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Analysis ofJonathan Safran Foer’s Here I Am:Coming ApartBy John P. AndersonBy the same author and published by Universal Publishers: Finding Joy in Joyce: A Reader’s Guide to Joyce’s Ulysses The Sound and the Fury in the Garden of Eden The Poltergeist in William Faulkner’s Light in AugustFaulkner’s Absalom Absalom: Uncertainty in Dixie Flaubert’s Madame Bovary: The Zen Novel Conrad’s Victory: Resurrection LostConrad’s Lord Jim: Psychology of the Self Conrad’s Heart of Darkness: Rebirth of Tragedy Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus: Gestapo Music Joyce’s Finnegans Wake: The Curse of Kabbalah Volumes 1-10Kafka’s Metamorphosis: Unwelcome at Home Kafka’s Last Pipes: The Burrow and Josephine the Singer or the Mouse Folk Guide to Enjoying Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenter By the same author and published at : Analysis of Jonathan Sanfran Foer’s Everything is Illuminated: The Chosen Ones [2017] Analysis of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:Flying Home [2018]Reach the author at jpa@ Sources Louis Ginzberg The Legends of the Jews Harold Bloom Kabbalah and CriticismHow to Use This AnalysisOne way is to read the Introduction first and then read each chapter analysis as you are reading the chapter. Table of ContentsIntroductionLoss of Identity and Coming Apart …7Structure…7Here I Am and Here I Am Not…7Getting Tired…8The End…8Gravitas Chorus…9Almost In…10Kabbalah Generally…10Part and Whole…11Entropy and Conservation of Energy…12Identity and Responsibility…13Identity, Choices and Divorce…14Bar Mitzvah…15Bloch Family Chart…15Said and Wrote…16Jacob and Esau…16Sections and Chapters…16Argus…18Foer’s Narrator Art…19Aesthetic…20Text I Before the War Getting Back to Happiness…22Here I Amn’t…24Happiness…25A Hand the Size of Yours. A House the Size of This One…27Here I Amn’t…28 Epitome…30 This2Shalln’tPass…30 Epitome…31Here I Amn’t…31 Someone! Someone!...32 The N-Word…32II Learning Impermanence Antietam…33 Damascus…34The Side That Faces Away…34 Not Yet…35Someone Else’s Other Life…35 The Artificial Emergency…36Someone Else’s Other Death…37 A Complete Rebirth…37III. Uses of a Jewish FistHolding a Pen, Punching, Self-Love…37The L-Word…38Maybe It Was the Distance…39In the End, One’s Home is Perfect…39Here Come the Israelis…40Real Real…42Vey Is Mir [Woe is Me]…43The Second Synagogue…43The Earthquake…43Interlude: Rock and Roll…44IV. Fifteen days of Five Thousand Years…46V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a ChoiceThe I-Word…46Absorb or Absolve…47What Do the Children Know…47The Genuine Version…47There Are Things That Are Hard To Say Today…49 The Names Were Magnificent…50Reincarnation…51Just The Wailing…51Look! A Crying Hebrew Baby…52The Lion’s Den…53 In the Hinge…53Who’s In The Unoccupied Room?...53De Zelbe Prayz [the same price]…55VI. The Destruction of IsraelCome Home…55Today I Am Not A Man…56O Jews. Your Time Has Come!...56Come Home…56Today I Am Not A Man…56O Jews. Your Time Has Come…56 Come Home…56 Today I Am Not A Man…57O Jews, Your Time Has Come!...57Come Home…57Today I Am Not A Man…57O Jews, Your Time Has Come!...57Come Home…57VII. The Bible…57VIII. Home…58Appendix 1 Narrator Art…60Appendix Middle East Earthquake Fault Map…65Appendix 3 Reviews…66IntroductionLoss of Identity and Coming ApartOnce again, Foer serves us loss of identity. In the 2002 Everything is Illuminated, he gave us the Holocaust and family violence distorting identity. And, just as we had recovered, in the 2005 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, he gave us death of a father on 9/11 scaring off a son’s identity. Here he serves us a 2016 requiem for a marriage and a family in a story fundamentally about separation and coming apart. Once again, Foer “breaks our heart” and at the end provides no hope for reestablishing these connections. Here the loss is the result of a damaged adult serving as a husband and father, an adult without authentic identity and with a severe need for approval by others. He does not take responsibility and does not qualify for his positions of leadership and trust. The resulting fall-out includes permanent damage to his marriage and his family of three young boys. Indeed, his lack of identity destroys both. His marriage and family come apart because his identity came apart. Foer sounds the basic theme of separation and coming apart through several instruments: this marriage and family breakup, pervasive and order-robbing entropy, the division of peoples in the American Civil War, an earthquake separating earth plates below the Dead Sea and a war of Arab versus Jew in the Middle East, and as background against it all the primal coming apart as envisioned by Kabbalah in