Author2Author: Naama Goldstein & Pearl Abraham, pt. 3

The textual analysis takes a Scriptural turn as Naama and Pearl continue to exchange questions about each other's stories...

Naama Goldstein: The patriarch Jacob is referenced in a big way in The Seventh Beggar, through Joel Jakob and later JakobJoel. And the makeshift pillow of stone that becomes the cornerstone of an intellectual tradition seems to figure into your book's attraction to undying impermanent structures, for instance the succa hut and the seasonal bluegrass village. But there's also of course the prophet Joel in the mix, and I would be interested to hear how you may have envisioned this hybrid of biblical personae operating in your characters. And speaking of patriarchs--and succas--there is a very affecting moment in your novel when Joel's father, Moshele, explains his choice of a medicine-bottle decoration for his family's holiday hut. This is not a man who is normally swept up by aesthetics, and the Vulcan-like seriousness with which he supports his choice of colored glass is both telling and touching. It seems he is much more comfortable fitting together the precut, rabbinically-vetted succa parts. Could you speak about the genesis of this scene?

Pearl Abraham: On the Biblical references in my book: I don't think the names themselves, which are to some extent everyday names even in non-Jewish America, resonate, at least for the common reader, so powerfully with the patriarchs. But The Seventh Beggar does indeed partake hugely of Biblical tropes, which isn't a surprise since the characters in the book, given their deep immersion in the material, can practically be said to be breathing Biblical air. I'm thinking for example of Joel's idea that if only the sun stood still as it had for Joshua, then he could get more done, pursue both his own interests and tend to the requirements of his yeshiva schedule. The literary references and language of these characters all hark back to the stories of the patriarchs and prophets, and all this makes its way onto the page.

After the metaphysical description of creation, the brevity and beauty of the Hebrew, and the living and breathing characters of the stories, what also excites me about the Five Books (of Moses) is the composite, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink quality of it all. Very novel-like, don't you think? I'm thrilled by such unexpected passages--what readers today might think of as mere nation building--as the abrupt insertions of the lists of the generations. And of Joseph's dreams, which are stories within stories, of the fragments of ancient songs, and of the long descriptions of the materials used for the tabernacle, and even the sacrificial offerings, which the young narrator in one of your stories has to memorize for class. This is genre mixing, time conflation, interruption of the mythic dream, all alternate ways of pacing, and a spectacular use of techniques we think of as postmodern as if they were newly-minted. This is truly throwing the reader a curve, as art should do, I heard a composer on David Garland's NPR show recently suggest.

In The Seventh Beggar, I refer to the bluegrass festival as a descendant of previous festivals, re-enactment rituals, the Mt. Sinai festival, and then allow it to morph into a storytelling festival. I really do believe that though such events are temporary--they last a week and then dissolve--they are part of an ongoing chain, representative of a continuity, of the history of human life, going back to the most primitive days, and that this is why they are important to us, why we continue attending them. I'm just back from the Virginia Festival of the Book, which featured about a hundred authors reading from and talking about their books, and it occurs to me that this too can be thought of as a re-enactment of our origin myths, a secular version of more primitive religious rituals.