The Venn diagram that pinpoints potential readers of this novel ought to be the intersection of “people who like stand up comedy” and “people who like reading fiction”. In any case, an interest in jokes would help any reader of this book, set up as a 200-page description of a stand up comedy show gone awry.
The performer of this show is 57-year old Dov Greenstein, psychologically frail and at the end of his tether. His unusual standup routine in a bar in the seaside town of Netanya, seems improvised and jittery. It begins with comedy material, then transforms into therapy session, wobbles back to jokes and then some more confession. This dance of puns and pain permeate the story, which is narrated from the point of view of Dov’s estranged childhood friend, the courtroom judge, whom Dovaleh G invited to the show in order to get a judgment of his show, and ultimately, his life.
Grossman does a good job of portraying this neurotic jokefest, and along the way manages to psychoanalyse middle aged men, comedians and even the Israeli psyche. It’s not a book with much in the way of conclusion, but just like a comedy show it is fun while it lasts. I haven’t read anything else by Grossman, but I imagine that this is an unusual offering in his oeuvre. The short timespan of the book reminds me of a book that impressed me in my 20s, Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, a whole novel taking place inside a man’s head during his lunch break. This also takes place mostly inside one man’s head and it makes me wonder whether there are any novels specifically about a person in psychotherapy – because this comedy show felt very much like a man on the couch spilling his mind.
Month: August 2021
Amsterdam Stories (Nescio, 1917/2008)
This collection of stories gathers all known output of Dutch early 20th century writer Nescio, who is exceedingly famous and popular in his home country. Nescio was the pseudonym of JHF Grönloh, a businessman with writerly ambition, and most of his stories deal with being young and having creative ambition and then having to give up those thoughts. Grönloh wrote in secret, and became known first after his passing, much like the Swiss writer Robert Walser, somewhat of a kindred soul to Grönloh. I enjoyed reading his depiction of being young in Amsterdam at the turn of the last century. How he manages to capture the fleeting moments of the everyday, that are full of meaning yet so ephemeral, is quite a gift. The allusions to sexual desire, dressed up in codewords, appear cutesy to a contemporary reader, but they were probably scandalous at the time of writing. One note on the translation of this NYRB classics edition is that a lot of the time the translator has chosen specifically American words that sound quite unnatural in the low countries of the 1910s. The first story, the Freeloader, repeatedly refers to the titular character as a “guy”, which has an odd ring to it.
La Paria (Claude Kayat, 2019)
Some writers fall in love with the French language to the point that they make it their primary language of expression. It happened to fêted dramatist Samuel Beckett, and later also to Czech existentialist Milan Kundera. Both Beckett and Kundera moved to France. Claude Kayat is a unique writer in that he writes award-winning novels in French, even though he never lived in France. He learned French as a boy in Tunisia (then a French protectorate) and maintained his love affair with the language all his life. He has lived in Sweden since 1958 and has written 9 books, this being the latest.
La Paria is the story of two lovers, but also the story of people, of getting along, of enmity and strife. The inevitable comparison here is Romeo & Juliet, and la Paria really does feel Shakespearean in tone at times. In Tiberias, northern Israel, a young boy and a young girl notice each other on a plantation. The boy, Yoram, is the son of the owner, and the girl, Fatima, is employed to pick the fruit. Yoram is blonde and Jewish, Fatima is dark-haired and Bedouin. They start to meet clandestinely at late hours and fall in love, much to the disapproval of their respective families. A big confrontation amounts and this leaves Fatima with the choice of what to do with her life… and how to foster the coming generation.
The book deals with how difficult it is to be alive and to live up to familial duties and follow one’s own heart. It is also about going against societal pressures, and respecting tradition, and standing up for one’s views and thoughts. It was an affecting read for me, as I think these questions are more important than ever in today’s mixed and globalised world. What started out as kind of a soap-opera set-up transcended its own structure and managed to really say something profound about humanity. The genius conceit of having the fruit of the lovers’ dalliance become a plot point was a master stroke, a classic Kayat touch. Some of the themes of this book might remind the attentive reader of earlier Kayat novels, like his Prix Afrique Meditérannéenne award-winning debut novel Mohammed Cohen (about a boy growing up navigating identity issues, having a Jewish father and an Arab mother, feeling fully part of both traditions). It also puts one’s mind to his later “Les cyprès de Tiberiade” which is based on his own experiences living in Israel in the mid-1950’s.
He even gets to squeeze in a little of his own Tunisian heritage in the character of Bar-Gil, a Tunisian-Jewish police investigator. One of the joys of Kayat’s writing is his effortless blending of genres, which really comes of a nothing short of virtuositic. The narrative is sometimes comic, sometimes dark, sometimes it nears being a detective novel and towards the end it veers into bildungsroman territory.
The virtuoso prose is also very poignant, such effervescence and fluidity! It is impressive to be able to have such an effortless command of the French language after over 50 years in the Nordic darkness of Stockholm. Unfortunately, it is as yet only available in French, but I would urge translators and publishers to spread this book outside of the francophonic sphere, it is really quite the gem.
three other books on the theme of Jewish-Arab love:
Waguih Ghali – Beer in the Snooker Club (1964)
Dorit Rabinyan – All the Rivers (2014)
Kamal Ruhayyim – Menorahs and Minarets (2017)
Kinship of all Species 