fiction, where a real-life slight could turn into a triumph. If I were a  fiction writer I would  amend an old grievance which I have carried inside me for fifty years.

 In fourth grade a new boy joined our class. I had never seen a more beautiful boy; he had  big black eyes, long eyelashes and a sad face. He had  just come back from a long stay in the US, and I remember that he had a very special metal lunch box with Batman which we all coveted.

 Wanting to show off, I told that boy that I knew how to play soccer. To be honest, I really thought that I knew how to play the game since I played with my brother. The boy seemed mildly amused and invited me to play with him that afternoon at his house. I remember walking  happily to his house without a  worry. When I arrived he was waiting for me with his older brother and we started to play. What a fiasco! It transpired that I had no idea how to play soccer and his brother laughed at me. I felt insulted and humiliated.

 In fiction I could have changed the facts of this story and showed my friend and his brother my talent, agility and skill in the game. I bet that his brother would have hated to see his little brother defeated by a girl. Sadly it didn’t happen this way in real life.

As a non-fiction writer, this quote inspires me to revisit what has happened without changing the turns of  events or the outcome. Perhaps I could find some compassion in my heart for the little girl that I was. Why did such a minor incident  remain such a  powerful memory?

I am not sure whether it was the scorn my friend's brother who was several years older than us.It wasn’t that I felt bad in front of my friend; he didn’t seem to mind I believe that he was used to winning,  and after this soccer experience  we spent a lovely afternoon playing together in his house.

But in a way I felt betrayed by my own adored brother. In letting me win, my brother had somehow led me to believe that I knew the game. But what makes this insult stick? I believe that  part of it is  that I  experienced, for the first time, a feeling of being  found out to be a fraud.  But I also know that I was so offended because no one stood up for me and I felt alone; where was my brother in this hour of need?

In Hebrew, we don’t have an equivalent to the wonderful expression (and concept ) of “a list of grievances.” Writing fiction is a great way of amending past insults, and analyzing them takes off their edge. Even making  lists is an effective tool, as by grouping grievances we can ridicule their intention and reduce their intensity. 

How NOT to Write About Motherhood

 MAY.10.2013 

Since Sunday is Mother's Day in the US; in Israel, alas, this day has already turned into "Family Day," I decided to use the opportunity to bring up a minor yet important point about motherhood and fiction.

Rereading Jane and Prudence  (1953) Barbara Pym’s third novel, I was surprised to read that  Jane, one of the heroines, states that she  does not feel much like a mother, since she only has one child. At first, this statement didn’t register,  I glossed over it. But then I kept thinking and  realized that this was a major error. Even in fiction, the feeling of motherhood does not depend on how many children you have. I believe  that  the narrator here reveals  the lack of knowledge and inexperience of the  author, who herself never married and had no children of her own.  

It is true that Jane, a clergyman’s wife, has romantic notions about her role and the life that comes with it. She regards her inability to produce a large family, like the ones exemplified in the clerical novels by Charlotte Yonge, as a personal failure.  However, to me this does not feel like an authentic emotion that could come from a mother.

Before our first daughter was born my husband and I took prenatal Lamaze classes. I remember that on the last class the instructor suggested, “before you go to the hospital to have the baby take a good look around your home, it will never be the same.” Although it seems like a  cliché, this statement could not have been more accurate. Coming back with our first baby life has never been the same. And I felt like a mother and could not feel stronger about it when I  had another child.

I don’t subscribe to the belief that in order to write about something you have to personally  experience it, although it does help as it provides a shortcut. But if I don’t have personal  experience about divorce, for example, I will have to compensate for it. Since it means that I don’t have  instincts or  intuitions to rely upon I will have to conduct  thorough research on divorce.

Moreover, because I don't have that personal experience, even when I do conduct thorough research, my knowledge will lack a certain depth and could never be equal to someone who had life experience. There  could always be surprises -- those issues that I didn’t even know  existed.

On the other hand, not going through the experience myself means that I am not bound by reality, granting me the freedom to write about the subject in a novel way. But I still have to be careful, since I cannot rely on my own experience and intuition I would likely want to consult with esxperts. The most obvious way is  to find an informed reader and  especially a good editor.

