Ruchama King Feuerman's Blog, page 3

Artistic Aspirations of Orthodox Women Writers -- Rama Burshtein, Fill the Void

I hear "Fill the Void" may be coming out in DVD. Marvelous film. Anyone interested in the artistic aspirations of Orthodox women, should check out this interview of Rama Burshtein with Beyond Cinema Magazine. She is a master. Rama speaks of how she became religious (�I fell in love with Gd�), how the film

Beyond a Google Education about Islam

To me, this was worth reading, because Reza Aslan made the story if Islam come alive and told me so much I didn't know about Islam. And I wanted to know as much as I could, especially when writing a novel that features a devout Muslim. I'd browsed other books, googled my way through many Muslim websites, but this book held my interest, start to finish. I felt clouds parting in my brain and was able to comprehend some of the glories of the religion, and the hatred and factionalism, too. Sunni and Shiites had always been merely exotic names but for the first time I could understand why these groups might despise each other all these centuries later. It was fascinating to see the overlap between Islam and Judaism. Not that I totally trusted Aslan's account. It did seem that Aslan's own let's say, predispositions were coming through. He took pot shots at Christianity and Judaism, and his comments about those religions contained several inaccuracies, such as Aaron having brought the Jews to the Promised Land. He probes and asks many questions throughout, but he doesn't seem to wonder why Mohammad never appointed a successor, and how the contenders and their descendants have been battling ever since (three of the four successors to Mohammad were poisoned or murdered), or why he didn't write down his revelations of the Quran, which led to it being canonized and codified by Uthman, a leader Aslan himself deems corrupt. One wonders what was in those variant editions of the Quran that were burnt. It strikes me that all the various factions of Islam that developed (which Aslan over optimistically describes as conveying a wonderful cultural and spiritual diversity, conveniently ignoring the bloodshet), were all striving to arrive at what Mohammad really meant, the real Islam. That's why it's so chilling to read about leaders -- the Companions? -- who casually overturned some of Mohammad's famously moderate teachings by claiming they'd heard Mohammad say otherwise. It strikes me that since there are so many variant translations and editions that could be manipulated to mean anything, every group will continue to strive for what Mohammad intended by projecting their own beliefs on him. Which is what Aslan seems to do, as well. I also thought it shameful the glancing way he wrote about Sept. 11. So why the four stars? Because it immersed me in a religion I don't know in a compelling way, and gave me enough of a platform of information to perhaps start seeking other answers, and for that I'll overlook a lot.

How Far Will I Go to Get the Novel Cover I Want?

I ask my rabbi to be on the cover of my novel. I tell him I�m looking for a man in his mid forties or fifties, someone with a longish beard, in a black hat and coat. What I don�t tell him is, I also want a face suffused with Yiddishe angst, which is how I'd describe his face.

The rabbi is mellow enough to actually consider my request for a moment, then regretfully declines.

So I keep looking. The shul, the Kosher Konnection grocery store, the lines at Quick Check or Valley National Bank. There should be lots of faces like that where I live in Orthodox Passaic, but somehow it's not working. Maybe I'm getting too demanding. Now he should look vaguely mystical, and the next day I add on "slightly tortured," and �ironic.� And one last thing -- he should be at least five foot ten.

Women Writing Violent Scenes

The characters from Dalia Sofer’s “Septembers of Shiraz” are still passing through my mind a couple of years later. I think it was Ezra Pound who had a good definition of literature (even with all his anti-semitic blather): It can be read at least twice. And I feel just about ready to pick up Dalia’s exquisite novel again. I particularly admire the way she captures violent scenes, say, that moment when the guard stabs his cigarette into the prisoner’s cheek, just when he and the reader begin to relax, least expect it.

