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December 26, 2003/Tevet 1 5764, Vol. 56, No. 14
It's cold outside, so curl up with a good book
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
Getting in bed with a good book is a little like catching up on the phone with a good friend. You share what's been going on in your lives, you empathize, you sympathize, you laugh, you cry, you hang up maybe not feeling that all is right in the world, but at least a little better.
And so, especially at this time of the year when the days are short and the nights are cold, the prospect of huddling under the covers with a good book becomes even more appealing. But if you fancy yourself a discriminating reader - and who doesn't? - most likely you are choosy about who you take to bed. Good fiction should have finely drawn characters that we like or at least care about. They should be well developed, with a full complement of foibles and frailties. Its plot should be artfully crafted, not one of those formulaic things that try to pass for literature, but a story that draws us in, that gradually unfolds, that leads us to an end. And good contemporary fiction should be played against a backdrop of real-life issues, subtly raising them without beating us on the head or trivializing them.
A hard book to come by?
Not really. Take Catherine Schine's newest offering, "She is Me," (Little, Brown and Company, $23.95 hardcover.) Think contemporary fiction can't compare with great literature? Think again. Schine shines - across three generations and a multitude of social issues held together with pure literary glue. Marriage and adultery, love and loss, death and renewal, Schine plays the themes like a virtual virtuoso.
Imagine a jaded academic who publishes an article (in the liberal Jewish monthly, "Tikkun,") about Madame Bovary that catches the eye of a hotshot Hollywood mogul. He flies her to California and challenges her to remake Emma Bovary as a present-day heroine, and, poof, Barbie Bovaine is born. But that is not the only reason that Elizabeth, the first of Schine's trio of women, has left New York for La La Land. Indeed, both her mother, Greta, a talented landscape designer more at home digging in the dirt than out to dinner, and her grandmother, Lotte, who once was a flash dancer in vaudeville and loves to shop, have both been diagnosed with cancer.
The plot does not merely thicken, it coagulates into a modern comedy of manners, where marriage - or not - and motherhood intersect and lead to surprising places. Adultery lurks, responsibility beckons, each daughter and mother is fumbling in the dark to discover where the "she" stops and the "me" begins.
It is a rich portrait of family life - and great in bed.
Another satisfying choice is Judith Leegant's "An Hour in Paradise," (W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., $23.95 hardcover.) Leegent's collection of 10 stories is perfect for the reader who often nods off after just a few pages, no matter how engaging the story or appealing the characters. Each is a gem, well-written, just long enough for an absorbing pre-bedtime read.
From Sarasota to Jerusalem, from New York to Safed, Leegant gathers a grab bag of characters and limns the depth of Jewish life. Meet Estelle and Solly, young lovers, each married to another, who are reunited in the twilight of their years only to face the uncertainty of illness and death. Or Ruti and Hinda, professional Israeli matchmakers, who work their magic on an unsuspecting couple. Or Reuven Schweller, a ba'al teshuvah yeshiva bucher, who makes daily visits to a man dying from AIDS and glimpses paradise through the mitzvah of visiting the sick.
"The man opened his eyes," Leegant writes. "Two sun-ken windows. If ever the body receded so far that the soul was near enough to the surface to be clamoring to go free, it was now. 'May I help you?' he said.
"Reuven blinked himself out of his stare. Help him? He must look preposterous and hopelessly out of place, a full burst of health on his face, no yeshiva-boy pallor for him, a high school wrestling star once, getting back his old strength with vitamins, a strict vegetarian diet. What did he know about suffering? 'I'm Reuven Schweller. I hope you won't mind a visit.'
"Nothing moved, only a small smile on the dust-dry lips. Did the body finally forget thirst? In order to simplify things, crumble more readily into the earth? 'A rabbi,' the man murmured. 'Things must be really bad.' "
Or are they? Reuven, struggling to stay on the religious path, finds in Ash a reason for striving onward.
Leegant, a lawyer who turned writer after spending three years in Jerusalem mining the depth of the Jewish experience, currently teaches writing at Hebrew College and Harvard University. This, her first book, has won critical acclaim for its original stories and elegant language. It takes its title from the Yiddish proverb, "Even an hour in paradise is worthwhile."
The same could be said for this collection.
Touching and tart is how one critic described Letty Cottin Pogrebin's debut novel, "Three Daughters," (Penguin Books, $14 paperback.) But for this reviewer, Pogrebin sorely missed the mark. Her tale of the three Wasserman daughters, each a caricature of a contemporary woman, attempts to comment on a raft of social issues, from motherhood to marriage, from adultery to substance abuse, and ends up with an unsatisfying pastiche of clich‚s. Shoshanna, the goody two-shoes of the trio, is, of course, a professional organizer, married to a wonderfully generous, funny and disorganized man, Daniel. Her sister, Leah, plays the role of the ardent feminist, married to Leo, an artist suffering from depression, and mother of two ne'er-do-well sons. Then there is Rachel, the perfect wife, mother of five, gracious hostess, homemaker extraordinaire, whose life is in shambles. Bringing them together is their father's 80th birthday and the impending celebration.
But even for Pogrebin, the task proves too daunting. The characters are stereotyped, the dialogue wooden, the twists and turns of the story line either predictable or outlandish.
Less is more, and in this case, Pogrebin would have been better served to hew to a sparer story line, less hysteria and more honesty, and characters who are content being Jewish women, not larger-than-life characters perhaps conceived for the silver screen.
I'd sleep on this one.
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