the Tzimtzum creation of our world. These repeated soundings serve to keep the separation issue before us, as if it were resounding everywhere at all times and ingrained in the nature of our world.The many instances of separation in this story suggest that separation is the natural condition humans face and that continued effort is necessary to hold connections together. Foer’s artistry in unifying style and content in this novel is a special effort in the direction of connections. His unified literary structure gives witness to his own individual form of human mending of this torn world. StructureIn this story the emphasis is on identity viewed as personal responsibility for your own behavior. With this emphasis, a Bar Mitzvah [“BRM”] for the Bloch’s 13-year-old son Sam is the centering event in the story. A Bar or Bat Mitzvah marks the beginning of a child’s personal responsibility in a moral sense, for right and wrong. As the fundamental issue, Foer’s presentation of personal identity is dressed with concepts from big picture Kabbalah, a Jewish theosophy, particularly concepts about separation and coming apart and resulting part and whole, concepts mentioned in the story. Kabbalah postulates that the ultimate god ducked responsibility for our human experience by forcing apart his unified creation to create a separate existence for us and retreating Himself to the unified residue. This big coming apart left us to our own devices in this our limited world of part, the part that came apart and separate from the whole. This doctrine of separation and coming apart is found throughout the story and helps to hold it together. You will feel irony in holding a story together with layers of coming apart.Here I Am and Here I Am NotThe gold standard for personal identity is indicated by the title, Here I Am. This is biblical Abraham’s immediate ready response to god [as reported in Genesis 22] about putting him to the test, the sacrifice of his son Isaac. His response indicates an “all in” attitude, an “I am ready” attitude. This attitude is available only to those with strong and independent personal identities. They don’t have to take time to ask others what they should do. They are ready to suit up right now. Abraham didn’t even ask the child’s mother.As this story develops, the message as refined is that identity and being all-in about something are opposites sides of the same coin. Two exposures of the same pure metal.Father Jacob, apparently because of his own approval-lacking upbringing, does not accept responsibility for his own actions. As a result he becomes a bad role model for the Bloch children, especially 13 year old Sam who is fast approaching the age of responsibility and his BRM. Jacob turns out to be a bad penny.Jacob has already left his scuff marks on Sam, as indicated by Sam’s refusal to take responsibility for the list of expletives [including the N word] he wrote while in Hebrew School and carelessly left in or on his desk. Likewise, Jacob writes for a popular television show but never takes personal responsibility for its content. He says I just give the public what they want. Sam’s list contains the “bad” words popular with young boys, the words they want. Like Sam carelessly leaving the list in his desk, Jacob carelessly leaves his secret sex-texting phone where Sam can and does find it. Note the parallels.Getting TiredThe Bloch family has functioned well for the several years before the present. During that period Jacob and Julia both as marriage partners and parents were full energy-wise, feeding as they did on the novelties of their togetherness and then the young family. They had enough to give to each other and the children. They were good spouses, good parents and good breadwinners. However, as the children grew up, became more complicated and novelty wore off, more energy had to go into the family than the parents had. The family was quite demanding. Even cello lessons. And the parents were not receiving additional energy infusions from their love making or professional pursuits. Neither was “fulfilling.”With demands increasing, Jacob sacrificed energy for others but saved personal energy for himself, his weakened sense of self. His inward orientation left the togetherness marriage bed in erectile disfunction but flushed gobs of self-administered sperm down the bathroom drain. He can get it up for himself; he can direct sexual energy at himself but not at his wife. But his hand and penis do not love, hug or flatter him like his wife could. The TV shows he writes give him no permanent boost in his inner self. His father even openly criticizes his choices in writing. Nor does he receive a boost as a result of his role as a father, a role he butchers by not taking