Barbara Pym does not make many mistakes, generally her information is reliable and the sentiments of her characters ring true, to the extent that her novels are often used as a source for social and church historians.

 In a way it is gratifying to find a flaw in an otherwise great writer. It encourages me that even Barbara Pym can  make such a silly mistake.

My Year As A Fan: In Memory of Yoram Kaniuk

 JUN.09.2013 

Although I never talked to him again after that year, the author Yoram Kaniuk  (1930-2013) was my hero. We met in my second year of university; he taught fiction in a  creative writing workshop.  Kaniuk was a well-known novelist in Israel, but not well respected. His style, in the tradition of the stream of consciousness, was frowned upon. His writing was different from the way other Israeli novelists wrote in the 1970s, thus  it was deemed affected and insincere.

To us he seemed old, he was 47 years old at that time (I was 22), but the minute he opened his mouth, we were all smitten. Kaniuk (no one called him Yoram) was very charismatic and kind -- a rare combination. His method was not to shred our writing to pieces and to make us feel bad; quite the opposite, he gave his criticism in an encouraging and helpful way. During the lessons there were no crises; he kept the atmosphere in the workshop positive and productive. 

 We admired the beautiful miniatures which he used to draw on top of matchboxes (it was at the time when most of us smoked) when we read our stories. I kept mine for many years.

But our stories were not the reason for the workshop, Kaniuk was. He was our star and we  became his fans even his groupies. We were experts in his biography,  his writing,  his opinions. We were well versed in his life story: the son of the first director of Tel Aviv Museum, he enjoyed a privileged childhood, and was very talented in art and letters. During the war of independence he fought and was wounded  (he was 18 at the time), he studied art first at Bezalel, the Israel Art Institute, and then in Paris; hence the beautiful  drawings. He had planned to pursue his art in the US  but changed his mind about being an artist and decided instead to become  a novelist. When he returned to Israel some 10 years later he did so with a beautiful American wife.

I felt “chosen” since he was very kind to me and always called me “a fresh flower,” but I am sure that he was just as kind to other young women in the workshop. I was a newly-wed at that time and remember that once the workshop met at my house. My young husband was there as well and Kaniuk  told me later ”your second marriage will be different, then you will keep a respectful distance from each other.”  Needless to say, Tzvi, my husband, did not join our fan club.   

That year I had written a story which Kaniuk believed was good enough to be published; when it finally appeared  in print I was shocked to discover Kaniuk’s voice in my story -- his influence was too great. At the workshop I was writing for Kaniuk, and enjoyed his approval, but after it ended I stopped writing.

It was a privilege to be at Yoram Kaniuk’s creative writing workshop; he was a real mentor and did his best to encourage us to keep on writing and to take chances with our work. But as I found out, hero-worshipping stifled my creativity and paralyzed me. It took me years to lose his voice and find my own. And . . . just to be on the safe side, I made two resolutions and kept them: I never read another book by Yoram Kaniuk and never took another creative writing class..

P.S.  This is a photo of a matchbox drawing by Yoram Kaniuk

On Remaining Unpublished, or The Most Underrated Novelist of the 20th Century

JUL.04.2013 

What could you do if you fall out of favor all of a sudden, or somehow become irrelevant?  A poignant example is the rejection experienced by the British novelist Barbara Pym (1913—1980) after publishing six novels from 1949—1960.

Barbara Pym did not write bestsellers,  but she enjoyed a steady success (we have to take into account that in the 1950s most people borrowed books from the library: Excellent Women sold 6577 copies, Jane and Prudence 5052, Less Than Angels 3569 and A Glass of Blessing 3071), and got favorable reviews. Hazel Holt, Pym’s biographer and literary executor, argues that her books never lost her publisher, Jonathan Cape, any money.

Thus, as a published author of six books, Pym must have felt that she had arrived; she knew her audience and understood what they wanted to read.  I suppose that she had every reason to believe that her writing career was on a safe and steady path.

The shock came in 1963 when  her  seventh novel,  An Unsuitable Attachment, was rejected by Jonathan Cape, and she could not find another publisher for the work. For 15 years, all her new writings remained unpublished.

