More on Zoë Heller
First, I want to note a minor fact that has been niggling at me throughout the reading. While The Believers is set in New York City and most of the action confined to the city, the sensibility is very much that of a native of Great Britain. In fact, there are moments when this stands out so ostentatiously that there can be no doubting the nationality of the author.
"Mike sighed irritably. 'I don't know why you're making such a meal of this. Are you using the guidelines?'"
I honestly have never heard a native of the Bronx, nor, for that matter of the United States use this expression in conversation. Add to this that Mike has been noted as not being a particularly erudite, attuned, or even hyper-intelligent guy, and you have an interesting kind of experience. New York as seen by someone who may live there, but who is not native.
None of this should be taken as a criticism, because no fault is imputed, it was just one of those things that niggled at the back of my mind in several exchanges throughout the book.
That said, I wanted to point out a few features of the book that haven't been highlighted even if mentioned.
This interjection of humor, while not pervasive, is frequent and welcome. While the story is not particularly a "heavy" one, the themes require a good deal of attention and lightening them up with deft touches such as this is helpful to the overall progress of the novel. Additionally, they record the sometimes sardonic insights one might have about oneself.
Again,
And Ms. Heller captures beautifully the dilemma of having discovered that all that you have thought and held dear may not be all that you thought it was.
It is interesting to see the way Ms. Heller notes how difficult it is to escape or "disenchant" from the embrace of things we once believed and held dear. I hesitate to admit that I still believe in some odd in the truth of any number of myths that age and experience are said to do away with--faeries, Loch Ness Monsters and their cryptozoological kin, and that jolly man who symbolizes for many children a certain acquisitive aspect to Christmas. Even if one were to break away entirely, central beliefs still make up a good deal of who we are and how we became that way--so this disenchantment is a sort of unmaking. To phrase it in classic Christian terms, it is a "dying to self." And it may not, at least on this side of the vale, ever take hold completely. But it is interesting that this experience of conversion, of coming back to the faith, regardless of how it is phrased requires extrication from the grip of Maya, and that is in itself a difficult, painful growth process.
Throughout the book there are similar deep insights into character, what it is, and how it forms. I leave with the following two excerpts from different points in the story.
It is this sort of powerful insight into how we become the people we are that gives this novel much of its drive and its interest. Of course, Audrey is wrong in her assumption--it is never too late to change; however, the stories we tell ourselves are what really matters and even if there is always time to change, we can (and frequently do) refuse to see it. That observation, made so sharply and so clearly, is one of the things that makes this a stand-out novel. Additionally, the contrast between mother [Audrey] and daughter [Rosa] is a nice exposition of the central theme of the possibility of change, of choosing to take a new direction and then, despite all opposing pressure following along in it. Audrey, despite her apparent power and ability perceives herself as incapable of change, and Rosa, despite not really desiring it, begins to embrace change. And it isn't a matter so much of age as of attitude. Audrey's invincible ignorance and persistant belief in her own way does not allow for the possibility of change because it does not allow for the possibility of correction. Rosa had started out in this way, taught by her parents' example to shield carefully all dogmatic insistence on the radical left viewpoint; however, she allows experience and reality to intrude and to transform her. She opens the door to doubt and thus the door to the possibility of belief. I'll see how this possibility is played out as I continue to read.
"Mike sighed irritably. 'I don't know why you're making such a meal of this. Are you using the guidelines?'"
I honestly have never heard a native of the Bronx, nor, for that matter of the United States use this expression in conversation. Add to this that Mike has been noted as not being a particularly erudite, attuned, or even hyper-intelligent guy, and you have an interesting kind of experience. New York as seen by someone who may live there, but who is not native.
None of this should be taken as a criticism, because no fault is imputed, it was just one of those things that niggled at the back of my mind in several exchanges throughout the book.
That said, I wanted to point out a few features of the book that haven't been highlighted even if mentioned.
from The Believers
Zoë Heller
Rosa felt exposed and slightly flustered to be consorting in broad daylight with such ostentatiously Jewish Jews. She wondered anxiously if any of the pedestrians walking by on Fifth Avenue mistook her for one of this clan. She turned and considered her reflection in a shop window. The outfit she had cobbled together for this occasion was modest enough to daunt the most lascivious gaze. But, she could see now, she was in little danger of passing for an authentic Orthodox woman. She looked like nothing so much as a mad Victorian governess try to hide a skin disease.
This interjection of humor, while not pervasive, is frequent and welcome. While the story is not particularly a "heavy" one, the themes require a good deal of attention and lightening them up with deft touches such as this is helpful to the overall progress of the novel. Additionally, they record the sometimes sardonic insights one might have about oneself.
Again,
source as above
"So, young lady. . . ," Mr. Riskin said to Rosa as a bowl of matzoh ball soup was set before her. Rosa gazed at him, waiting impatiently for the rest of the sentence to hobble its way down the rickety neural pathway. ". . . How did you like my son-in-law's singing?"
