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(NW corner of 12 Mile) Farmington Hills (248) 553-4220 Open 7 days a week Mon-Sat 11 am - 10 pm Sunday 4 pm - 9:30 pm 8/18 2000 88 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