Special Excerpt: Great Jewish Movies for the 'High Holidays'

The High Holiday season can arouse strange feelings in an 'ever-wondering' and often soul-searching soul.


No matter the Age, Sex or Creed; No matter the orientation or Origin: Jew, Gentile, Hindu or Muslim may find themselves all of the sudden, and with no prior warning, emitting a silent 'oy' to themselves during these troubled days!


It could happen to you anywhere: on the train or on the bus on your way to work; Between the supermarket isles, whilst wondering which detergent you should buy; Or when you're all alone in the comfort of your well made bed, warmly tucked between the clean crispy sheets and your favorite down-comforter..


The Excerpt Reader, being the Schmuck, Klutz & Putz that it is, has rounded up a selection of movie excerpts, celebrating - well, perhaps 'celebrating' is too strong a word.. -ceremonializing, or better yet sermonizing Judaism in the modern era.


Why movie excerpts? Why not book excerpts? Blame it on all the rich food and cheap wine one obliged to consume during these holiest of days (or blame God.. whatever works better for you).


These are the Excerpt's favorite Jewish directors, performing their greatest tributes to Judaism in film:


First runner-up, Charlie Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). This movie is without a doubt a crucial specimen within the 20th century Culture heritage (if anyone were to make such a 'list' , as testimony for later generations.)

The selected scene is, naturally, Hinkel's speech:





Second runner-up, Ernst Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be, a 1942 comedy about a troupe of actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who use their abilities at disguise and acting to fool the occupying troops. (This genius film was later on re-directed by the no-less-talented Mel Brooks).

Here's a hilarious little scene which proves that even at the height of the 'days of atrocity' Jews knew how to laugh at their tormentors and, most importantly, at themselves:





A little excursion down memory lane might also bump you right-smack with Monty Python's 'Hitler in Somerset, Minehead' (well, England) Sketch (shot sometime in the 1970's, couldn't find the exact date..).

I think the quote "Oooh! I don't like the sound of these Boncerntration Bamps!" summarizes the sketch quite fairly..

A 'little' later on, and we're in 1987, in Woody Allen's Radio Days, another great cinematic achievement which retrospects back to the 1940's and celebrates the American (well, Jewish) family life during the Golden Age of Radio.

This scene gives you the typical 1940's (well, any time perhaps) Jewish family life portrayal:

But let's get serious! It's not all Hitler & Comedy for the Jews! 

Well, perhaps there's little else for the Jews for, even when they're dead serious, Jews tend to think (again) of Hitler and the dreadful holocaust.. 

Directed in the same year as Radio Days, Louis Malle's Au Revoir, Les Enfants, is a touchingly humane movie, recounting events in the childhood of the French new-wave director when he attended, at the age of 11, a Roman Catholic boarding school near Nazi-occupied 1943 Fontainebleau. 

Here's the movie's trailer, harboring the 'little' secret Malle the boy had to keep in order to survive: 

But as serious as it gets (and it gets serious..), it doesn't get as serious as Roman Polanski's The Pianist (2002), an adaptation of Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman's autobiography.

This overwhelming-at-times but nevertheless highly-important testimony for Humanity in its entirety, if not for Jews everywhere, performed by a great director at the height of his genius, should be a must-see on everyone's list, no matter the Age, Origin or Religion:

Here's a somewhat tacky but quite 'resuming' selection of scenes from the movie, accompanied by a recording of Władysław Szpilman's piano:

P.S.

I'm sorry, but there's absolutely NO Schindler's List for you! Strict doctor's orders! Nor should thou have any Ben-Hur's Ten Commandments or Chariots of Fire! This Hollywood'ization of Jewish life has gone too far! Someone should put a stop too it.. 

P.S.2

I think you understand by now that a little Cabaret's out of the question as well, thank you very much..

Excerpt: Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

First word of Haruki Murakami's magnum opus 1Q84 (pronounced 'ichi kyū hachi yon' in Japanese) only came to me today, a year or so after its publication in Japanese.