And Ms. Heller captures beautifully the dilemma of having discovered that all that you have thought and held dear may not be all that you thought it was.
source as above
"Well. . . " Rosa hesitated. People always seemed to think that you stopped believing things in a single, lightining-bolt moment, an instantaneous revelation of loss. For her, at least, the process of disenchantment had been achingly slow. Her faith in Cuba had come with an elaborate system of defenses for coping with evidence injurious to itself, and for a long time there had been almost no contradiction within the regime, no embarrassing truth about the deprivations of the Cuban people, that she could not defuse with her stockpile of ready-made rationales.
It is interesting to see the way Ms. Heller notes how difficult it is to escape or "disenchant" from the embrace of things we once believed and held dear. I hesitate to admit that I still believe in some odd in the truth of any number of myths that age and experience are said to do away with--faeries, Loch Ness Monsters and their cryptozoological kin, and that jolly man who symbolizes for many children a certain acquisitive aspect to Christmas. Even if one were to break away entirely, central beliefs still make up a good deal of who we are and how we became that way--so this disenchantment is a sort of unmaking. To phrase it in classic Christian terms, it is a "dying to self." And it may not, at least on this side of the vale, ever take hold completely. But it is interesting that this experience of conversion, of coming back to the faith, regardless of how it is phrased requires extrication from the grip of Maya, and that is in itself a difficult, painful growth process.
Throughout the book there are similar deep insights into character, what it is, and how it forms. I leave with the following two excerpts from different points in the story.
source as above
Khaled loved to buy treats for himself. Whenever Karla saw him, he seemed to be eating, or preparing to eat, something delcious: a doughnut covered in soft, white icing: a fat Chinese dumpling shaped like a miniautre sack of burglars' swag: a juicy clementine, rattling in its baggy, pocked jacket. She was slightly shocked by his guiltess public gorging. She had been surrounded all her life by people who were either indifferent or actively hostile to food, and eating was for her a solitary vice. Her mother had neever really cooked so much as thrust nominally edible items onto the table and demanded that they not be "wasted." Mike drank protein shakes for lunch and wouldn't let anything pass his lips after six o'clock, for fear that he wouldn't metabolize it before he slept. ("Some people live to eat: I eat to live," he was always aying, as if his rejection of pleasure were a personal badge of honor.)
*****
How had she [Audrey] ended up like this, imprisoned in the role of harridan? Once upon a time, her brash manner had been a mere posture--a convenient and amusing way for an insecure teenage bride, newly arrived in America to disguise her crippling shyness. People had actually enjoyed her vitupeation back then, encouraged it and celebrated it. She had carved out a minor distinction for herself as a "character": the cute little English girl with the chutzpah and the longshoreman's mouth. "Get Audrey in here," they used to cry whenever someone was being an ass. "Audrey'll take him down a peg or two."
But somewhere along the way, when she hadn't been paying attention, her temper had ceased to be a beguiling party act that could be switched on and off at will. It had begun to express authentic resentments: boredom with motherhood, fury at her husband's philandering, despair at the pettiness of her domestic fate. She hadn't noticed the change at first. Like an old lady who persist in wearing the Jungle Red lipstick of her glory days, she had gone on for a long time, fondly believing that the strategems of her youth were just as appealing as they had ever been. By the time she woke up and discovered that people had taken to makng faces at her behind her back--that she was no longer a sexy young woman with a chamingly short fuse but a middle-aged termagent--it was too late. Her anger had become a part of her. It was a knotted thicket in her gut, too dense to be cut down and too deeply entrenched in the loamy soil of her disappointments to be uprooted.
It is this sort of powerful insight into how we become the people we are that gives this novel much of its drive and its interest. Of course, Audrey is wrong in her assumption--it is never too late to change; however, the stories we tell ourselves are what really matters and even if there is always time to change, we can (and frequently do) refuse to see it. That observation, made so sharply and so clearly, is one of the things that makes this a stand-out novel. Additionally, the contrast between mother [Audrey] and daughter [Rosa] is a nice exposition of the central theme of the possibility of change, of choosing to take a new direction and then, despite all opposing pressure following along in it. Audrey, despite her apparent power and ability perceives herself as incapable of change, and Rosa, despite not really desiring it, begins to embrace change. And it isn't a matter so much of age as of attitude. Audrey's invincible ignorance and persistant belief in her own way does not allow for the possibility of change because it does not allow for the possibility of correction. Rosa had started out in this way, taught by her parents' example to shield carefully all dogmatic insistence on the radical left viewpoint; however, she allows experience and reality to intrude and to transform her. She opens the door to doubt and thus the door to the possibility of belief. I'll see how this possibility is played out as I continue to read.
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