The Brothers Singer

[@thingsthathappenedtomymoth2816]

Thank you for posting this. I have read many of I. B. Singer’s short stories. His writing appeared frequently in THE NEW YORKER when I was a teen in the 1970s. Well into my thirties I learned if his older brother. I am reading his book THE BROTHERS ASHKENAZI now, in a translation by Joseph Singer.

[@aloperafan]

While I share Zamir’s preference for I.J. Singer over the Nobel laureate brother, it isn’t on the grounds that The Brothers Ashkenazi is a socialist revolutionary pamphlet in novelistic form. I.J. Singer's primary gift as a novelist is not his advocacy of a specific agenda, for socialism and against capitalism, but the insightful cynicism that he aims against all corners. The Brothers Ashkenazi is a historical scrutinization of how these polar economic and political alternatives confronted each other within pre-WWII Poland. Israel Zamir's socialistic interpretation of the novel belies Singer's nuances as a writer. It's only superficially persuasive to reduce The Brothers Ashkenazi to anti-capitalist fodder in support of Bundism or any other socialist program.

[@David99356]

I agree with that. The novel is also critical of socialism and communism as they were implemented, and one of the most powerful parts of the book was when Nissan realizes that his beloved movement is rife with anti-Semites, but even after the pogrom committed by them, chooses to continue to irrationally believe. But I prefer IB to IJ. Ultimately IJ is pessimistic, and in addition, he does not see any good in religion, while his brother is much more nuanced re religion. And the very reason Zamir cites as preferring IJ, i.e. IJ's writing being in service of a cause, is why I prefer IB - especially after we see what that cause turned out to be. As to Zamir thinking that his father's style was pornographic, that's just the strictness of the communist philosophy, which is ironically similar to the attitude of religious Judaism which the communists despised.