on Wittgenstein, Talmud, Shabtai and learning Italian

it's 3:25, and i'm now off from school so officially a working girl. . .

I did manage to pull of some sort of paper on Jude the Obscure, after all, though it has yet to be graded. In rereading it I cringe a bit, the way I'm wont to on rereading anything I've written too recently.
My professor suggested we use a quote as the lead-in for the paper to keep us 'focused' (I thought this was a rather odd suggestion). . . I used this quote by Ludwig Wittgenstein:
"You get tragedy when the tree, instead of bending, breaks."
Now that I have some time to look around I see the quote was in the context of Wittgenstein addressing the "problem" with Jewish intelligence and criticizing Mendelsson's (and by extension all great Jewish thinkers') lack of creativity. The actual quote continues: "Tragedy is something un-Jewish. Mendelsson, is, I suppose, the most untragic of composers."
In any case, my essay centered on the first segment of the quote and basically argued that, at least for Sue Bridehead, the novel's tragedy is in her inability to walk the fine line of uncertainty between conflicting truths, i.e., her insistence on absolutes--whether atheism or religion, love or lust, faith or reason. Sue is doomed because she refuses to accept the grey zone, where life happens--often between lines that are blurred and sometimes crossed.
Enough poetry.
I wrote a paper about Judaism and communion with the dead, and compared the appraoches of Tanakh and pre-Talmudic (+Jerusalem Talmud) with the Babylonian Talmud. Basic argument--the approach shifts with the Babylonian Talmud, perhaps the result of outside influences, so that today visiting the gravesites of holy people is the norm. Perhaps the most rewarding paper I'd done in a while. And of course the irony of encountering and exploring Talmudic sources at Columbia, for the first time, despite 12, no 13, years of 'rigorous' Jewish studies education, was not lost on me:).
Currently reading a novel in Hebrew: Past Perfect by Yaakov Shabtai. Miron considers Shabtai Israel's best novelist. I'm enjoying the novel, and the challenge of reading real literature in another language. Which makes me wish I had a few more languages down: German, Italian, French. . . Perhaps, someday.
Adios.

on doughnuts, despair and jude the obscure

after a week of stress-induced dieting, plus some exercise thanks to my more active friends, (and the wonderful results thereof) i have cheated. finally.
doughnuts are really quite horrid if you stop to think what they're made of. but they're so wonderfully fun to eat. and really, who can worry about weight or any existential crises when everything in this glorious city implores us to take part in the pleasure of the holiday buzz. . . and for us jews that means food. as always.
in any case, i suspect there will be more doughnuts before the week's up. . and then no more until next year.
but for now i need to finish (although it's probably best to start at the beginning) my paper on jude the obscure. . . there's much to say and yet i'm not really sure whether there's anything new to say. i'm pretty sure i posted about this book a while ago, the first time i read it. i must say it is even more depressing on a second read, and thus i would not recommend except for those fortunate ones among us who actually lack for reasons to get down and need art to help them exercise the capacity to fall into a deep state of melancholy. for the rest of us mortals, avoid jude at all costs. in fact, this book makes me question the very legitimacy of art. as if human emotion were not already overtaxed by the inevitable challenges of living, that we need some creative work of art to help us reassert our capacity to despair, to cry, to wonder at the ludicrousness of it all. . .
in any case, i really am not sure what to say about the novel. on the one hand it's the anti-bildungsroman, jude unlearns all the ideals he had as a child as the novel progresses until he is left with only despair and an utter lack of faith in god and mankind. its also a story built on contrasts: the human vs. the divine, the individual vs. community, etc. and about unrequited love. prehaps ultimately jude the obscure is a modern tragedy. modern because the hero is not a romantic hero but a struggling individual, and because the tragedy is not death (necessarily) but alienation. so now i will get to work.

on beck and handke, but mostly just me getting on (or not)

listening to Beck. . .making my rounds in this city trying to take it all in before it disappears the morning after New Year's. . . with finals and papers winding down (though not yet done) I bought myself a treat--a novel by Peter Handke (German), recommended to me by a good friend who considers Handke the best contemporary writer. . . am reading hundreds of biographies for the encyclopedia . . about jewish politicians, artists, mathematicians. . . men and women who lived on the edge and fought hard for what they believed in . . . i thought it might be a nice idea if i could jot down notes each day on some of the people i'd read about, but i work only a few hours a week and don't know how i could steal time into that, though perhaps i could just write the names and then fill in from memory. . . . the history boys was a good movie, though after some thought i removed it from my list of favorites because good though it was it didn't leave any lasting impression, which, i believe, is the only real measure of good art

and i'm trying to live in the present but i'm caught between the past and the future and i'm afraid to let go and i'm afraid to stop worrying and i'm afraid to live in the here and now, and yet i'm doing it, each day a little more than the one before, learning that life is in the moment and that there is no telling what will be nor changing what's already been. . . and so the story goes. . .and it's thrilling because it's my own. and because real life is better than the best fiction, because it's true in a way that fiction can never be.

back

been neglecting my blog, among other things.

semester is closing in. . . a pity because this means i'm getting ever so close to graduation and then 'real life' which i'd much prefer to avoid for at least another long while. but it's been a good, busy semester. israeli lit my favorite class, by far. but also thoroughly enjoying mendelson's novel of education, though i have yet to finish middlemarch.. . . and my fiction workshop with lipsyte has been the most helpful workshop yet--thanks to the instructor and my classmates who have, for the most part, been really good with their critiques. . .

work @ YIVO (as p/t ed. assistant on the Encyclopedia of the Jews from Eastern Europe) has slowed down somewhat due to the nature of a project that depends on so many people . . .although i have given myself a project that will likely consume many wonderful hours of reading the entries so as to create the synoptic outline for the encyclopedia. great fun.
my favorite part of work is still the odd bits of translating i get to do. . . but i'm overall terrifically happy just being part of this project, and working in an institute devoted to research. . . gives me the illusion of being a real person in a romanticized version of the 'real' world. . .

writing a bit on the side. . . for upcoming issue of the columbia current. and recently published a short piece about austen in new voices, here

now if only i knew what comes after school . . . but i'll hold off thinking about that, for now