This might be partly due to the fact that the book was never translated to English (the first and second volumes of 1Q84 are available in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. There is still no official word as to when the English versions would be available.) Or it might be because of the hefty, two-volume length of the novel: 1,055 pages.


Not that the Japanese are easily intimidated by this... the book sold nearly 500,000 copies before it was even published and it occupied the top two spots on Amazon Japan's book rankings for a few weeks after it finally was, in June 2009.

Hailed as a contemporary version of George Orwell's 1984, 1Q84 (Q is pronounced the same as 9 in Japanese, hence the word-play) is a dystopian novel; an alternative-reality story; an 'Alice in Wonderland' of of sorts, wherein a female sports instructor called Aomame accidentally descends an emergency staircase to a 'similar-but-different' world wherein she quickly becomes a serial killer for no apparent reason.

More on the menu is the story of Tengo, a passive-aggressive university entrance-exam math prep instructor whose lack of experience as a published author leads him to secretly rewrite a 17-year-old girl's surreal novel about a commune of little people, a girl and a blind goat, leaving the by-now-much-confused-reader with a novel-inside-a-novel micronarrative wherein crucial issues such as the writing process, cultism, sex, love, violence, loss, and murder are discussed in length.


The events elaborated in 1Q84 take place (not too surprisingly) in 1984  (the 'real' one, not Orwell's). 


But this isn't the 1984 we're used to; though Michael Jackson's hits flow out of car radios, Princess Diana is still alive, and Iran-Iraq war news is broadcast in CNN, little details painfully spotted by Aomame slowly lead us to understand that this is not 1984 after all, but rather a counterpart point in time (the Oulipians would have loved this novel, that much is sure by now).


I'm afraid thats all I have to say of this ambiguous novel at the moment. 


The excerpt from the book is in Japanese so there's not much I can make from it (I still don't trust Google translator enough to guide me through my literary decisions).


You'll have to make up your own mind when the book's finally published in English (if it ever will..)


VERDICT: DON'T BUY IT (until its published in English, duh..)

Excerpt: Dave Eggers' What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng

If pressed upon to tell The Truth and nothing but the Truth, The Excerpt Reader will avow, like most Western readers I guess, to a strong abstention from any non-western literature. 


That will include the odd African, Eastern or at times even North American novel that might make it through the cultural barrier separating between this world and the Other.


This, even when taking into account that, if pried upon a little, The Excerpt Reader's lineage would burst with Baltic and Oriental remnants upon the slightest touch. 


Thus, even if a novel like Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart or Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger were to miraculously land on my book-shelf (I actually received the latter as a birthday present some two years ago); Even if Zadie Smith's White Teeth were to be televised and screened on my TV (it actually was, but I didn't make it through the first chapter of the British series; What's more, I actually bought the book myself, in free will and good mind, about 10 years ago in Heathrow airport at a bargain price, along with some 2-3 other paperbacks); Even then I am ashamed to say I would be reluctant to pick any of these books up and actually give them the reading they deserve.


It would have to take a "miracle", hence, something like incidentally stumbling upon an odd remark from a fellow Facebook  user, claiming: "Reading Vernon God Little in the car and What Is The What at home. Some contrast!" to make The Excerpt Reader pop out of its shell and give this 'African' novel's excerpt a good rummaging-through before giving it its just verdict.


True, you might justly claim that Dave Eggers' What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng is not a 'proper' African novel, in that it was written by an American writer and not by Valentino Achak Deng, a Sudanese refugee, as the oxymoronic title suggests (was 'Biography' not enough? Are we to believe that Eggers embodies Achak-Deng so thoroughly in this narrative that he can claim to be speaking as/for him?!), but the book is after all based on the real life story of Achak-Deng, so there is some 'justice' in Eggers' endeavors here, as well as in my reading it, i guess (If it weren't for the Western transcription of the 'African' events and emotions described here, I sadly confess I most likely would not have been tempted enough to read the excerpt at all).