Pym was totally unprepared for the rejection; as her world had remained unchanged, she could not have predicted that her writing would become irrelevant in the 1960s.

I cannot begin to imagine her reaction, her distress. She must have started to doubt her whole perception of reality, how could she have been so wrong? What about her loyal readers? Had they stopped being interested in what she had to say? Moreover, writing was her whole life; she had never married or had children.  

Pym was 50 year old when she encountered rejection. I know from experience that this is an age when women start to feel invisible. My female friends report that no one sees them, and  I sense  that Pym’s  rejection may have augmented the feelings of being transparent.

Still being invisible has its advantages. A friend of mine says that since no one sees you, you are free to do whatever you choose. Pym did just that, she did not cave in but kept writing novels  in her own style, and did not try to please anyone but herself. 

Like in fairy tales, Pym’ s consistency and hard work were rewarded.  For its  75th anniversary, the Times Literary Supplement issued a list of the most underrated writers of the century, drawn up by forty-three eminent literary figures. Pym was the only living writer to be named by two people – the poet Philip Larkin, and the historian and biographer Lord David Cecil.

This nomination brought about a revived interest in Pym; her novels were reissued and Quartet in Autumn (1977) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

 So like in Greek tragedies, in which the greater good always takes precedent over the fate of the individual: order was restored;  Pym was rediscovered. However, for her success came too late,  and she did not have long to enjoy the fruits of this triumph as she died of cancer in 1980.

Born In The USA But My Heart Is In The East

“I was born in the US, but I am originally from Israel,” is how my American-born daughter described herself in a second  grade personal narrative booklet.  The statement must have surprised her teacher, but I felt that it made sense.

My two daughters were born in the Midwest during our long stay in the US. Although we were not sure whether we would ever return to Israel, we spoke Hebrew at home, taught the girls  to read and write Hebrew, and at bedtime read to them from Israeli children's books.  Still, we always lived in American neighborhoods, they attended public school, had American friends and when they read on their own it was always in English. 

Since I was born in Israel it was clear to me that my “real home” was Israel, but until I read my daughter’s biography I hadn’t  imagined that her idea of a real home was not the one that our family had in Texas.

When we were at university in the US we met a young cousin who told us that he planned to move to Israel once he graduated from university. “But you don’t know if you’d like it, you have never been there,”  I said in amazement, and he answered: “ I just know.”  He has been in Israel now for over 30 years

Longing for a “real home” from afar is an old Jewish tradition; for centuries diaspora Jews  have been  yearning for Zion. They have kept Jerusalem in their prayers, vowing never to forget it and wishing to be "next year in Jerusalem."

In the 12th century Spain the Hebrew poet Yehuda Halevi wrote:

My heart is in the East

My heart is in the East, and I am at the ends of the West;

How can I taste what I eat and how could it be pleasing to me?

How shall I render my vows and my bonds, while yet

Zion lies beneath the fetter of Edom, and I am in the chains of Arabia?

It would be easy for me to leave all the bounty of Spain --

As it is precious for me to behold the dust of the desolate sanctuary.

As a poet  and a religious Jew, Halevi expressed his longings for Zion as a place and as a symbol, I, as a secular Israeli,  just missed my parents’ home in Israel. But although I had a concrete vision of that home, the  Israel that we encountered once we returned there was very different from the one that we had imagined.

 My daughter was quick to point it out; coming back from a social activity with her new class mates in Tel Aviv, she announced that "our" Israel was all wrong. She was right, my husband and I left Israel when we were in our early twenties and never experienced what it meant to live in Israel as grown- ups.  What we presented to our daughters as "home" was a fantasy made up of our childhood memories and the old fictional stories that we read as children.

Thus in our late thirties we finally had to grow up and reconcile our dreams with the  reality, which we found in our new home in Israel.

When I skated in the park today I listened to an episode of This American Life (number 130 from 1999): “Away from Home,” and  heard Ira Glass addressing the attachment to a faraway home.  I feel that his explanation of that metaphysical connection, whether it is place or a group of people, is beautiful:

“There's an uncanny quality when you fall in love. And there's an uncanny quality to finding the home you've never had. And at some level, what is there to say? What makes home feel like home? The fact that it feels like home.”