arts entertainment

From Latvia,
With Ambiguity

David Bezmozgis, out with an acclaimed
first novel, reflects on the nature of
ideologies like Communism and Zionism.

Eric Herschthal
New York Jewish Week

didn't migrate to Israel either:' noting that
they went straight to places like America,
Australia and Canada instead.
he story of the refuseniks is a
They included Bezmozgis' own fam-
heroic one. Thousands of Soviet
ily, which left Riga, Latvia, for Toronto in
Jews risked their lives, facing
1980. Much like the fictitious Krasnans ky
imprisonment or worse, so they could live
family at the center of The Free World, the
openly as Jews.
Bezmozgis family stayed for half a year in
When the Communist government
Rome awaiting their final visas. While the
finally permitted Jews to emigrate en
novel is not autobiographical, Bezmozgis
masse, beginning in the late-1970s, the face said that part of his goal was to paint an
of modern Jewish life changed decisively
accurate picture of Soviet Jewish emigres
— many Soviet Jews, staunch Zionists, for
as he actually knows them. "They're just
instance, moved to Israel, transforming the
ordinary people he said.
state's politics in the process.
Which is not to say that what Soviet
But many did not go to Israel, choosing
Jews experienced was normal. At least in
instead to go where life seemed easier:
his novel, Bezmozgis' Jewish characters
the United States, Australia and Canada.
face many harrowing choices.
Among them was the family of David
In one instance, the patriarch of the
Bezmozgis, 37, one of America's most
Krasnansky family, Samuil, recalls the
noted young novelists. One of the New
moment the Soviet army occupied Latvia.
Yorker's "20 Under 40" list of up-and-com- A faithful Communist his entire life, Samuil
ing fiction writers last year, and the author embraces the invading army. But not long
of a widely praised collection of short
after the Soviets arrive, they begin round-
stories, Natasha and Other Stories (a Times ing up Zionists, among other competing
Notable Book, an Amazon.com Top 10
ideologues, for deportation. Samuil and his
Book and winner of numerous debut fic-
brother Reuven, also a Communist, must
tion awards) in 2004, Bezmozgis released
decide whether to help their cousin Yaakov,
his highly praised debut novel last month.
an ardent Zionist, escape.
The Free World (Farrar Straus Giroux;
Despite Yaakov's parents' pleading for
$26) is, indeed, focused on a family of
their help, Yaakov tells his cousins it's
Soviet Jews, but there is nothing heroic
no use, relieving them of their burden:
about their tale. They have been allowed
"What's the point in making a fuss?"
to escape the Soviet Union because they
Yaakov says to his family. "This is the
are Jewish, but their attitude toward their
nature of our times. Samuil and Reuven
religion can be characterized as conflicted
bet on one horse. I bet on another. My
bemusement at best; toward Israel, they
horse lost."
feel no different. It is 1978 and they are in
Bezmozgis cautions against looking for
Rome, waiting to arrive at their final desti- parallels between the Krasnanskys' expe-
nation. They simply want freedom, to live
rience and his own. Despite the novel's
and be as they choose.
occasional glimpses of harsh repression,
"This story hasn't been told because it's
he said that his family's travails in Latvia
not a glamorous story:' said Bezmozgis.
were often less stark. On the whole, he
"The heroic story is the one of the people
said, the picture of widespread grave per-
who were imprisoned and were then
secution of Soviet Jews is inaccurate.
finally allowed to go to Israel. But that's
"What most Americans don't under-
not what most Soviet Jews did."
stand is that this wasn't Nazi Germany,
Many Jews benefited from the refuse-
and it wasn't imperial Russia. That sort of
niks' courage, he said. But the refuseniks'
rabid anti-Semitism didn't really exist. It
efforts are "the story of the heroic minor-
was systemic; there were things like quo-
ity. ... This book, which is a novel of
tas," he said. "You knew there were certain
course, tells the story of everyone else."
universities you couldn't apply to. But hav-
He added, "The reality is that many Jews
ing said that, there were exceptions:'
who moved to Israel were disappointed,
He gave a few examples, however, of
then left. [And then] there were Jews who
what Jewish life in Soviet Latvia was like

