Reuben Sachs FINISHING thoughts/discussion questions

[Karen]

Here we can leave our thoughts/discussion questions on finishing Reuben Sachs

[Alwynne]

I thought this was fascinating, more accessible and more readable than I expected. And the prose style was refreshing, I was bracing myself for late Victorian melodrama. The depiction of the family grated on me at times, particularly the frequent references to race and supposed racial characteristics – which seemed influenced by the period’s ‘race science’ and more than slightly problematic – although undercut by the more positive portrayal of the characters' dilemmas - particularly the late stages and Judith’s emotional conflict. The satire when it worked was great but sometimes Levy doesn’t pull it off.

I particularly liked her critique of Victorian values and materialism, as well as the final stages when we get to see things more from Judith’s perspective, and it seemed to me that Judith is the heart of the novel, Reuben more a symbol of damage/loss in a patriarchal, materialistic society.

The narration did raise some issues, sometimes it’s quite distanced then suddenly quite close-up, even using the first-person at one point. And it’s not always clear if the narrator’s voice is representative of an outside ‘gentile’ perspective or an insider, and I couldn’t decide if the lack of clarity was intentional or not. I also felt it was more a sketch than a fully-realised work, the large cast of characters made the action feel more compressed; although I could see why it was necessary, allowing Levy to represent the wider community and its customs/pressures then move to the impact on individuals and particularly women.

Link to my review here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Tania]

Great review Alwynne, I've not yet found time for a reread, but hopefully I can fit it in.

[Alwynne]

Thank you Tania, probably a bit too long! It was just one of those novels that sets off a lot of associations and questions - a much more interesting, more absorbing book than I expected, and the writing particularly in the last third is really good, it reminded me a little of later, more modernist women's writing. I'd like to read

Children of the Ghetto

at some point and compare the ways Levy and Zangwill talk about Jewish communities in a similar period. I'd also really like to try

The Romance of a Shop

One problem I did have is that I read Daniel Deronda quite a while ago and wondered if reading it again would change my understanding of Levy's story.

[Tania]

I still haven't read Daniel Deronda but would like to sometime. Children of the Ghetto sounds really interesting, Israel Zangwill keeps cropping up lately, I read Beyond the Secret Garden: The Life of Frances Hodgson Burnett, and he was frequently referred to in that, and I keep noticing his name since.
I love it when one book leads on to several more.

[Alwynne]

I didn't realise he knew Hodgson Burnett, another book I've been wondering about, reread The Secret Garden for the umpteenth time recently.

If you like books that lead you to more then Zangwill's perfect as tracks straight back to Persephone, turns out he was married to Edith Ayrton Zangwill, which only just dawned on me!

The Call

[Tania]

I wondered if there was a connection there.

[Pamela]

I’ve just finished this and like Alwynne I enjoyed it much more in the later chapters. I liked the introduction to the family, the snobbery about the Maida Vale family, and the social events, but I also found Levy’s pronouncements on racial characteristics quite jarring. I can see how that upset some reviewers.

The final chapters were quite poignant, really well written with a subtlety that wasn’t there at the outset. Overall I’m glad I read this, and wish Levy had lived to write more.

[Alwynne]

I'm glad I read it too, I agree she seemed a very promising writer and the later sections reminded me of slightly later modernist writers, but the representation of race was very odd, almost as if she was mimicking stereotypes but reproducing them at the same time. I think at some point I'll try her other novel but not straightaway.

[Susan]

I just finished and enjoyed reading everyone’s comments here. I was turned off early on by the references to race which I would have considered anti-Semitic if they were written by a non-Jewish person. As others noted, I thought the story strengthened when it focussed on Judith and her dilemma and took an unexpected twist at the end when Reuben died suddenly . From what I’ve read, the author wrote from a position of otherness — first as a Jewish person in a predominantly Christian culture and secondly as a lesbian — and perhaps that explains some of the tone.

[Alwynne]

Yes, if the style of the final sections had been sustained throughout I think it would have been a stronger book. The 'otherness' could be the explanation for the earlier narration but it was very odd.