responsibility for his actions.With family demands increasing and her identity as a wife and woman decreasing, Julia frequently reminds herself that she is a good mother, as if she needs to convince herself and as if motherhood is her only remaining source of identity, of fulfillment. She is trained to design houses but is asked only to redesign interiors, kitchens and bathrooms. She is frustrated by the lack of fulfilling professionalism and the lack of a fulfilling marriage. For sexual satisfaction in her personal interior she eventually resorts to using the bathroom doorknob, appropriately a piece of interior decoration, but it does not love, hug or flatter her like her husband could.The EndJulia as a woman misses their mutual love making, knows about his attention to self that Jacob tries to hide and eventually finds Jacob’s secret sex-texting phone [after Sam found it first]. It is full of hot and anal-focused messages to a co-worker, messages worthy of an ad for a weekend at Sodom and Gomorrah. Faced with these serious problems and seeing no change in sight, Julia with her mother identity intact chooses her children over her needy and irresponsible husband and ends the tired Bloch marriage gradually and gracefully, always keeping in mind the best interests of the children. Despite initial claims she would never remarry, she is remarried within a few years, no doubt seeking support for her children. Jacob gets custody of the dog, the sick dog Argus. After several more years of living alone and keeping the dog even though sick [so it would love him, at least some one would], Jacob finally and mercifully puts the dog down as at last he begins to reduce his own self-absorption. By the end, Jacob living alone has finally learned that his life can be precious if lived according to his own truth. With this understanding, he begins to rebuild his own identity, this time from inside out.Foer emphasizes this change in Jacob in the end text with a change of narrator style, a change from a stern and judgmental third party narrator [in control of the text mimicking the effect of others in Jacob’s life] to a reassuring independent interior monologue for Jacob. In addition, as in Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, Foer uses indications that the narrator is losing control as Jacob is gaining in strength.What makes the coming apart of the tired Bloch marriage so profound in our day and age is the lack of clear moral responsibility for the breakup. Who broke it up? Whose fault was the no-fault? Foer, engaged in his own divorce at the time of writing, pushed hard to make this one just a coming apart. A no-fault family quake of a marriage on the rocks. Foer wants us to think the marriage just got tired, like parents get when they can’t give anymore. The marriage in this story, as Foer said publicly, just dies. More like dying of natural causes than a murder or suicide. The novel is long so we readers can watch the marriage getting tired and try to figure out why. Gravitas ChorusThe Bloch marriage rift plays against a huge rift earthquake in the Middle East and a subsequent military attack on a weakened Israel [when in terms of identity she is not herself because she is injured and so many Jews live elsewhere and won’t return]. Jacob’s lack of identity is mirrored in the group hate of Israel by Arabs and Persians. A bridge from the Bloch marriage to the war in Middle East is the chapter heading reference to Antietam, an American Civil War battle in a Union divided, a country in rift over slavery, itself a rift in humanity. Both Jacob and Israel will have new borders.These other rift or coming apart events turn up the volume on the marriage rift and seem to suggest the marriage rift is part of something larger in human affairs, something endemic or inevitable when identity is weakened. Foer gives that parental role to Kabbalah’s description of creation in which separation is the natural condition and continuous human mending is necessary. Foer’s literary craftmanship is part of that mending.This story also borrows dignity from the Jacob/Esau stories in the Hebrew Scriptures and the story of Odysseus’ dog Argus in The Odyssey. The dog Argus loses control of himself.Almost InThis story traces what was almost Foer’s own personal experience, his almost in:Lev Grossman is TIME's book critic and lead technology writerIn January 2012 about a new comedy in development at HBO called All Talk. The show was about a Jewish family in Washington, D.C., and the tone would be . . . “politically, religiously, culturally, intellectually and sexually irreverent.” Ben Stiller would star and direct; Scott Rudin would produce; Alan Alda was in talks to join All Talk was written and created by Jonathan Safran