July 29, 2007
-
Jewish Fiction, continued:
A Fulfilled RecognitionThis morning’s previous entry featured contemptibly mediocre Jewish
fiction. In contrast, here is a passage from first-rate Jewish
fiction– the little boy and little girl of E. L. Doctorow’s Ragtime:
“Their desire for each other’s company was unflagging. This was
noted with amusement by the adults. They were inseparable until
bedtime but uncomplaining when it was announced. They ran off to
their separate rooms with not a glance backward. Their sleep was
absolute. They sought each other in the morning. He did not
think of her as beautiful. She did not think of him as
comely. They were extremely sensitive to each other, silhouetted
in a diffuse excitement, like electricity or a nimbus of light, but
their touching was casual and matter-of-fact. What bound them to
each other was a fulfilled recognition which they lived and thought
within so that their apprehension of each other could not be so
distinct and separated as to include admiration for the other’s
fairness. Yet they were beautiful, he in his stately blond
thoughtfulness, she a smaller, darker, more lithe being, with flash in
her dark eyes and an almost military bearing. When they ran their
hair lay back from their broad foreheads. Her feet were small,
her brown hands were small. She left imprints in the sand of a
street runner, a climber of dark stairs; her track was a flight from
the terrors of alleys and the terrible crash of ashcans. She had
relieved herself in wooden outhouses behind the tenements. The
tails of rodents had curled about her ankles. She knew how to sew
with a machine and had observed dogs mating, whores taking on customers
in hallways, drunks peeing through the wooden spokes of pushcart
wheels. He had never gone without a meal. He had never been
cold at night. He ran with his mind. He ran toward
something. He was unencumbered by fear and did not know there
were beings in the world less curious about it than he. He saw
through things and noted the colors people produced and was never
surprised by a coincidence. A blue and green planet rolled
through his eyes.”
