House of Words: Jewish Writing, Identity, and MemoryArguing that Jewish North American writing is too commonly discussed as part of the mainstream, neglecting the Jewish aspects of the works, Ravvin places the writing of Bellow, Richler, Cohen, West, Mandel, Roth, and Rosenfarb within the Jewish context that the works demand. Ravvin depicts a Jewish cultural landscape within which postwar writers contend with community and identity, continuity and loss, and highlights the way this particular landscape is entangled with broader literary and cultural traditions. He considers Bellow and West alongside apocalyptic narratives, discusses Cohen in relation to the counterculture, examines Mandel's postmodern view of history, and looks at autobiography and ethics in Roth and Rosenfarb. At once scholarly and poetic, A House of Words will appeal to the general reader of Canadian, American, and Jewish literature and history, as well as to specialists in these fields. |
Contents
This World and Others | 3 |
WHAT SORT OF HOME IS THE PAST? | 7 |
STRANGE PRESENCES | 49 |
CONFRONTING APOCALYPSE | 99 |
THE COLLABORATOR | 133 |
In Search of a Multicultural Tradition | 156 |
Notes | 165 |
177 | |
189 | |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
Adelson American Anne Frank Anne's anti-Semitism apocalyptic appeared argues Auschwitz Beautiful Losers Broadway Bruno Schulz called Canada Canadian characterized Cohen confront contemporary context critics cultural death deconstruction depicts Derrida describes diary Edith Eli Mandel essay Europe European experience fantasy fascist father feel Felman fiction German ghetto Ghost Writer grotesque Hirsch Hitler Holocaust House of Words human identity imagination intentionally left blank Jake Jake's Jewish writers Jews Joey Kafka kind landscape Leonard Cohen Levin literary literature lives Locust Lodz Lonoff Man's Mandel memory Mengele Miss Lonelyhearts Montreal murdered narrative Nathan Nathanael West Nazi novel Obsession offers Otto Frank past Philip Roth play poem portrays post-war Prague Orgy prairie Primo Levi reference response Richler role Rosenfarb Roth Roth's Rumkowski Sammler scene sense Sisovsky spiritual stories survivors symbols tion tradition Tree Urbain's Horseman urge victims vision voice wartime West West's writing Yiddish Zdenek Zuckerman