When I had to capture a violent scene or two in my own novel (not “Seven Blessings,” which had none, but my forthcoming one) it didn’t come easily. I felt internal blocks. Either I was subconsciously trying to protect my character from bodily harm or maybe I was rubbing up against a sort private taboo – you can’t depict that scene, can you? You’re not going to go there, are you? Which is crazy. My characters think and say and do all sorts of things I never would be caught doing. But maybe when it comes to one character ramming his nose like a drill into another character’s nose --- all of a sudden, I get squeamish. I’m wondering if other people feel this taboo, too. And if women are more susceptible to avoiding violence in their novels than men.

And then there was the mechanics of it. How to write violence?

I tried to take my inspiration from Graham Greene – one of my favorite authors – who wrote, “Excitement is simple: excitement is a situation, a single event. It mustn’t be wrapped up in thoughts, similes, metaphors. A simile is a form of reflection, but excitement is of the moment when there is no time to reflect. Action can only be expressed by a subject, a verb, and an object, perhaps a rhythm – little else. Even an adjective slows the pace or tranquilizes the nerve.”

Amen.

My Main Character was too Gorgeous

My agent strongly suggested I scrap one of the main three characters in the novel I’d been working one for years, “In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist.”. She just didn’t feel connected to her story, her plight.

I resisted her. Who wouldn’t? I’d invested years in this Jewish female character, a transplant to Israel. How could I let her go just like that?

Then one day I thought: Anna’s right. I hadn’t captured Tamar with the same urgency and intimacy as I had captured my other characters – Mustafa, a misshapen and gaunt janitor on the Temple Mount, and Isaac, an uptight assistant to a kabbalist. Somehow, I had failed her as a writer. She hadn’t come to 3 D life, and probably never would. Why? It struck me then. Tamar was too beautiful. Pity has always been the portal through which I enter my characters. In the back of my prejudiced mind, I couldn’t take her pain too seriously, because gorgeous women didn’t suffer, not really.

Of course beautiful woman do suffer. I just have my own issues with empathizing. Well, I’d built my novel around a gorgeous woman and now I’d have to throw a good chunk of it out. But from the moment I accepted my personal limitations, my novel took off. I let go of nearly a hundred and fifty crafted and revised pages. Years of work. I didn’t feel bad. To me the process felt like pruning a tree, doing what it took to make the tree thrive. Thank you, brilliant Anna! Tamar did remain, as a minor character, seen from the viewpoint of Mustafa and Isaac. In that format, I felt I could do her justice, make her compelling.

Sometimes I wonder what happened to her, though, all the discarded parts. What happens to that cut off branch? What happens to all that material that doesn’t make it into the novel?

I believe in the Law of Creative Conservation. The material will get recycled in some form or another. Those discarded characters and paragraphs never die. Either they crop up in other stories, or they enter you in some way, even if only to teach you how not to write. Tamar, for instance, the original Tamar, still keeps me company in my thoughts, makes me realize my limitations.

My Main Character Was Too Gorgeous

My agent strongly suggested I scrap one of the main three characters in the novel I'd been working one for years, "In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist." She just didn't feel connected to her story, her plight.

I resisted her. Who wouldn't? I'd invested years in this Jewish female character, a transplant to Israel. How could I let her go just like that?

Then one day I thought: Anna�s right. I hadn't captured Tamar with the same urgency and intimacy as I had captured my other characters -- Mustafa, a misshapen and gaunt janitor on the Temple Mount, and Isaac, an uptight assistant to a kabbalist. Somehow, I had failed her as a writer. She hadn't come to 3 D life, and probably never would. Why? It struck me then. Tamar was too beautiful. Pity has always been the portal through which I enter my characters. In the back of my prejudiced mind, I couldn't take her pain too seriously, because gorgeous women didn't suffer, not really.

Writing Prompt: Transforming Family Saga into Story

Here is one of my favorite writing prompts. I love it because it always generates great stories even from people who wouldn�t ordinarily put pen to paper, and because it messes with your mind, makes you ask, what�s fiction, what�s fact, what�s history, what�s story, what�s fiction, what�s fact. Maybe we should just call it faction. I�ve done this one many times in my writing workshops, with the young and the old and the very blocked. It�s tried and true.