The first excerpt is taken from the book's first chapter. Chronologically speaking, we're starting from the 'end', when Sudanese refugee ValenDeng is living in the US, after over ten years of wondering from one country to the other, seeking shelter.


The US is no haven, as we are quickly led to understand: shortly after settling in, Deng is mugged by two african-americans, probably junkies, who take his money and beat him up, while repeatedly referring to him as 'Africa', or 'Nigerian' ("In America I have been called Nigerian before-it must be the most familiar of African countries", write Eggers/Deng, as if protecting the readers from the other 'truth', or prejudice: that all black people look the same..).


Thus, even in the midst of the 'white' world; amidst all the wealth and opportunity, Deng is confronted with the same type of cruelty, the same type of ignorance he has fled from in his motherland: " I have the fortune of having seen more suffering than I have suffered myself [...] I suppose there is little in the way of violence that I have not seen in Sudan, in Kenya," making the suffering he has had to endure in Sudan relatively bearable, as cruel as that sounds: "[...] Strewn across the couch and my hand is wet with blood, I find myself missing all of Africa. I miss Sudan, I miss the howling grey desert of northwest Kenya. I miss the yellow nothing of Ethiopia."


Deng's conclusion is inevitable, even if somewhat 'softened' by Eggers, who still owes his American identity its due defense: "I am tired of this country. I am thankful for it, yes, I have cherished many aspects of it for the three years I have been here, but I am tired of the promises."

The second excerpt is finds us a little bit further up the road (or down the road, if you prefer, as it is set a few years before the first chapter). 

Thirteen years old Achak Deng (known simply as Achak at this point) is on the road, together with some 80,000 other Sudanese refugees, on the look for a permanent resting place.


Again, Achak is confronted with existential thoughts: "After my walk to Kenya, when Maria found me on the road wanting to be lifted back to God, I spent many months thinking about why I should have been born at all."

Intentionally or un-, Eggers seems to transcribe Achak-Deng's narrative into a simple and 'childish' stream, either because Deng was a still child at the time of the told events, or in order to make the events described 'simpler' and more easily accessible to the western mind. 

But there's nothing 'simple' or easily comprehended about the life Achak-Deng has had to endure: "[...] I grew up in refugee camps. I lived in Pinyudo for almost three years, Golkur for almost one year, and Kakuma for ten. In Kakuma, a small community of tents grew to a vast patchwork of shanties and buildings constructed from poles and sisal bags and mud, and this is where we lived and worked and went to school from 1992 to 2001. It is not the worst place on the continent of Africa, but it is among them."

Living on one meal a day (a concept almost unfathomable to the average western citizen, living amidst all the plenty), Achak-Deng (or is it Eggers?) strives to display 'normality' nevertheless: "we ate and talked and laughed and grew. Goods were traded, men married women, babies were born, the sick were healed and, just as often, went to Zone Eight and then to the sweet hereafter. We young people went to school" but the refugee camp and the life of want is threatening to become a permanent solution for the sea of refugees inhabiting it: "we came to accept that Kakuma would exist forever, and that we might always live within its borders."

All this is delivered unto the reader as in retribution, either for 'our' inability to understand or for our lack of basic care for fellow human beings and the conditions they have to endure: "There is a perception in the West that refugee camps are temporary. When images of the earthquakes in Pakistan are shown, and the survivors seen in their vast cities of shale-colored tents, waiting for food or rescue before the coming of winter, most Westerners believe that these refugees will soon be returned to their homes, that the camps will be dismantled inside of six months, perhaps a year."

There is no escape from the truth, which is repeated in various forms, a few hundred times no-doubt, throughout this 'Autobiography': "Kakuma was a terrible place for people to live, for children to grow."

All this retribution, I am led to understand, is coming in much too late. 

The events described in Achak-Deng's narrative passed some ten to twenty years ago, as the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation makes very clear: "Between May 16, 1983 and January 9, 2005 over two and one-half million people died of war and war-related causes in Sudan, over four million people were internally displaced in southern Sudan and nearly two million southern Sudanese took refuge in foreign countries."

