“Yesterday I was a Yiddish writer, today I’m a Nobel Laureate, tomorrow I’ll be a Yiddish writer.”

Even though I’m not in the least bit of a writing mood, for the sake of continuing with what is becoming a weekly practice of summarizing my weekend readings, I will do my best to form coherent sentences. By Friday, no one having responded to my plea for reading suggestions, I turned to my labmate for ideas. He actually named quite a few books, and I started my weekend with a varied collection of books, including some recommendations by my labmate (e.g.,The Tao of Pooh). However, I ended up reading my back-up material: a biography on Isaac Bashevis Singer by Janet Hadda. It was a disappointing biography; mostly in contrast to the superb biography on Bellow I read a few weeks ago. It wasn't that Singer did not lead a fascinating life, or that the book wasn’t interesting (it was very), but Hadda’s biographical writing skills pale in comparison with Atlas’. That is, I finished reading the book feeling like there was a lot more to learn of Singer’s life than was covered in the short biography, while the Bellow biography was extremely comprehensive. Still, the book gave me a better appreciation and understanding of Singer’s work, and strengthened my religious and cultural pride. And anyway, after completing the book, I moved on to Singer’s autobiographical work, In My Father’s Court.

I was always drawn to the lives and works of Jewish writers, at least partly because for a long time I imagined myself becoming one of them. But lately I think my compulsion to read about their lives might stem more from my seeking to understand my own. I’m particularly intrigued by writers that grew up in orthodox homes (Singer, Bellow, Wiesel, Daphne Merkin, etc.). Many of these writers attempted to abandon the traditions they grew up with, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that it’s almost impossible to truly "break away" after being raised in the all encompassing environment of strictly religious household. For better or worse, it follows the sentimental Jew. Even late into his life, after years of living a lifestyle that in many senses was very far removed from the observant household of his youth, Bellow was still said to be most comfortable in the presence of Chicago Jews. Singer, raised in the epitome of Judaism in the Polish shtetal, didn’t veer quite as far from home as Bellow did. He spent most of his days entrenched in the world of Yiddish writers, and furthermore Hadda labled him "a deeply religious man" (although I'm unclear on whether or not this is actually suggestive of religious observance). Singer couldn't escape, but he didn't want to (yet perhaps he was so deeply influenced by his childhood that he couldn't want to?):

I couldn’t be the sort of Jew that my pious parents wanted to make of me; I couldn’t be, and didn’t want to be, a non-Jew. I could live neither with, nor without G-d. I aspired to the big, free world, but I had understood early on that the world was nowhere as big and as free as I had envisioned.

I have more comments, but it is late, and I have not read a paper I was supposed to read by tomorrow (or I suppose today), so maybe more on this later.