For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
This collection of short stories by Nathan Englander got rave reviews “An astonishment….brilliant….daring….funny” when it debuted. I don’t know if I would go so far as to give this books such accolades but it was a thought provoking, enjoyable read.
The book consists of nine different short stories set in locations from Jerusalem, to Brooklyn, to a train on it’s way to a concentration camp in WWII Poland. I was expecting the book to be a much lighter and funnier read but as soon as I started the story in the book “The Tumblers”, I knew my assumptions were wrong. This story describes a group of Hasidic jews who accidently get on a train filled with circus performers rather than a cattle car and decide that their only way to survive and not get sent to the camps is to pretend that they are an acrobatic troupe. While there are some humorous scenes (….who knew that Raizel the widow had double-jointed arms, or that Shmuel Berel could scurry about upside down on hands and feet mocking the movements of a crab.), and I’m sure Englander was trying to show the strength of the human spirit, I found the story terribly depressing.
The title story of the book “For the Relief of Unbearable Urges” describes a rebbe granting Dov Binyamin, an Orthodox Jew, authorization to visit a prostitute when faced with his wife’s self-imposed celibacy. The outcome of Dov’s choice to not wear a condom (according to Jewish law “It is a sin to spill seed in vain”) and end up having some veneral disease highlights the juxtaposition of modern day life with ultra-orthodox Judaism.
My other two favorite stories in the book were “Reb Kringle” in which a famous rebbe works in a department store dressed as Santa every year and “The Last One Way” in which Gitta a woman who was miserably married for 18 years and then separated for 18 years will do anything (including murder and/or torture) to get her husband to agree to a divorce.
It seemed that all of the stories were Englander’s thoughts on Judaism through the eyes of his different characters. I have to believe that Englander hoped the book would appeal to a cross-section of readers but I can’t imagine a gentile enjoying or having interest in this book.
Does anyone want to test my theory?
February 17th, 2005 at 7:14 pm
I was just funnin’ ya. I love the word play on the words and whatnot.
May 17th, 2005 at 5:05 pm
Nitro, just because every story has a guy named Rebbe in it is no reason to assume that the goyim won’t be down. Isaac Bashevis Singer did alright. Jonathan Safran Foer’s first book was similar in tone, I think, and was awesome. I’d read it, is what I’m saying.
The larger issue, as I see it, is that one book after you took the male gentile readership to task for reading within our comfort zone, you seem to be doing the same thing. So the challenge back to you is for you to read a book or two outside your standard fare. Good luck.
May 17th, 2005 at 5:18 pm
Listen, Nitro, I’m an extremely gentle guy, so I don’t know if I could stomach some of the stuff you said happens in . . . what’s that? Hunh? “Gentile”? Well, I don’t know if inserting that “i” makes that much difference, does it?
May 17th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
Whoa….touchy, touchy. I am definitely not taking the male gentile reader to task (in fact I debated about using non-Jew or Gentile and couldn’t figure out which was the less offensive term). My point was that I just don’t think the book would be appealing because I think that I only liked it because I had some kind of background to relate to. This was nothing like a Singer or Foer book - it was heavy on the Hasidism.
Cut me some slack here…..I’m always swimming upstream.
May 17th, 2005 at 10:11 pm
You see he said he was a “gentle” guy - see what he did there - he took the “i” in gentile out and said he was a gentle guy —-
Anyway, we’re not ganging up on you, I took what you said in the Book of Salt discussion somewhat seriously and got to thinking about reading in one’s comfort zone - it can be limiting is what I decided - so I was only trying tp push you in the direction that you pushed me and recommend reading outside of the box, or something …
April 26th, 2007 at 10:51 am
[...] Nathan Englander also read from his newly released and first novel, The Ministry of Special Cases which took him 10 years to write. He is definitely an interesting character - a real, “nebbishy” guy who was raised an Orthodox Jew and recently moved back to NY from Jerusalem. He was clearly not comfortable doing the reading and speaking to an audience. His voice throughout the reading was monotone and contrary to Lethem he did not give any insight into the characters. That being said though, I found the writing much more engrossing than Lethem’s. I read his first book of short stories, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, which was reviewed by me here. I look forward to reading his new book which is set during Argentina’s “dirty war” with a protagonist named Kaddish (which is the Jewish prayer of mourning). So far the limited reviews have been positive and a main character named Kaddish is reason alone to pick up the book. [...]