T

120

May 19 • 2011

"Tbe ritivet is tiot an attack on any on

ideolooy," f:ays i iCi Eltrinit);(1k,

from his own childhood. "On
Pesach, we'd celebrate and
have to close the curtains. On
Rosh Hashanah, we'd do
the same thing," he said.
In fact, on all the Jewish
holidays, Bezmozgis
remembers his par-
ents telling him
that they were
only celebrating
his grandfather's
birthday. "So my grandfa-
ther had four or five birthdays
a year," he said, pausing, "God forbid,
I would say something in kindergarten
and get everyone in trouble
When the Bezmozgis arrived in Toronto
in 1980, they sent David, then 7, to a
Hebrew day school. "They wanted me to
have the kind of education I couldn't have
in the Soviet Union," he said, noting that it
was illegal to teach Hebrew or Yiddish in
the Soviet Union, and many synagogues
were closed.
But his teenage and young adult years
were mostly those of a normal, middle-
class Jewish kid. After Hebrew day school,
he went to McGill University, where he
majored in English literature, then on to
Los Angeles, for a master's degree in film
at the University of Southern California.
His first ambition was to be a film-
maker, and many of the scripts he wrote
years ago had Jewish themes. Bezmozgis
still writes for film, his latest being a
screenplay for Victoria Day, which had its
premiere at Sundance in 2009. His segue
into the literary world, however, began
when he met the Jewish writer Leonard
Michaels years ago, back in California.
Something of a writer's writer —
Raymond Carver and Tobias Wolff both
cited Michaels as a key influence —
Bezmozgis called Michaels up when he
wanted to make a screenplay based on one
of his stories.
"It never got produced:' Bezmozgis said
of the film, but it led to a fruitful friend-
ship. "What attracted me to him was a
shared set of interests. Here was a secular
person who exhibited a respect for Jewish
history. He was engaged and fascinated by
the role of the Jewish man in the world."
Michaels introduced Bezmozgis to

Wyatt Mason, an
accomplished
critic and cur-
rently a con-
tributing writer
for the New York
Imes Magazine.
Commenting on
Bezmozgis' penchant
for writing about Jewish
immigrants — a well-worn
trope of American Jewish
fiction — Mason said, "What
makes David a distinctive novel-
ist is not what he writes about, but
how. ... He has the ability, in lucid,
lyrical language, to re-invent the world,
sentence by sentence
Mason connected Bezmozgis to Lorin
Stein, an influential editor then at Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, where Bezmozgis
signed a book contract with FSG for
Natasha and Other Stories.
Bezmozgis said that insofar as his novel
offers a commentary on political ideologies,
he did not want to suggest that none were
worth fighting for. "It's not an attack on
any one idea',' he said. "It's a full portrayal
of what these ideals amount to in reality.
Communism is a wonderful idea in theory;
it just didn't work out so well. Zionism, if
you're Jewish, is a wonderful idea; it just
hasn't worked in practice so well either."
Bezmozgis exhibits the same kind
of skepticism in The Free World. In one
poignant scene near the novel's end,
Samuil attends a nostalgic party for aging
Communist Jews at their makeshift com-
munity center in Rome.
A rabbi finds his way in, and tries to
dissuade Samuil from the Communist
cause. "If you had applied the strength
of your convictions to the Torah, I don't
doubt that you could have been a great
rabbi today:' the rabbi says.
"Nonsense," Samuil replies. "Had I
applied myself to your Torah, I would not
be here today. The NKVD would have put
me on a train, or the Germans in a pit."
"All the more reason to return now
to the Torah. Wouldn't you say? Out of
respect for our martyrs?"
"There were many kinds of martyrs:'
Samuil says, ending the conversation. "You
honor yours; I'll honor mine."