Jerome Charyn’s Isaac Babel Shortlist

Jerome Charyn has long been one of my favorite novelists, and when I found out that he’d just published a biography of Isaac Babel—Savage Shorthand—I wondered if he might have some recommendations for readers who, like me, aren’t yet familiar with Babel’s stories. He very kindly sent the following note:

“Babel’s ‘Guy de Maupassant’ is my favorite story in the whole world; it’s funny and sad, and it’s the most telling story ever written about language and all its tricks and traps.

“My next best favorite is ‘The King,’ about the Odessa gangster Benya Krik and his magical orange pants.

“Readers should also look at ‘Di Grasso,’ a story about the mysteries and sometimes sordid magic of art.

“I would then suggest a look at Babel’s 1920 Diary, which is his own portrait of the artist as a young man, an artist under enemy fire.

“Now the reader is ready to look at Red Cavalry and its curious ride through Poland, with all the savagery and bump-bump of the human heart.

“And lastly, the reader should look at ‘Benya Krik,’ Babel’s screenplay about Benya, but from the point of view of a Soviet writer who has to wind his way through Soviet politics, which has already become a deadly maze.”

Charyn has also recently edited Inside the Hornet’s Head, which starts with his love for Saul Bellow’s Adventures of Augie March and goes on to include eightteen other great Jewish-American writers, ranging from Isaac Bashevis Singer to Leonard Cohen.

18 October 2005 | guest authors |