The easiest way of thinking about "the Jewish Question" (isn't that so polite?) and the Nazis is to think of it as a temporary aberration and foray into pure evil. I know that this is the way that I have generally thought of the holocaust, it's simplistic and kind of makes one (me, maybe you) feel kind of good inside (good? well not about what happened, but about the general state, or nature, of humanity.). Thinking about this position though leads one (me) to realize that for this to be the case there has to be something called 'evil' that can possess a whole nation. That something then seems to become the devil or something like that, and then things get all weird and religious. Like many great pieces of literature about World War 2, this book puts the question of Antisemitism into a more difficult light than reductionism to 'evil'. The narrator of this novel isn't German, he's kind of Romanian, but his family believes itself to be Austrian. The whole dissolution of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire has left the narrators family with a kind of homelessness, not literally-they still have a nice big home, but without a homeland. The action in four of the five stories that make up this novel take place in the childhood through late teenage years of the narrator, the Anti-Semite of the title. For a person who by the title doesn't like Jews, he has a lot of dealings with them. They are his friends and his lovers, he works with them, he spends his free time in their culture, he knows Yiddish and the storytelling of the Jews better than most of his Jewish friends do, but yet he still can't bring himself believe that these people are really like himself. That's the crux of the Antisemitism of this book, and maybe even for quite a bit of the German people(?). The Jews are the Other. In the world of the narrator of this book, his family was descendants from a tradition that defended the empire, served as Knights and warriors, but otherwise just lived in big houses and spent their free time engaged in non-productive pursuits. The only active pursuit besides warfare that was fit for a man of this class was hunting. The times have changed though, the empire no longer stands, and being the unproductive landed gentleman class just isn't really cutting it so much anymore, but those attitudes about work and stuff die hard. In this world the Jew represents all that is awful about the changing world, they are part of the new rising class of people who are benefiting from the breakdown of 'traditional' society. They do awful things like 'work' and try to improve themselves, and after working for awhile they might even expect to be allowed to do some of the same things that the entitled lazy class do, like (gasp) hunting. So here the Jewish people are sort of the problem with the coming world, not that they themselves are the problem, but that the whole changing world scares people who liked things the way they were. The narrator at a few times in the book says in so many words, that he likes Jews when they are Jews. He finds it awful when they try to assimilate. Why is this? Because as Jews, living in their shitty part of the town and dressing in their traditional manner look the part of the outsider, they can be appreciated for their 'otherness', sort of like an oddity that can be visited when someone from the upper class feels like slumming. Assimilated though the Jewishness in certain ways disappears, and the Other who had been safely living in their own part of the world, or city or town, now might be able to live undetected in the narrators own world. This wouldn't be so bad, except that this upward social and economic mobility is destroying the world that the entitled class had been enjoying for so long. Of course the Jews aren't the only uppity ones in this story. There are also those uncouth lower class Christian people, who aren't appreciated much either for their vulgar ways and they are encroaching on the world of the entitled to, but maybe they aren't so bad, because at least their background is more similar to ours (here I'm speaking from the point of view of being the landed class of the former Austrian Hungarian Empire) and when things start to get bad economically and socially these more similar groups can unite in finding a scapegoat and blame the Other who had been assimilating and possibly even living undetected among us. The horror!!There is much more to this novel than just the more complex roots of what happened in Germany and the role of the Other in society, but this is what got me thinking most about the novel, and I have a feeling that I didn't do what I wanted to say any justice. Especially because I just pooped out during the previous paragraph on my line of thought, or maybe my line of thought didn't dry up, but I got kind of lazy writing. So why is this novel only three stars? I don't know. I liked it, and normally something that gets me thinking earns more stars, but I'm not feeling so generous now. While I enjoyed reading it, nothing really stood out for me in the actual book, it was more the lines of thought that the book inspired in me that interested me more (which granted is probably what the author wanted). Maybe if I had read the fancy new New York Review of Books edition of the book with the introductory essay by Deborah Eisenberg she would have illuminated something more for me in the book and I would have enjoyed it more. I didn't though, and she has generally left me cold in the past with her writing so maybe it wouldn't have helped at all.