Transcribed by Eggers and published in 2006 to great critical and public acclaim, What is the What is a perfect example of the western flirtation with dementia. Catastrophes only become 'relevant' once they're gift-wrapped, neatly packaged and delivered to our doorsteps (wasn't the erection of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1993 a similar western 'gesture' towards a significant event of human suffering, coming in some 50 years too late?! Aren't the Vanity Fair pieces about the Haiti earthquake's aftermath, beautifully laid out with Sean Penn and Bill Clinton photo shoots, coming in about 6 months too late?!)

Blessedly ignorant and willingly blindfolded we wrap our western guilt with paperbacks and magazine prints.


VERDICT: BUT IT (If only to subdue that western conscience of yours)

Excerpt: Adam Haslett's Union Atlantic

Adam Haslett's literary debut was a short story collection entitled You are not a stranger here (2003).

Considering this was a collection of stories which deals mostly with the 'mentally ill, closeted homosexuals, boys discovering their sexuality, and men who have never come to terms with it' (no doubt Haslett has read his share of Denis Cooper short stories), saying it was a success is saying a lot (the book was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award and the 2003 Pulitzer Prize and spent some time on The New York Times Best Seller list. It was also named one of the five best books of the year by Time, and to top it off Haslett was declared New York Magazine's writer of the year).


So much for institutional reception and public acclaim.


Haslett has used the time since 2003, the year he graduated from Yale Law school, to write Union Atlantic, released earlier this year, a "fictionalised retrospective of the economic climate in 2002", post 9/11 (The Twin towers), pre september 2008 (The economic fall)...


For the average excerpt reader, Haslett's vantage point as a short story writer can only be beneficial: writers who know their short stories usually excel in the way they build the chapters of their novels; and indeed, Haslett provides very readable and plot-wholesome excerpts (if you're too lazy to read the excerpts, you can always watch the Amazon trailer here, though i don't really see how a 2 minute video is going to make you read a 300 page book you're reluctant to go through...)


The first excerpt, July 1988, is set in Iraq, during the first Gulf War, where Doug Fanning is in charge of air defense on the Vincennes, one of the US navy's most important guide missiles cruisers, a ship which was involved in the shooting-down of an Iranian commercial air-flight, killing all 290 civilian passengers on board. 


Doug is a part of the 'erroneous' team of soldiers who sent the innocent Iranians to their death, but he is also, in a way, described as a bystander, a sort of ghost, a commentator on all things occurring around him as well as, reluctantly, a part of them. 


More than anything he is anxious for his 3 year period of duty to end, and is mentally preparing himself for the life-to-come, back in the States, "figuring in his head how long it would take for the letters he'd mailed in Manila to make their way into the offices of the brokerages and the banks." 


This excerpt is taken from the book's epilogue which, read outside the book's super-structure (single-chapters form), could be read as a sort of 'warning'; an explanation for 'the fall', as financial analysts and cultural critics will call the September 2008 stocks chute.


Life doesn't wait too long to move on and we're quickly in excerpt two, taken from the second chapter of Union Atlantic, circa 2002 in Finden, Massachusetts, where Fanning's neighbor, Charlotte Graves (an homage to Tom Wolfe's Charlotte Simmons? More on the similarities between Haslett's and Wolfe's characters and plots in my other blog, Hebrew readers invited..), an 'anti-modernist' in essence (if modernism be SUV's, mansion houses and shopping malls), is scheming to bring Fanning's monstrosity of a house down (Fanning built his 'Greek Revival château' on top of a hill laden with trees Graves's grandfather had donated to the town).


The two foes, Graves and Fanning, can be described as specimens of the 'old' and 'new' America. The 'old' being hard working, family values, high moral and opposition to change, and the new - opportunism, self indulgence, individuality and hedonistic self-pleasuring). 


It doesn't look like these two ends are going to meet.


But to make sure I'm right you're going to have to read the whole book..


VERDICT: BUY IT (I know I already did...)