Jewish Writer in America:
Assimilation, Identity Crisis

"The Jewish Writer in America"
by Allen Guttmann. New York
Oxford University Press, 1971,
227 pages, notes and.inder. $7.95

,'

A Review by DAN VOGEL
Professor of English at Stern
College of Yeshiva University,
Member of the Editorial Board
of Tradition Magazine.
(romrism 1972, ETA inc.)
Among the kinds of original
material—letters, autobiographies,
reminiscences, and essays — that
future historians must study to
interpret the experience of the
American Jew, is American Jew-
ish fiction and poetry. The inter-
pretation of this genre of literature
has already become an academic
industry, and "The Jewish Writer
in America" by Allen Guttmann,
a professor at Amherst College,
(Oxford University Press), is a
notable example .
This hook is worth every cent
of its cost, and more. Prof. Gutt-
mann has the courage to write
a bout American Jewish writing
not in the fashionable sophisticated
mythico-Freudian vein of Leslie
Fiedler, nor in the nonpartisan
bibliographical manner of Sol Lint-
!in His perspective is reasonable
and correct: American Jewish lit-
erature is the variegated expres-
sion of the complex if common-
place_ concerns and conflicts of
American Jews who found their
traditions unequal to the demands
of the "golden medina." The com-
plexity rises out of a single con-
flict: the "shtetl" heritage versus
the emancipated life of America.
The agony of the fear of assimila-
tion, or of the surrender to it, or
of resisting it, is the story of
American Jewish writing, and
Guttmann is entirely right in sub-
titling his book with this theme.
Indeed, assimilation as a pre-
vailing theme distinguishes Ameri-
can Jewish writing from its parent
literature of the diaspora, Russian
Jewish fiction Certainly in the
works of Sholom Aleichem Peretz,
Mendele. and I. B. Singer, eman-
cipation emerges as an intruder
upon shtetl life. But just as fre-
quently these writers composed
stories where this • conflict plays no
part. Not so in America. As Gutt-
mann show s. the problem of as-
similation suffuses the work of
everyone, from Emma Lazarus
in the 188Cs to Saul Bellow and
Chaim Potok in the 1960s.
Guttmann discusses this body of
writing under three headings --
"The Prornisel Land," "One's
Own People," and "The Revolu-
tionary Messiah " Adeptly, h
organizes a lot of works withoul .
pigeonholing them. As a literary
critic, Guttmann assesses the lit-
erary achievements and failures of
almost every Jewish writer in
America, certainly all the signif-
icant ones, like Mary Antin, Abra-
ham, (.'shun. Ludwig Lewisohn,
Henry Roth, Bernard Malamud,
Philip Roth. Norman Mailer, and
Saul Bellow. But, reading Gutt-
man's survey, one senses a cloud
of disappointment hovering over
all this talent. What literary
epiphany can balance the disillu-
sionment in a promised land that
demanded assimilation by inter-
marriage or outright conversion in
return for acceptance: of a con-
sciousness of one's own people
that feeds on historical suffering,
of a realization that Socialism (the

last European spiritual heritage)
i• lust another god that failed"

•

•

•

And yet, because of Guttmann's
thoroughness in dealino, with
writers of two ',...enerations, one is
led to a more ppsiti‘e
which Guttmann, however, seems
to resist. There are - marranos -
among the dozens of writers who

tell stories of assimilation and
intermarriage, as if this were the
path of salvation

43 — Friday, July 7, 1972

Vitamin "H" for Jewish Living: VITAL HEBREW!

Not available over the counter, but regularly over

Among American Jewish writers,
only one, in Guttmann's pantheon,
"made it"—Norman Mailer. Every-
body else is still reminiscing, ex-
plaining, justifying their flirtation
with, or surrender to, assimilation.
They have not really escaped their
ethnic origins. There is no joy or
sense of discovery or emotion of
release in their works. Thus the
crisis of identity goes unresolved.
•
• •

The most popular example of
this is Philip Roth. In 1963, Roth
tried to de-emphasize his Jewish
origins, and separate himself from
the Jewish community. But I be-
lieve that "Eli the Fanatic" repre-
sents Roth better than "The Con-
version of the Jews," to which
Guttmann gives special signifi-
cance. He quotes Roth's pertinent
question, "How are you (a Jew)
connected to me as another man
is not7 - In Tevye's immortal
words, I'll tell you: I don't know.
But every other country's people
have connected Jew to Jew, and
many "assimilated" Jews cannot
break the connection. Perhaps the
search to make this connection
theologically clear is the continu-
ing challenge of the Jew's most
enduring characteristic, the sense
of peoplehood. I suggest that Roth
depicts this in "Eli the Fanatic,"
the story of a Jew in suburban
wasp country.
•
• •

Admittedly, an optimistic posi-
tion on assimilation is perhaps
naive and unrealistic. To substan-
tiate his thesis that this is properly
the major concern of American
Jewish writing, Guttmann laces
his study with incontestable soci-
ologists' statistics and statements
about the decline of Jewish observ-
ance and the fallacy of hope in
rising attendance in synagogue
and day school. His synopsis of
these studies is frightening and
actually leads him into his post-
script, entitled. "The End of the
Jewish People?" lie concludes his
book with the statement, "Paradox-
ically, the survival of a significant
and identifiably Jewish literature
depends upon the unlikely conver-
sion to Judaism of a stiff-necked,
intractable, irreverent, attractive
generation that no longer chooses
to he chosen." Yet, not choosing
to he chosen does not mean that
they won't he chosen anyway_ It's
happened before.

That Guttmann does not consider
this possibility weakens his inter-
pretation, it seems to me, of the
work of Saul Bellow- . The chapter
he devotes to him (the only one
on a single author) is the most
distant and equivocal. Guttmann
identifies the marginality of the
Jew as the chief strain of vision
in Bellow's works, a feeling of
"dangling" somewhat overcome in
his masterpiece, "Herzog." But
Guttmann disagrees with the critic
Irving Malin on what brought Pro-
fessor Herzog to a modicum of
peace: "The argument is that Jew-
ishness can be 'vaguely defined as
family feeling or heartfelt truth.'
Since Gentiles have been known on
occasion to acknowledge kinship's
claims and to respond emotionally
to verify." Ilerzog's reach for
peace is not necessarily Jewish
and no longer marginal.

That Guttmann engenders such
respectful dispute is an indication
of the value of his book. His style
flow's with urbane simplicity and
his ideas are always courteously
impressive
Above all, they are

provocative. demanding each
reader to re-evaluate these works.
Na greater encomium can he
offered by any critic. "The Jewish
Writer in
America . ' should be
read by everyone interested in
the American Jewish community
and in how- communal experience
becomes the stuff of literature.

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

CHANNEL 56

in the Television Course in Functional Hebrew

"TO ISRAEL WITH HEBREW"

6:30 p.m., Tuesday, July 11

4 Public Service of the

ZIONIST ORGANIZATION of Detroit

( Detroit District, Zionist Organization of America )

Co-sponsored by Detroit Jewish News

Vocabulary for Lesson 8, Tuesday, July I 1

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