String Theory: The Parents Ashkenazi

by Dara Horn

In 1980, Jacqueline Luria, the first female physics doctoral candidate in her university’s history, has emerged from her ultra-Orthodox upbringing into a secular world where she tries to untangle the origins of the universe. Then she meets Roger Ashkenazi, a mathematician studying fractals and starting to question his own atheist ideas. Their insights into the world’s repeating patterns cannot prepare them for the coming disaster of their marriage—or its impact on their daughters, one an average child and the other a genuine genius. The rivalry between Judith Ashkenazi and her wildly successful sister Josie, who invents a software program to catalog every kind of memory, will fuel the page-turning plot of Dara Horn’s critically acclaimed novel A Guide for the Perplexed.
“String Theory” takes its readers to the farthest edges of knowledge and the limits of freedom, on a journey from doubt to faith and back again. In its double helix of free will and fate, it anticipates the terrifying consequences, borne out in A Guide for the Perplexed, of asking children to fulfill their parents’ dreams.

Genres: Fiction, Jewish, Short Stories, Judaism

39 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 24, 2014

About the author

Dara Horn is the award-winning author of six books. One of Granta magazine’s Best Young American Novelists (2007), she is the recipient of three National Jewish Book Awards, among other honors, and she was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize, the Wingate Prize, the Simpson Family Literary Prize, and the Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her books have been selected as New York Times Notable Books, Booklist’s 25 Best Books of the Decade, and San Francisco Chronicle’s Best Books of the Year, and have been translated into twelve languages.

Her nonfiction work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, Tablet, and The Jewish Review of Books, among many other publications.

Horn received her doctorate in comparative literature from Harvard University, studying Yiddish and Hebrew. She has taught courses in these subjects at Sarah Lawrence College and Yeshiva University, and held the Gerald Weinstock Visiting Professorship in Jewish Studies at Harvard. She has lectured for audiences in hundreds of venues throughout North America, Israel, and Australia.

She currently serves as Creative Adviser for The Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History.

She lives in New Jersey with her husband and four children.

Reviews

[Vio · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is what it is supposed to be: a prequel to A Guide for the Perplexed. It introduces some characters, some motifs, gets the reader a little familiarised with the stuff. :)

When I got to the end, I was thinking: what now? Re-reading A Guide...? :) (I could resist the temptation!)

Maybe 2 1/2*, it is very short. But not bad.

LE I have my doubts that Jacqueline would be a name a girl in a very traditional Jewish American family would get. But I get the J-first letter thing.

[Keith · Rating 4 out of 5]

String Theory is less novella than short story. For those who have read Horn's wonderful novel, The Guide for the Perplexed this work sheds light on the previous generation to the modern protagonists of Perplexed. If you've read the book there's some illumination, if you haven't read the book, then perhaps this serves as a good sample of the level of writing you will encounter.

[Julia Shumway · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know why I thought I'd like this. I hated all the characters in A Guide for the Perplexed. So of course I hated their parents.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful complement to Dara Horn's "A Guide for the Perplexed," one of my very favorite books. "String Theory" tells the story of Josie and Judith's parents, smart but introverted Jacqueline and dreamy Roger. Josie's arrogance and brilliance can be traced from her parents' personalities in "String Theory," as well as Judith's lack of confidence. As the reader, you feel sad for Jacqueline, who gave up her academic career for a jerk who threw his family away. At the same time, though, Jacqueline so obviously prefers Josie over Judith that it's a little hard to feel 100% sympathy for her.

This is a good short story to read after "A Guide for the Perplexed." I'm glad Horn decided to flush out Josie and Judith's parents more. Another great read by Horn!

[Roslyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost a 5 for me. This has lovely prose and is an extraordinary portrayal of a woman and her development. The woman happens to be a mathematician in a world of men at a time when there were no other women in the field. It's filled with richness and promise in the beginning and ends with a terrible bleakness that is beautifully and heartbreakingly portrayed.

I didn't realise that it was actually a prequel to Horn's novel 'A Guide for the Perplexed' - this might explain why the ending feels just a little unfinished to me.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disappointed, was expecting a full book

Short story with more questions than answers but really wished that there was more. Honestly it should just be the opening chapter to A Guide to the Perplexed.

[Armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice, but way too short

I'm a big fan of Dara Horn, which made her reliance on negative stereotypes of men as nothing but shallow, arrogant asses puzzling and disappointing. She's far too smart and far too good a writer to have to rely on such outdated tropes.

[Mirjam Celie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mooi proza maar uit voor je er erg in hebt!

[Yossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tal y como se indica y queda claro al final, se trata de un preludio a A Guide for the perplexed.
Jacqueline, proveniente de una familia tradicional judía intenta abrirse un hueco en el mundo de la Física a principios de los 80, época en las que las convenciones hacían dirigirse más a las mujeres hacia el mundo de las Humanidades y a los hombres al mundo de las ciencias.

Religión (judaísmo) y ciencia se complementan en la mente de alguien que lucha por comprender el mundo alentada por Roger, un joven matemático "perplejo" que se deja llevar por la dicotomía cognitiva de Jacqueline hasta que la cuerda se tensa demasiado.

Un pequeño apunte: las palabras alma y respiración en hebreo proceden de la misma raíz נשמה neshama- alma y נשימה neshima respiración pero esto NO quiere decir que sea la misma palabra, de hecho en el libro esta afirmación puede causar cierta confusión. La mente científica acepta con toda certeza una pero no la otra. En la cultura judía, sin embargo, hay tradición de relacionar el aire, el viento, la respiración y términos similares con la creación de vida, se insufla vida. Incluso una famosa autora brasileña veneradísima por mí crea inspiración y arte mediante "um sopro de vida"

Dara Horn me gusta, me gusta mucho, el año pasado referencié varias veces "The World to come" y me apetecía ver cómo se movía en la literatura de recorrido corto. El resultado ha sido más que satisfatorio aunque repito, es un preludio a una obra, A Guide for the Perplexed, que tengo la sensación que se convertirá en una de las lecturas del año.

[Jason Furman · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Kindle Single prequel to Dara Horn's The Guide to the Perplexed, this story can be read without reading the novel, before reading the novel, or afterwards. It is the story of a physicist who meets a mathematician and the two daughters they have together--who themselves are the main characters of The Guide to the Perplexed. It is a nice short story that explores a substantial fraction of the lives of the characters, their intellectual challenges, discoveries, balancing work and family, and dealing with sibling rivalry and sibling favoritism. Not exactly a must read but certainly a glad to have read.

[Janet L · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here's a quick 30 page ( or so) prequel to Dara Horn's Guide for the Perplexed to give us the history of Josie's and Judith's parents -- mathematician Roger and physicist doctoral candidate Jacqueline. ....and the unfulfilled aspirations of a woman trying to be a success in a man's world....who succumbs to the traditional role of stay at home mom for logical rational reasons that haunt her the rest of her life. Could have been included in the full book, but you still get the full experience of Guide for the Perplexed without it. It's just a little icing in the cake,

[Carol · Rating 5 out of 5]

short and tart

I had read Guide for the Perplexed and loved it, as I have loved Dara Horn's other books. I didn't expect that a prequel would illuminate anything about it but this was very short so I gave it a try. It was well worth my time as it would be yours. Everything is Illuminated, as Foer once said.

[Christiane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the prequel to Dara Horn’s „A Guide for the Perplexed » and I am not sure why the author did not use it as the first chapter of that book.

Nevertheless, as a short story it is satisfying and complete in itself.

[Bob · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short, should have been the first chapter of Guide for the Perplexed. Worth reading on its own whether or not you have read or plan to read the Guide novel.