Foer. It might’ve been a great show, but we’ll never know, because at the last possible minute Foer killed it. “Two years writing it, and it got greenlit, and we were just a month or two from shooting, it was cast, it was ready to go,” Foer tells me over coffee in Brooklyn recently. “And I had a kind of nervous breakdown, almost. I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to be a showrunner. I don’t want to be a TV writer. That’s not how I want to live my life. Which begs the question, How do I want to live my life?” Killing the show at that late stage was messy—Foer compares it to pulling out the bottom block in Jenga—but he did it and walked away, and in the process he answered that last question. “In a way it was my return to writing,” he says. “It was after that that I really went into high gear on this book.” By "this book" he means his new novel Here I Am which will be published in September. You will recognize that in this novel our Jacob is not Mr. Showrunner, but he is Mr. All Talk:Wikipedia: Showrunner is the 21st-century term for the leading executive producer of a Hollywood television series in the United States. The concept has since been adopted in the Canadian and British TV industries. A showrunner typically has creative control of a TV series production, through combining the responsibilities of the head writer, executive producer, and script editor. In films, directors typically have creative control of a production, but in television, the showrunner outranks the director.In this story Jacob is an employee writer, not a managing writer. A hack. Foer says he was almost going to write for the show named All Talk. Foer instead gave that title to Jacob, who talks a lot and writes for television, whose plots proceed mostly by way of talk. Jacob’s independent writing, under the title Ever Dying People, is a copy of his own experience. This story Here I Am, in order to be creative art, cannot be just a copy of Foer’s own divorce experience. It cannot be a copy.Kabbalah GenerallyKabbalah [sometimes abbreviated as “K”] is specifically mentioned in the text. By mentioning it, Foer notifies the reader he is using it. K is first of all a Jewish theosophy, that is an attempt at knowledge of ultimate matters, specifically knowledge of the unknown powers that be in relation to mankind. Getting along with God or at least God’s emanations. Big subjects.K is tricky to use in literature because it is so powerful and not necessarily internally consistent, at least in our normal way of thinking. Moreover, there are several different versions of K. Foer uses his own customized blend. So did Joyce, Salinger and many others. It offers good and exotic building materials. K [means “tradition” in the sense of “reception”] has been nurtured over centuries in Jewish mystical circles. Mystical means that individuals independently intuit this truth themselves and do not receive it in dependent instruction at the stinky feet of others. It is attained by independent personal intuition often during isolated meditation. You need to have your own identity to get the best from K. In order to read K you have to be fully present. All in K.In K the ultimate god known as Ein-Sof is said to be present and absent at the same time. Harold Bloom put it this way in Kabbalah and Criticism: Kabbalah too thinks in ways not permitted by Western metaphysics, since its God is at once Ein-Sof and ayin, total presence and total absence, and all its interior contain exteriors, while all of its effects determine its causes.While reading this story, think about the importance of presence and absence: Here I Am as a title and Here I Amn’t as a chapter heading. Generalized, they are that famous couple being and nothingness. Considered simultaneously and at the human level, the combination would reflect a life in this world that is wasted. Like Jacob’s. Alive as a being but no real “I.” And remember “I” is not me me me.Kabbalah explains god’s impact on our world using meanings imbedded in relationship events called Sefirot, which are emanations from god that affect humans by way of influences on their spiritual mechanism or soul. As Bloom said about the Sefirot, . . . these are relational events, and so are persuasive representations of what ordinary people encounter as the inner reality of their lives.In this theory, the ten different Sefirot influences “descend” in a pattern from closer to god to further away from god and closer to our world. The influences line up in an overall pattern as opposites and, so to speak, parents of the other Sefirots below and children of those above. It also helps me to think of them as influence fields in the sense of the word “field” in physics. The creation doctrines of Kabbalah are