Reading the Chunksters discussion
The Books of Jacob
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Books of Jacob week 1
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Listening to the Audiobook with the ebook nearby for reference. I have found it engaging & easy to listen to with very little mind wandering.
I also started tonight and will have to plow through as much as I can in 21 days in case I lose it. I'll post in the right spot though. Almost through this week's and compared to the other chunksters I've read/am reading this is easy reading and engaging. I really like the diversity described in the area and it cracked me up when she yelled...
Not sure if the html is working on the app? My apologizes if not and I'll just keep it general if it didn't hide the text.
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I've just started this which is a re-read for me and I have noticed how much I'm enjoying it second time around knowing who people are and their significance (or not) to the story.One thing I love about Olga T is her ability to describe a whole teeming world, regardless of significance to her story. She has a way of embracing humanity that I love, so that I feel people's lives will continue even when they're not on the page.
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Thank you, Hugh, for the summaries and to the group for selecting this book. I had my doubts when I first started but now want to read it through the weekend. I don’t have anything yet to add to the discussion except to say that I’m learning a lot!
Alexa Freeman wrote: "Thank you, Hugh, for the summaries and to the group for selecting this book. I had my doubts when I first started but now want to read it through the weekend. I don’t have anything yet to add to th..."I'm in the same boat as you, Alexa. Starting to read today.
I'd be very interested in what you all think about Yente who we meet in the prologue.
Love Yente but I'm reading ahead of schedule because of using a library ebook.Also the descending page numbers with the ascending chapters I think are a nod to a cyclical nature of time. Neil Douglas Klotz called it caravan time. Yente mentions time or the illusion of it.
"the ancient Semites tended to look at time really not as a separate past, present, and future, but more as a, what I sometimes now call, caravan time. That is that the past is pulsing ahead of us. The present is here now with us in a community with which we’re traveling. And the future is coming along behind us. So it’s almost exactly the opposite of the way Western philosophy looks at it, which is, We’re heading toward the future and the past is behind us and it will never affect us again.
No, they looked at it almost the opposite way. We’re falling in the footsteps of our ancestors, and then as the Native Americans sometimes say, There are those who come along behind us or after us, and those are our children and our children’s children."
https://www.dailygood.org/story/2768/...
As Hugh's summaries make clear, we're introduced to a large array of characters in these opening chapters, and don't yet know who's going to be significant and who minor. My first impression is of a bustling, vibrant cultural melting pot that makes what becomes central/eastern Europe essentially 'multicultural' already.
The doctor walking through the streets notes Christian churches alongside synagogues and Orthodox, and we've seen different languages being used, as well as books from different intellectual traditions. The last sentence involving Yente comments on how her vision isn't restricted by borders which are shown to be constructed and man-made. A topic given tragic additional urgency in that area reading it today.
I also love the underlying humour: the priest's shrug of resignation, for example, when he's told he's been given a standard book of Jewish fairy tales! 'Shorr-changed', he thinks to himself, a lovely verbal flourish from Jennifer Croft, the translator. The original Polish, according to a friend, also uses wordplay here but of a different style - so Croft keeps to the spirit of the original but Englishes it.
I just finished this section, and so far it's clear we are being introduced to a rich story with a variety of idiosyncratic characters. The infusion of religion as well as the supernatural is clear and seem likely to play a large part in the book. Does anyone have any comments on the amulet that yente swallowed? Why was she given it and why did she swallow it? It seems like it gave her the ability for her soul to remain on earth?
I think Yente was given the amulet to prevent her dying during the festive wedding period as that would signify bad luck for the newly married couple. I don't think we're told why she swallows it but I'm guessing because she becomes a kind of presiding deity over the story.
My chapter summaries (as always beware spoilers, and I suspect that later in the book, I may need to make these less detailed). Names in upper case are usually first appearances:
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PROLOGUE
We are introduced to YENTE, eating paper, watched over by ELISHA SHORR. “Yente sees all”.
BOOK I
1. .1752. ROHATYN
The vicar forane of Rohatyn is dressing on a foggy day. He is thinking about the Jewish craftsmen who bungled the inscription over his door by writing a letter N backwards. He is Father BENEDYKT CHMIELOWSKI, dean of Rohatyn. Roshko brings the vicar’s britchka (carriage). They set off into the fog and lose the road, and follow the water. They reach the road to Rohatyn, where it is market day. They see a fancy carriage stopping at the inn – a Jew and a little girl get out. Rohatyn is described. Father Chmielowski stops at a Jewish bookseller’s stall. All of his books are Jewish. He enters a small house with a sign saying “Shorr General Store”, which he has been told to visit by Father PIKULSKI. He addresses a boy in Latin and the boy runs off. A man comes out with another younger man. Chmielowksi talks and the younger man translates. Chmielowski asks to see ELISHA SHORR. He is led into a large house. The young man introduces himself as HRYCKO and introduces him to Elisha Shorr. Chmielowski asks for his visit to be kept secret, and introduces himself as the vicar forane, a Catholic priest and an author. He says he has heard that Elisha Shorr has a library. They are interrupted by a woman who brings a jug and a plate of dried fruit, which she puts on the table then leaves the room. Chmielowski shows Elisha his copy of Athanasius Kircher’s Turris Babel, showing him a picture of the Tower of Babel and explaining that Kircher believed it to be impossible. Elisha starts to look at the illustrations. Chmielowski proposes swapping some books and says he has two more. Elisha closes his eyes, and Hrycko says he is listening to his elders, Eventually he opens a cabinet, showing Chmielowski a book entitled “Sefer Ha-Zohari”. Chmielowski also shows Elisha two volumes of his own book New Athens. He and Hrycko leave, and he asks Hrycko if he is Jewish, he says no, so Chmielowski asks how he knows their language. He explains that the Shorrs helped to bring him up after he was orphaned. Chmielowksi looks for his carriage but can’t see it. Hrycko continues to talk to him about the Shorrs. Chmielowski gives him a coin and he disappears.
