Page 6 - Boca ViewPointe - February '21

Page 6, Viewpointe February 2021

Book Review

Two Novel Jewish Heroines modern world. The two novels are bildundsromans
exploration of their identities, both religious and secular,
Fariha Róisín. Like a Bird, A Novel. Los Angeles: Unnamed as in the works of James Joyce and Mary McCarthy; and
Press, 2020. reflect the sensibility of the ardent feminist, Simone de
Susan Taubes. Divorcing. New York: NYRB, (re-issue) 2020. Beauvoir who, with the eminent intellectual Jean-Paul
“When love beckons you, follow him/Though his Sartre, enjoyed no strings, impious, open companionship.
ways are hard and steep...though the sword hidden Ms. Róisín’s Taylia Chatterjee grew up in a privileged
among his pinions may wound you. family of Columbia professors on the Upper West Side
And when he speaks to you believe in him/Though of Manhattan. Her maternal grandparents never accepted
his voice may shatter their daughter’s marriage to an Indian, but she had enjoyed
your dreams as the north wind lays waste the a very warm relationship with her grandmother Dadi-ma in
garden.” Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet (1923) Kolkata India who has imbued her with love, meditation
“One is not born, but rather becomes a woman. No and the peace beneath the Cillian tree. In her youth, she
biological, psychological, or economic fact determines follows the path of a good daughter, studious and pious,
the figure that the human female presents in society; intellectual like her father, artistic like her mother. As a
it is civilization as a whole that produces this creature, teenager, she suffers a trauma, the suicide death of her
intermediate between male and eunuch, which is elder sister, Alyssa, whom she looked to as both rival and At first, Sophie lives with her aunt and uncle in
described as feminine.” Simone de Beauvoir, The Second mentor, and also her dearest friend. She endures a second Pittsburgh. Then she joins her father in New York as her
Sex (1958) trauma when she is betrayed by Simon Sharma, at one time father established his medical practice. While they are
her sister’s boyfriend, a young Indian man who enjoys her living together, Sophie’s first source of ambivalence is her
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers father approval; but her parents fail to understand the truth father’s Freudian approach, which she rejects. She does
about Simon’s character. She is abandoned and forced to not completely share his atheism and, like De Beauvoir,
Two novels with Jewish purse life on the streets as a homeless teenager. is ambivalent about own her female identity. She falls
heroines are separated by She is befriended by Kat (Khadisha), 37 years old, in love with Ezra a worldly scholar like her father, also
half a century. The author African American Muslim, Tarot reader and proprietress trained as a Rabbi. He sweeps her off her feet with a
Susan Taubes, beauty, of the Milk Thistle, a bakery and café near Washington sermon that he delivers and deflowers her the next day.
actress, and secular scholar, Square, and single mother. Kat rescues her from the They are a hedonistic couple, she and Ezra have an open
descendant from Orthodox street, mentors her and provides her with a place to stay marriage where both subscribe to unfaithfulness. Her
Jewish Hungarian family in Brooklyn and work in the Thistle and as baby sitter to husband enables her with three children, the opportunity
and slew of famous Rabbis, Isaac and Luc. Here she finds comfort among multi-ethnic, to travel the world with him as a world renowned lecturer,
married to a non-practicing biracial associates and explores her sexual identity as and allows her to live by herself in Paris while both
Rabbi, has written a searing heterosexual and lesbian. She learns that relationships are pursue extra-marital relationships. But she is dissatisfied
novel about the struggle of an independent daughter to at best impermanent, and commitment is ephemeral. She and serves Ezra with divorce papers. Ezra is astounded,
find her identity in the middle years of the last century; forms bonds with variety of suitors and friends, Kat, Ky, turns down her request, and suggests that she see a
originally published in 1969, the work has been re-issued deriving from a Peruvian Japanese couple, to whom she is psychoanalyst. She does, and the analysis tells her that
as a classic by The New York Review of Books. Fariha attracted and he invites her to move in with him, Tahsin, she “must repeat her mother’s life.”
Róisín, essayist and poet, a Muslim-Indian raised in Ky’s sister-in-law, Ralph, a teaching assistant at NYU and Part 2 offers a phantasmagoria as Sophie from her
