Recent Cultural Activity (2 cents)

I have recently read two books, heard two speakers and seen one play. I must be in a good mood, because I was very high on all of them (but for one), which is almost unheard of.

The books.

"The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss is an extraordinary novel -- thematically, with regard to character development, and organizationally. Everyone should read it. Period. I will not give away the plot, except to say that it is both intricate and intriguing, and not too hard to follow at all.

"From Berlin to Jerusalem", the memoirs of the early years of religious historian Gershon Sholem, was also a delight, giving you insight into Sholem's youth amidst the German/Jewish social milieu of the early 20th century (the book basically runs the first three decades of the century). Born in an assimilating family, where each sibling followed a different life course, intellectually precocious and clearly personable, Sholem's venture into a life centered, if not on religion, on the study of Jewish history and culture is fascinating. For someone (like me, for example) who has recently been in Berlin, it also was very interesting to follow the course of his activities, as he was very good at naming streets and neighborhoods. I took out my pocket travel map and followed them. To top it off, the book (in a Schocken paperback edition) is short.

The speakers.

Garry Wills, Northwestern University professor of something or other, has written a book about Henry Adams, concentrating not on his "Life", but on his writing of his nine volume history of the United States, which he apparently started shortly after the end of the Civil War. The lecture was fine, and he had many interesting (and a few amusing) anecdotes about Adams (who I think was the grandson of John Quincy, although maybe I skipped a generation), and about Adams' relationship to others and views on his Adams and Quincy family members. And it was moderately interesting to learn that nobody reads the nine volumes (you know why) and those who refer to it give Adams a different viewpoint than he in fact had. But, having said all of that, Wills did not make you want to read the book. There were about 150 people at Politics and Prose for the talk, and when I got there the books were almost gone, so I picked one up before the speech. There was only one left at the time. After the talk and q and a, I decided not to buy the book, and to put it back on the table. At least a half dozen others must have felt the same way.

Robert Pinsky, Boston University creative writing teacher and three term U.S. poet laureate, has written a prose book (again, short) on the biblical King David. He is a poet, and not a religious historian or religious scholar. In fact, he did not even sound like he was at all religious. And, he used limited sources, mainly the text of Samuel I and II, a couple of annotated texts, and Guinzberg's Legends of the Jews. Whether the book is good or bad, I do not know, but I bought it, because Pinsky is such a delightful presenter, and takes such an artistic, storyteller approach to his subject, with no pretention to religiosity or scholarship. I will probably read it, hopefully this weekend.

The Play.

I finally saw "The Disputation" by Hayim Maccaby, with Theodore Bikel, Edward Gero and others. Peter Marks (see early blog), hang your head in shame. It was simply terrific.