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nal paintings that impress themselves
on the way we see, also our own com-
mentaries on what we're doing —
while we're talking," he notes.
Writing Blue was an 18-year process.
While at Harvard Law School, Zucker,
a Yale graduate, aspired to become a
novelist; he wrote his version of the
great American novel but couldn't get it
published. He went on to get a degree
in English at New York University, and
then he was convinced to join the fami-
ly precious gems business.
His grandfather, a descendent of 13
generations of rabbis, was "one of the
greatest jewelers in Antwerp before
World War II and a great talmudist."
Zucker, who was born on the French
Riviera, seems to enjoy his chosen pro-
fession, particularly the stories he hears
from clients and colleagues as well as
from the stone cutters, miners and mer-
chants he deals with around the world.
A man who appreciates beauty, the
resident of New York's Upper West
Side has been collecting Judaica for 35
years; his family has a large collection
of ketubot, on display and stored at the
Jewish Theological Seminary.
While stalled on completing this
novel, he published four nonfiction
books about jewelry.
On the cover of Blue is a photo-
graph of a 204-carat star sapphire. The
title has much resonance for the
author, who delights in finding coinci-
dences that perhaps were intended and
connections between things that don't
ordinarily seem connected.
"Blue runs through so many mar-
velous causeways of the artistic and lit-
erary mind that I thought it should be
the focal point of my novel," Zucker
says. He notes that the word for sap-
phire in Hebrew is sapir, the word for
story is separ, and the word for count-
ing is mispar. Blue was chosen for the
Israeli flag, a sapphire was supposed to
have guided Noah's ark and the Ten
Commandments were supposed to
have been written on sapphire.
Not surprisingly, blue is the favorite
color of the author, who's wearing a
blue tie. He says that it was "very
much Vermeer's color" and Joyce's too.
He goes on to explain the Spaniards
called someone with neither Jewish nor
Muslim blood "blue-blooded," and that
Yale graduates are called "Old Blues."
"I definitely thought that blue
would pursue me if I didn't pursue it,"
he says. "Naturally I felt all these
things together led me to be a pen
moving but perhaps guided by very
much more than myself."
In putting this creative work togeth-
er, he first wrote — in longhand, in
blue ink —the central text, and then
assembled voices of people who influ-
enced and intrigued him. In some cases
the commentaries are actual words or
quotes from the commentators, and
those lines appear in italic type.
More often, their comments are as
imagined by Zucker. Among his
inspirations in writing Blue were a
Talmud teacher he has tried to meet
with weekly over many years at the
Harvard Club, and Elie Wiesel, whose
lectures he has attended for more than
25 years at the 92nd Street Y in New
York City. There, he first heard many
of the Chasidic stories and talmudic
tales that appear in the commentaries.
Citing the saying from Pirkei Avot
that one who quotes something in the
name of the person who said it has-
tens the coming of the Messiah, he
said that he was very careful in
attributing the quotes. An index at
the back identifies the speakers, refer-
ence works and art sources.
While writing, he had Xeroxes of
some of his favorite paintings and
photographs, slated for the book,
around him, "a bit like canasta cards."
For Zucker, the pictures and text are
"full partners" in the novel. The artist
most represented is Vermeer. "I think
his paintings are among the most mag-
ical in the world of art. They are very
much the glasses through which I see
the world," says Zucker. Indeed, the
light-filled paintings infuse the text.
Zucker describes his fiction as a blend
of fact and fiction. "It is quite extraordi-
nary to me that some of the characters
in my book that I created as fictional
characters, based rudimentarily on gem
dealers I have met over the years but
didn't know much about, have turned
out to be more truthfully and historical-
ly portrayed than I ever imagined."
He cites the ending of Isaac Bashevis
Singer's story "Gimpel the Fool," when
Gimpel muses that what some people
think are dreams and lies turn out be
true in other parts of the world.
Asked about the connection
between jewelry and writing, Zucker
notes that in writing, "one has the
sense of polishing the words, or cut-
ting and inserting the words as an
enameler would do into a bracelet or
ring." Secondly, he points out that in
Blue, the "colors of jewels are reflected
very much in my text."
Is Blue, the story of a spiritual gem
dealer, autobiographical?
"Much more than an autobiograph-
ical book," says Zucker, "it's about
things that didn't happen, that I think
in a mystical way will happen in
future generations." ❑
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