Elisa Albert & Edward Schwarzschild Reading
Following the emphatic recommendations of several professors, I attended the dual-reading event of Jewish fiction writers Elisa Albert and Edward Schwarzschild. Upon hearing the label of “Jewish-fiction writer” my expectations were skewed, and like many other attendees, I expected their writing to be referential to the Holocaust. I was glad that Professor Friedman brought up the issue in her introduction, stating relief that these two writers write about something else, not at an expense to the remembrance of those events, but for the benefit of a fuller expression of Jewish culture and identity. The theoretical issue their literature most saliently brought up was the interference of the author’s biography with the reader’s perception of the work.
Elisa Albert was the first to read and narrated an excerpt from her novel about a dysfunctional family. The main action was centered around a controversial brisk ceremony and the misunderstandings of a non-Jewish husband and wife. Albert writes snappy and humorous dialogue, maintaining the rapt attention of the audience as she moves quickly through the story. Upon hearing about a family following Jewish customs and failing to co-exist peacefully, a listener in the crowd would wonder how much of the story was autobiographical. For example, one would think the sassy grandmother was based on Albert’s grandmother. Or, perhaps she dated a non-Jew and based the dynamics of the relationship in the novel on her real-life experiences. There were characteristics of the story that were explicitly Jewish (the ceremony for the child, some Yiddish terms), but the essence of the story was not exclusively Jewish or affective for only Jewish listeners. Albert and her writing may hail from a specific group of people, but her writing transcends cultural backgrounds in a profound way. The specific becomes the universal.
After Elisa Albert abruptly ended a section of her story (a cliffhanger meant to raise sales?), Edward Schwarzschild stepped up to the podium to read a story entitled "No Rest For the Middleman." The tone of his story was more reflective the pace more steady. His confidence was apparent as he took his time reading, inflecting his voice and letting the words soak in the ears of the crowd. Each writer’s approach to orally present their story suited the nature of each story. In addition to Albert, Schwarzschild was extremely efficient at dialogue. During the following question-and-answer session, he succinctly explained how dialogue should work in a story. He follows his prescription by creating dialogue that is multi-tasked: revealing character, contributing progress to the plot, and sounding representative of conversation that would occur in the real world. His story, set in 1920’s Philadelphia, illustrated the relationship between a young boy and his father who must engage in shady business dealings to make end’s meet. Schwarzschild made good use of the unreliable perspective of the child narrator, communicating an immense amount of information to the reader unavailable to the naïve narrator. His story had a poetic quality, instituting evocative images of knives (think Abraham and Isaac) and religious icons associated with forgiveness during Yom Kippur. Again, while the religion observed is Judaism, its role in the story is relevant to readers regardless of their individual religious persuasion.
Another interesting literary concept I encountered in relation to the reading was my return to Schwarzschild’s short story after hearing it read aloud by the author. I purchased Schwarzschild’s collection of short stories, The Family Diamond, after the reading event and looked over the story he read a second time a few days later. My reading in solitude produced two main effects: first, I understood new aspects of the story, such as moments of foreshadowing, that I did not understand the first time; second, some of the magic of hearing a story told for the first time without any foreknowledge was lost to me. Suspense is fickle and is lost quite easily. The experience of reading silently is vastly different from listening to a story told out loud to a group of listeners whose reaction is shared. I did enjoy the story on my own as much as part of a larger audience.
Inevitably, the writers were asked how they felt about being labeled Jewish fiction writers. They confirmed my suspicions and answered that they do not feel their writing is exclusively Jewish, ignoring the limitations of the label, but without denying the presence of their culture and faith in their lives. Schwarzschild did list several Jewish authors, including Salinger, Bellow, and Roth whom he found greatly influential at a young age and inspired him to write. Yet, these authors most likely have other non-Jewish influences and surely do not write with one particular audience in mind. On the part of the reader, biographical information pertaining to the author can be useful in understanding the sources of the story, but this information is limited, and should not fuel any counterproductive prejudices (not Gadamer’s kind, but the bad kind) the reader may have.
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