there's something i almost never trust about "redemptive" narratives of race and identity. they almost always congratulate the superficial benevolence of a narrowly defined "target audience" instead of exploring the discomfort and uncertainty that the topic deserves. for me, stories about people developing prejudices are much more interesting than the ones where they un-learn them.memoirs of an anti-semite offers no real redemption for its central character, but it's not overly bleak in its lack of salvation. despite its unfamiliar (to me) location (bukovina - essentially northern romania - during the years between the two world wars), its handling of bigotry feels intimately familiar. instead of brown-shirt hooligans or tormented sadists, its anti-semite is a defensive ball of contradictions. he may "hate the jews" (and women, for that matter) at times, but he also harbors a lifelong fascination with them. memoirs of an anti-semite takes a nuanced look at the precarious, competing nation-states of eastern europe in the early 20th century as well as the desires that encouraged people to rally behind them. through five stories, we learn about our anti-semite's peculiar and confusing ethnic allegiances (italian, austrian, romanian-thanks-to-the-dissolution-of-austria-hungary)... which lead to peculiar and confusing ideological allegiances (to the pre-byzantine roman empire, to charlemagne, briefly-kinda-sorta to nazi germany)... which lead to a series of implausible justifications as he befriends, attempts to seduce, and occasionally rejects his jewish neighbors. got all that? furthermore, it's never entirely clear that these bloodlines, family histories and ancient claims to power are grounded in anything other than territorial folklore and trash-talking.the book is constructed as a satire, but it finds a remarkable balance between the weight of its historical moment and the playful tone of its prose. though i'm often invited to laugh at its character, i'm also forced to understand him. he can be lucid, candid and apolojectic about his preconceptions at times, and he can resort to vicious pettiness at others. "antisemitism," in the hands of rezzori, isn't the broad label one might expect from the title. this is a book about a pompous ass who's desperately out of sync with his own desires, too belligerent to overcome his petty prejudices and too decent to do anything particularly diabolical. he's not far off from most of the people i would label racists in my own life. and at certain moments, his thought patterns can mirror my own when i'm at my most shallow. rezzori's insights require real introspection. the racism he characterizes rarely carries pistols and swastikas. it's the kind that's always prefaced with an apology or an explanation. the kind that can slip into a conversation without starting an argument. its the kind i most often see in the world around me, and the kind i work to eradicate within myself. and that's the kind i want to read about.
Do You like book Memoirs Of An Anti-Semite (2002)?
One of the best things I've read this year and one of the most beautiful books I've ever read. There are Five novellas with a central protagonist in each who shares the name of the author Gregor, although his given name is Arnulf, he is of Italian heritage, born in Rumania, and an Austrian citizen. The organization and structure of the first three novellas is similar, after a long exposition usually involving a Jewish antagonist, Gregor behaves despicably towards them, thereby ending or severing their relationship. The last two are not so clear cut, the last one in particular has a puzzle whose solution the author does not reveal. In the first one the protagonist is a teenager, who stays with his aunt and uncle on summer vacation and who befriends a Piano prodigy, in the second he's living in Bucharest and has an affair with a widow, in the third he's still in Bucharest and tries to help out a school teacher, in the 4th he's in Vienna and befriends a beautiful, lame, young woman who's orphaned, in the 5th he's in Rome looking back at his 2nd marriage. Each novella illustrates the major themes of anti-semitism, concepts that have been touted as reasons for the destruction of European Jewry: that Yiddish is a "jargon", why do Jews always try to take on the airs of their "betters", why do they imitate the language and manners of those around them...etc. I would recommend reading this alongside Sanford Gilman's book on anti-semitism or Jewish self-hatred.
