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from page 87
initiates his daughter in ever more
fevered study. As a result, Aaron, former-
ly his father's anointed favorite, is sud-
denly cast aside, his birthright stolen
right out from under him by his kid sis-
ter.
It's not long before he seeks and
finds a different spiritual (and actual)
home at the local Hare Krishna temple.
But hypnotized by the magic possi-
bilities he sees in Eliza's letters, Saul
remains blind not just to Aaron's
intense hurt, but to Miriam's ever-
deeper descent into psychosis.
Can this family be saved? It's left to
Eliza to choose whether to take on the
mystic mantle of Abulafia, as her
father bids her, or stake out a territory
that is hers alone.
Stated another way: Should she
attempt the monumental task of
repairing the world reflected in her
broken family, or concentrate instead
on that unique world she is only
beginning to glimpse within her own
budding mind?
In the end, only Eliza heeds the
mystic Abulafia's warning that too
much knowledge can be a dangerous
thing. As so many mad, mystic dream-
ers have discovered, dare to overreach,
and instead of achieving unity of the
soul, one risks devastation of the spirit.
As serious as all this sounds, Bee
Season is a delightful, often hilarious
romp through the Jewish family psy-
che. Goldberg's wit is as sharp and sure
as Cynthia Ozick's, and there is some-
thing of a shared sensibility between
Goldberg's debut novel and Ozick's first
short story collection, The Pagan Rabbi.
To be sure, Goldberg has the icy
killer eye of the satirist, but she also has
heart. Some scenes are truly wrenching;
few writers pinpoint the anguish of
adolescence and childhood so acutely.
And her depiction of Saul's clueless
bewilderment amid the wreckage that
surrounds him strikes just the right
balance between mockery and com-
passion. Only Miriam comes off less
successfully, more a broadly drawn
abstraction than the fuli'y realized
characters who compose the rest of
the family.
Even so, in this or any other season,
you don't need to know Kabbala to
know that Goldberg possesses — and
is possessed by — literary talents of
the highest order. ❑
The Jewish Book Group at
Borders in Farmington Hills
holds a discussion on Bee Season
7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 22.
Free and open to the public.
(248) 737-0110.
CONVERSATION from page 87
book's characters or situations resonate
with the reader's own experiences and
thoughts.
JT: Your book's dysfunctional
family has been compared to those
in the films American Beauty and
Ordinary People. What do you think
of this comparison?
MG: I saw and liked both films —
I'm flattered by the comparisons. I
would hope that, ultimately, Bee
Season is a little less grim than
Ordinary People and that there's noth-
ing in the book that is as annoying for
the reader as the voice-over segments
in American Beauty were for me.
JT: In the book, each of the char-
acters experiences some sort of spiri-
tual journey. Where did 9-year-old
Eliza's journey take her?
MG: Eliza, I think, reaches a
point of self-awareness that many
people don't achieve until they are
much older — she becomes able to
distinguish who she really is and
what she wanes in contrast to how
others see her and what they want
for her.
JT: Why did you choose the
spelling bee as the vehicle for the
story? Would any other type of
competition have worked here?
MG: I think any competition
could work, but the spelling bee is
the one that found me and the one
that revealed to me the larger aspects
of childhood that, I think, all child-
hood competitions embody.
JT: Eliza's father tried to set her
on a specific course in her spiritual
journey. Do you believe Judaism
sets out any specific guidelines on
"trying to understand God"?
MG: Having been raised
Reconstructionist, I understand
Judaism as something that's probably
a lot more flexible than the larger
majority of observant Jews.
"Understanding God" is a very per-
sonal thing. I believe in a Judaism
that allows for flexibility in coming
to personal terms with the concept.
JT: What is your relationship to
Judaism? How observant are you
personally?
MG: I was raised an observant
Reconstructionist — Shabbat servic-
es, Sunday school, bat mitzvah —
but I am now largely unobservant. I
don't consider myself a religious per-
son, but I strongly relate to Judaism
on historical and cultural levels.
JT: How does Jewish mysticism
appeal to you? What, if any, has
been your own means of transcen-
,dence?
MG: I like that mysticism posits
the existence of a certain kind of
magic in the world, though I don't
believe in that kind of magic myself.
It's heartening to me, though, that
there have been people throughout
history who did. When writing is
going really, really well, it is definite-
ly a kind of transcendence.
Gardening as well.
JT: What personal experiences
have served as source material for
the book?
MG: I was an artsy kid in a fairly
non-artsy family. Realizing that it
was OK to be artsy and that it was
OK to pursue a life with art as its
center was how I experienced emerg-
ing selfhood and an experience that I
drew upon for the individual quests
for selfhood and greater meaning
that the book's characters undertake.
I was in one spelling bee. It was my
fourth-grade class bee, and I mis-
spelled the word "tomorrow." I
spelled it "tomarrow."
JT: Are there any parallels
between your own success as a
writer and Eliza's success as a
speller?
MG: I suppose that I've always
been drawn to language and to writ-
ing in much the same way Eliza is
drawn to letters.
JT: What is the premise for your
next book?
MG: I've been working for about
nine months on a book that is large-
ly set during the 1918 influenza epi-
demic.
— Joyce Kohlenberg Kinnard
Atlanta Jewish Times