2. OF CALAMITOUS LEAF SPRINGS AND KATARZYNA KOSSAKOWSKA’S FEMININE COMPLAINT
KATARZYNA KOSSAKOWSKA enters Rohatyn with her lady companion ELŻBIETA DRUŻBACKA. They are both suffering from the poor food on the road. The carriage breaks a spring and Elżbieta seeks help. She asks an old priest, who finds a boy to lead them to ŁABĘCKI’s house.
OF BLOOD-STAINED SILKS
Łabęcki is a distant cousin of Katarzyna Kossakowska. He is not pleased with their visit, as he was about to go and play cards with BISHOP SOŁTYK. Katarzyna is suffering from a “monthly ailment”. Elżbieta and the maid Agnieszka attempt to clean the blood from Katarzyna’s dress. They then try to sleep.
THE WHITE END OF THE TABLE AT STAROSTA ŁABĘCKI’S
The Starosta Łabęcki’s house is like a castle. Elżbieta is impressed with the size of the nuts the villagers bring in. The next afternoon Katarzyna feels better. A priest arrives and Elżbieta addresses him as the vicar forane. She listens to him talk in a mixture of Polish and Latin. Katarzyna’s husband Kossakowski is expected to arrive from Kamieniec. Pikulski is also there and Chmielowski shows him a Jewish book (a Zohar). Pikulski tells him Shorr has cheated him and given him a book of fairy tales. Pikulski offers to show him Jewish books in Latin and help him with Hebrew. He says he was joking when he told Chmielowski to see the Shorrs. Katarzyna requests food and wine in her room. Łabęcki tells her the doctor is an educated Jew, and complains about how difficult trading is. Katarzyna tells the company that Elżbieta is a poet, which surprises Chmielowski. He looks at her book of poems. They overhear Łabęcki arguing with the doctor about his gout.
3. OF ASHER RUBIN AND HIS GLOOMY THOUGHTS
ASHER RUBIN leaves the Starosta’s house. He wonders if the town only exists in his imagination. He sees two groups of Jews in conflict over their religious beliefs. The Shorrs believe in a messiah. Asher Rubin is often summoned by the rabbi to treat his sick child. He thinks that the dispute is silly.
THE BEEHIVE, OR THE HOME OF THE SHORR FAMILY OF ROHATYN
At the Shorrs’ house, they are preparing for a wedding. The eldest son is SALOMON, and his wife HAIKELE is pregnant. The second son NATHAN trades with Turks and has a Lithuanian wife. The third son YEHUDA is lively but troublesome, and is known as the Cossack. He is widowed but likes the daughter of Moshe from Podhajce. The youngest son WOLF is only 7. The groom is ISAAC, who is 16. His bride FREYNA is related to the Shorrs’ daughter HAYAH’s husband. Asher Rubin likes to visit the Shorrs, and especially Hayah, whose minor ailments lead her to prophesies. She has trances in which she plays with bread figures, and her father Elisha interprets what the spirits tell her. Asher has been called to see a dying woman, Yehuda leads him to a small room where the old woman lies. She is Yente. Her hands clutch strings and leather strips. Asher knows there is nothing wrong with her other than her age. Elisha asks him what is wrong with her, and he says she is dying, and won’t live to see the wedding. Asher is a widower of 35 who looks older, and comes from Lithuania. He went to university in Italy and returned very ill, but recovered in Rohatyn where he now feels trapped.
IN THE BETH MIDRASH
Elisha is with his granddaughter and her mother Hayah. She is one of his 9 grandchildren. He believes children should be made to study, pray and work. There are 11 children in his Beth Midrash, most of them his grandchildren. He is around 60. They are waiting for the teacher, and Elisha is checking the childrens’ progress. He shows them a nut and talks about its structure, comparing it to the Torah. The teacher Smetankes comes in. Elisha continues his lesson, then gives nuts to the children and goes to see Yente.
YENTE, OR NOT A GOOD TIME TO DIE
Yente was brought to the wedding by her grandson ISRAEL and his wife SOBLA, who are afraid of her. They think it will be a bad omen if she dies at the wedding. Before setting off Yente was fine, but on the road they passed through fog and Yente began to groan. They arrived in Rohatyn late at night. Elisha goes to see Yente, who tells him it is not a good time to die. Yente says she will wait. She has never liked Elisha. Everyone at the wedding comes to see Yente. Hayah sits with her and gives her treats. Yente sees that Shneydel, the wife of a Moravian cousin Zalman, is pregnant.
WHAT WE READ IN THE ZOHAR
Elisha talks to his eldest son, Zalman and Israel about what they should do. The rabbi MOSHKO comes in and reads something from the Zohar, telling them that the occasion should be a funeral not a wedding. Elisha is not happy and summons Hayah. He looks at the priest’s book, but can’t understand it.
OF THE SWALLOWED AMULET
Elisha writes some Hebrew letters on a piece of paper. Hayah takes the paper and folds it into a tiny wooden container, making an amulet. Elisha goes to Yente and places the amulet under her nightgown. When he has gone, Yente swallows the amulet. When Hayah comes to visit, she can only just hear Yente’s breathing. The wedding proceeds. Yente finds that she can leave her body to watch. A voice in her head says “Wind”. She follows the wind to the Dniester, where it turns round.
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