—anna
Así como las fronteras de los antiguos Reinos e Imperios en donde nació y vivió Gregor Von Rezzori han ido desapareciendo por diversos motivos, así parece ir diluyéndose el recuerdo y la obra de este autor de habla alemana nacido en la actual Rumanía. Lo que yo podría decir es que a pesar de ser el primer libro que leo de él, con eso me basta para instalarlo en el mausoleo inmortal de los mis grandes y venerados escritores; aunque deseo con fuerza poder leer algunas obras más de él. No cabe duda que uno va de sorpresa en sorpresa descubriendo escritores que subyacen bajo la grandeza y la fama de los autores que la posteridad ha consagrado como los más talentosos y populares. Estoy seguro que hay muchos más por descubrir que por alguna causa han caído en el olvido gradual o abruptamente o simplemente su obra nunca trascendió por alguna causa, pero el talento lo tuvieron. Personalmente pienso que Gregor Von Rezzori es un gran autor.La prosa de Rezzori es exquisita, elegante, fluida y llena de poesía y prestancia. A través de esta obra, el autor nos revela un mundo ya desaparecido, un mundo nostálgico en el que él vivió: la Europa del Este del siglo XX, principalmente Viena, Bucarest y la llamada región de la Bucovina. Esta obra se constituye como un evocador documento personal, pero también abierto a lo universal, acerca de una forma de vida extinta donde describe el mundo inmaculado de antaño. Un mundo caracterizado por el orgullo de pertenencia a un pueblo, a una nación, a un imperio, un mundo creado por el respeto, el orgullo, el amor, la tradición y que estaba envuelto en un aura de nostalgia, siempre sazonada con sus prejuicios y formación anti judía que lo llevaron a desarrollar unas relaciones contradictorias y complejas con este pueblo. El libro contiene 5 relatos, a cual más de encantador y ameno, que van describiendo algunas épocas de su vida.Dentro del primer relato desataca la participación del irónico, cáustico y filosófico personaje llamado Stiassny, quien acuña grandes frases fruto de su pensamiento, entre ellas se destaca por su sencillez y contundencia una que dice: “… la personalidad casi siempre consiste en salir de sí mismo”. En los demás relatos, que van progresando cronológicamente, Rezzori describe el mundo en que vivió con gran profundidad y diría que tocado por un aire de poesía, y nos relata sus relaciones con personajes judíos e incluso sus relaciones íntimas con mujeres judías a pesar de ser él un recalcitrante anti semita. En cada relato crea a sus personajes con maestría, ingenio y un toque irónico, todos ellos surgidos en aquel mundo que abarca del final del Imperio Austro-Húngaro, pasando por el periodo de entreguerras, la Segunda Guerra Mundial, la Guerra Fría, el Existencialismo y el asombroso “Mundo Moderno” de los años 70, en el cual ya no queda ningún resabio de lo que fue aquel mundo ya ido.Una última reflexión que siempre me he hecho y en la que coincido plenamente con este autor: ¿qué tiene que ver el niño cándido e inocente que en la alborada de su existencia empieza a vivir con los ojos abiertos de par en par con el viejo de 60 años después? Son personas diferentes, seres diferentes; en este viejo de más de 60 años, ya no queda nada del aquel niño que algún día pudo contemplar cómo delante de él se vislumbraba una existencia dulce y optimista abrazado por el amor y la protección de sus padres.
—Jorge
Von Rezzori's memoir (though the last chapter of the book hints to the reader that the stories may or may not be drawn from his own experiences) is both unsettling and comforting. Brought up to be disgusted by Jews and to blame them for his family's and all of Austrian Empire's misfortune, Gregor is a noble Austrian born in the province of Bucowina in the midst of World War 1 who, through the encounters he has during his life with a great variety of Jews, comes to see that antisemitism cannot be justified through reasonable arguments. There's a part somewhere towards the end of the book, in the chapter where Gregor's father, who professes strong anti-Jew feelings, is portrayed, in which the question of why are Jews not "liked" is put. And the answer is somewhere in the lines of a juvenile matter of taste. Jews are not martyred in the book (and it's sort of refreshing), they are just people with both flaws and qualities, some more interesting than others. Actually, Gregor's affinity towards one or the other, if looked at closely, has nothing to to with them being Jews, but with their social and material conditions and with their intelligence.The book is a slice of personal history in the context of perhaps the most dramatic period of humanity in so far. From the title it may be wrongly understood as giving "the other" side of the story, but von Rezzori is on neither sides and nor is he on the middle. He is just there, in the whirlwind of history, not as a detached observer, but too tied up in his own personal dramas to expand the picture.Nonetheless, it's stories like these, told carefully (and in this case, with an irony springing both from arrogance and self loathing), that fine tune our idea of history.
—Ralu Cercel