Sydney Australia, now living in Brooklyn, has written a Ryan, former boyfriend of Alyssa. These friendships help coffin argues her divorce claim before an orthodox Jewish
contemporary account of a Woke heroine, daughter of a her navigate the double whammy of Racism and sexism. court, or Bet Din, such as existed in Hungary for centuries
mixed marriage Jewish mother and Bengalese father, of There are novel surprises and discoveries that will keep as enforcer of Jewish law. Both her father and husband
independent mind to navigate the treacherous shoals of you adrift, as you follow the heroine’s bird flight in pursuit oppose her action, but many witnesses are brought forth
race and sex in contemporary America. of her freedom; and in the final surrealistic birth scene her to recount Ezra’s infidelities. However the court chooses
Though it appears that Ms. Róisín has chosen to destiny as a proud single mom in the zone between dream to focus on her sexual behavior accusing her of sacrilege,
give her heroine a metaphoric Upper West Side Jewish and reality, life and death, confronting her Karma. uncleanness, and loathsome sexual practices with her
American identity (is a J.A.P. really much different from To America and Back in a Coffin was the chosen title husband, and her divorce is denied.
an Indian American Princess?), the genetic make-up of of Susan Taubes 1969 novel; but her publisher insisted on In the later parts, she reestablished her relationship
both these victim heroines is self-aware, intellectual, changing it to Divorcing. The novel truly tells the story with her mother who reveals to Sophie that she never
Jewish, and proud. Both heroines leave the security of their of two divorces, Sophie’s parents, Rudolf Landsmann stopped loving Rudolf, and divorced him only so that
pious upbringing and venture full steam into the secular, and Kamilla Ripper, and Sophie’s own divorce from Ezra he could escape from the impending Nazi threat; but she
Blind. The novel opens surrealistically with her traffic insists that she believed that Sophie would remain with
accident after an appointment at the hairdresser’s on the her in Budapest. Kamilla then follows them to America
Lease Renewals streets of Paris where Sophie Blind appears to regain and lives in a cottage in New Jersey--for a time as a kept
woman. In the last part, Sophie recounts her happy youth
consciousness, but is told by her lover in a New York City
apartment that she is dead. Thence flashbacks from the in Budapest with her many relatives, a kind of Proustian
Renters- If you plan to renew your lease at Boca coffin and scenes from their lives prior to their respective reuniting with her Tantes and Oncles and cousins in an
Pointe, please provide the BPCA Management office divorces, drawing upon the author’s own autobiographical environment of Jewish celebration and faith. She has
a copy of your renewal lease and vehicle registration experiences. been shaped by this experience, in particular Omama’s
prior to your lease expiration date. Both items are Sophie was the daughter of a prosperous and distinguished piety and stringent adherence to orthodox Jewish practice
needed to ensure that your transponder does not Hungarian family in Budapest. Sophie’s grandfather was a which she lost upon coming to materialistic America.
get deactivated when the lease ends. Please email to notable Rabbi whose congregation held against him the fact Both authors celebrate survival of their heroines,
admin@bocapointe.com. that he read secular newspapers. Her father Rudolf also follows and their works can be seen an efforts of healing. Both
Thank you!  a secular path, rejecting Jewish practice, a distinguished heroines recount the profound influence of their paternal
medical doctor following the example of Sigmund Freud as a grandmothers, in the case of Taylia, Dadi-ma’s Hindu
psychotherapist with a large practice in Budapest. Rudolf has faith, in the case Sophie, Omama Orthodox Jewish faith
a passionate encounter with a beautiful woman, Kamilla, who as a profound memories and sustaining influences from
Your Driver abandons her Translvanian Count husband to marry him and their childhood. Both novels end on a coda with their
heroine’s affirmation of their fulfillment in their similar
Airport Car Service gives birth to Sophie. In time, Kamilla abandons Rudolf when destinies as single moms. Namaste.
she forms an attraction to a young, blond journalist, Zoltan
WPB, FLL, MIA
Vithezy. Rudolf chooses to leave Budapest to reestablish his
practice in America, and Sophie immigrates with him at age Dr. Ronald J. Meyers, an Emeritus Professor of
HowarD BarrY 10 with little knowledge of English. English, resides in La Paz. rmeyers@esu.edu. 
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