www.richardjespers.com
  • Home
  • Books
  • Journals
  • Blog

Courage in the Lion's Den

6/15/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
A WRITER'S WIT
I hate the idea of sheltering kids from challenging books. It's just another form of conservative fear that promotes ignorance more than anything else.
Adam Rapp
Born June 15, 1968

New Yorker Summer Fiction 2016

Each summer The New Yorker magazine publishes several short stories in a single issue. The implication is that one will tuck this issue under one's arm, take it to the beach, and read it from cover to cover. I wish. This profile of Jonathan Foer's story is the fourth in a series of four. —RJ
PictureMirka Laura Severa
June 6 and 13, 2016, Jonathan Safran Foer, “Maybe It Was the Distance”: Three generations of the Bloch family—Irv, Jacob, and Max—head to Washington’s Reagan airport to meet their Israeli cousins. ¶ The middle cohorts—Jacob and Tamir—are the focus of this story seen through Jacob’s eyes: his struggle as a novelist juxtaposed against Tamir’s arrogance over having accumulated a massive fortune. Jacob recalls for the reader two significant events the cousins share: one in which, as teenagers, in Tamir’s bedroom in Israel, the boys masturbate side-by-side repeatedly (viewing the same pair of breasts via the computer) as if it is a sport; second, an incident which takes place in DC on the eve of Jacob’s bar mitzvah, where, in the middle of the night, Tamir jumps into the lion’s den at the National Zoo and expects Jacob to do the same. The dare to be courageous, the challenge, is indicative of the implicit contract in their lives, the American Jew leading a rather easy life compared to the Israeli facing death every day. Following their grandfather’s funeral years later the two have a short exchange, the tenor of which seems to encapsulate their lives:

“‘It was a hard day,’ Tamir said.
‘Yes, but the day has been decades.’
‘But it’s felt like only a few seconds, right?’
‘Whenever someone asks me how I’m doing, I find myself saying, “I’m going through a passage.” Everything is a transition, a stop on the way to the destination, turbulence. But I’ve been saying it for so long I should probably accept that the rest of my life is going to be one long passage: an hourglass with no bulbs.’
Tamir leaned over and in a low voice, almost whispering, said, ‘You are innocent.’
‘What?’ Jacob said.
‘You are innocent.’
‘Thank you.’
He pulled back and said, ‘No, like, too trusting. Too childlike.’” (77).
But the fact that Jacob lives in a country where, in certain respects, he can remain a child, trusting, is not insignificant. This entire story is adapted from Foer’s forthcoming novel, Here I Am, due out in September.
Photograph by Mirka Laura Severa

NEXT TIME: My Book World
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    AUTHOR
    Richard Jespers is a writer living in Lubbock, Texas, USA.

    See my profile at Author Central:
    http://amazon.com/author/rjespers


    Richard Jespers's books on Goodreads
    My Long-Playing Records My Long-Playing Records
    ratings: 1 (avg rating 5.00)


    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011



    Categories

    All
    Acting
    Actors
    African American History
    Alabama
    Alaska
    Aldo Leopold
    Andy Warhol
    Arizona
    Arkansas
    Art
    Atrial Fibrillation
    Authors
    Authors' Words
    Barcelona
    Blogging About Books
    Blogs
    Books
    California
    Cars
    Catalonia
    Colorado
    Cooking
    Creative Nonfiction
    Culinary Arts
    Deleting Facebook
    Ecology
    Education
    Environment
    Epigraphs
    Essays
    Fiction
    Fifty States
    Film
    Florida
    Georgia
    Grammar
    Greece
    Gun Violence
    Hawaii
    Heart Health
    Historic Postcards
    History
    Idaho
    Iowa
    LGBTQ
    Libraries
    Literary Biography
    Literary Journals
    Literary Topics
    Literature
    Maine
    Massachusetts
    Memoir
    Michigan
    Minnesota
    Mississippi
    M K Rawlings
    Musicians
    Nevada
    New Hampshire
    New Mexico
    New Yorker Stories
    Nonfiction
    North Carolina
    Novelist
    Ohio
    Pam Houston
    Parker Posey
    Photography
    Playwrights
    Poetry
    Politics
    Psychology
    Publishing
    Quotations
    Race
    Reading
    Recipes
    Seattle
    Short Story
    South Carolina
    Spain
    Susan Faludi
    Teaching
    Tennessee
    Texas
    The Novel
    Travel
    Travel Photographs
    #TuesdayThoughts
    TV
    U.S.
    Vermont
    Voting
    War
    Washington
    Wisconsin
    World War II
    Writer's Wit
    Writing


    RSS Feed

    Blogroll

    alicefrench.wordpress.com
    kendixonartblog.com
    Valyakomkova.blogspot.com

    Websites

    Caprock Writers' Alliance
    kendixonart.com

    tedkincaid.com
    www.trackingwonder.com
    www.skans.edu
    www.ttu.edu
    www.newpages.com
    www.marianszczepanski.com
    William Campbell Contemporary Art, Inc.
    Barbara Brannon.com
    Artsy.net
WWW.RICHARDJESPERS.COM  ©2011-2023
                    BOOKS  PHOTOS  PODCASTS  JOURNALS  BLOG