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August 23, 2004
Pearls
I recently read The Romance Reader by Pearl Abraham. The Romance Reader is a novel about a Chasidishe girl, Rachel, growing up in a chasidishe home yet not fitting in. While The Romance Reader is officially a novel, it really is the story of the authors life. I will try not to focus on the discrepancies between the book and the real history, because that will take up a lot of space and is not a point I am trying to make. In short, she wrote that book to vent her anger and frustrations. She is really just as self-centered as her father is and is looking to blame society for everything that went wrong in her life. In the book Rachel describes how her sister kept telling her she should know her limits and go step by step, while she wanted to take the entire staircase at a time. In real-life her sister settled down to a normal, yet not chasidish, life. While Pearl is still out there somewhere trying to find herself and blaming her upbringing for everything that went wrong in her life.
To the general public, the appeal of The Romance Reader is the glimpse into a closed world, namely, our chasidishe world. However, she failed at that as well. Reviewers such as Shana Mauer, did not see the book as revealing at all. “One begins the book anticipating a titillating view of a closed world that is hostile to the gaze of outsiders. However, in this instance, such expectations are unfulfilled and The Romance Reader disappoints. Where one would hope to encounter an intimate look at the specific idiosyncrasies of Chasidic adolescents, their family, and community, nothing more is offered than a cursory whitewash of that world, an account that could be easily gleaned frotext on Jewish culture containing the most basic overview of life within the many encyclopedia or confines of Chasidic Judaism.”
All that was not the focus of this review. When I read The Romance Reader, with little knowledge of the history behind it, I wasn't struck by Rachel’s shameless stealing. I didn't see the rude way in which she used her husband to get out of her house, I saw a girl slipping off the derech without thinking about it. I saw a girl without a backbone, doing whatever it is that came her way without thinking. I saw a girl eating on Yom Kippur without thinking “I don't believe in G-d, I can eat on Yom Kippur.” She ate simply because her hands touched a bag of pretzels! Yet she had no backbone. She didn't follow her dreams. She didn't leave the house and went to live her own life, she stayed on, got married to the boy her parents wanted her to get married, and then left him when he slept past their stop on a bus! Here is a girl letting herself be pulled by whatever emotions are pulling her at the moment, and blaming her environment for everything that went wrong in her life.
DISCLAIMER: I do not recommend you read the book, as there are parts that really do not need to be read. A teenagers dream is fine to have, not to read about.
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR:
DATE: 08/23/2004 09:20:03 PM
What was your point in reading this book? This must be what "seforim chitzoinim" is -- a biting book by a frei person bashing our way of life. Did it make you grow in any way?
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COMMENT:
AUTHOR: Shlomo
DATE: 08/23/2004 09:26:05 PM
My point in starting to read this book was curiosity, as I know the family and I know the town. The reason I reviewed the book, is to bring out the point that some teenagers who “bum out” do so without any real reason and unjustifiably blame their environment for it. In general I am very much pro-at-risk-teens, but I feel that people need to recognize the difference between one who bums out, let's say, intellectually and one who bums out like Rachel in the story. Both types need to be helped, each in their own way.
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Posted by notepad at August 23, 2004 08:49 PM