known as the Tzimtzum theory of creation [“TZTZ”]. In the TZTZ theory, the original creation of our universe occurred within a formless ur-unity in which god Ein-Sof [“ES”] was all and all potential was merged in god. Nothing could or did exist separately. The ur-unity god merged everything everywhere at all times. The essential characteristics of this god ES were and are unlimitedness and unity. Think of the singularity before the big bang. This god [Ein-Sof that literally means “nothing without end”] made a hole or void in its own ur-unity, out of itself, especially for this creation. It made out of “nothing without end” something with an end, our universe and our lives. It made its all encompassing self come apart. In this hole cleared out of its own boundless unity, ES contracted and deposited its own opposite, namely a bounded experience, a limited and separate experience, a universe separate from ES. That experience is our world, based in the beginning on a primordial separation and coming apart. In other words, ES god defecated and moved over. Think of the old dog Argus, who gives unconditional love, shitting in the Bloch household. You have to ask whether ES god gave unconditional love in this creation. In our separated TZTZ creation everything is finite, so it inevitably features death and limitation. This creation also inevitably came with its own god, a limited, secondary and finite kind of god who has human death for breakfast, WWII being a feast. This limited god is TZTZ god, the Jehovah of the Hebrew Scriptures who appeared after ES’s creation. TZTZ god is the bearer of curses as well as blessings, the “maybe” god. Meanwhile ES—the infinite, unified and now purified of the finite—remained concealed behind its creation as unknowable and unreachable. That is what K says.K literature literally refers to the TZTZ creation as an excretion by ES—the elimination of the finite and limited from the infinite and unlimited. That concept sponsors Argus’ deposits on the family floor. The creation broke down the integrity of the whole into separate pieces. The TZTZ creation created the condition of separateness, imaged as broken shards. Parts that are finite and limited. Parts that have come apart.Foer seems to say in this story that ES God withdrew from our universe but did leave behind His influence [or presence] in the human potential for mended personal identity as in “Here I Am.” This saying captures both the independent human attitude as well as ES god’s presence in that attitude, in that spiritual condition. That is where ES can be in our world, in independent personal human identity. An identity that brings parts together. The TZTZ god isn’t all a god can be so it doesn’t want humans to be all they can be. Misery loves company. TZTZ god delivers the curse of Kabbalah; it serves as postman for the curses—delivering curses that limit and make humanity suffer. With humankind, TZTZ god wants separation, limits and dependency. Interdependent with humans, the TZTZ god can be brought by way of sanctified human behavior to a higher level. Humans can make TZTZ god better by living better lives. But TZTZ god cannot get better on its own. When humans through their own activities create a TZTZ god that is like ES, then there will be celestial reunion. This process is known in K as Tikkun. When Tikkun is achieved, TZTZ god along with our universe will merge back into ES. Disappear into the merged unity.Tikkun Olam is the Jewish concept of "mending the world." All we know about ES is that it represents the infinite and unlimited and despite this nature it started the finite and limited TZTZ creation. ES represents all possibilities merged in unity and remains independent and concealed. Tikkun is the way back to all that. Where ES cannot be in our world is copying others, as in “Here I Amn’t.” That is a chapter heading used three times in this story. That heading is for the limited TZTZ god, a limited head. He is with those that copy and are only part of what they could be. In this story, no “I” means no identity means no ES God.Part and WholeThis TZTZ creation theory features a part and whole concept. The part is the finite and limited, the whole is infinite and unlimited. The coming apart and separated self is TZTZ god and love joining with others is ES. Hebrew Scripture’s TZTZ god does not take responsibility, for evil or sin. But that TZTZ god does judge responsibility in humans and create guilt, a form of self-hatred. ES is responsible for and in charge of human identity but on a passive basis; it does not make or cause or allow but rather is human identity. ES god imbues human identity with connecting love and courage to live by it. Without identity, you are like our Jacob punished by self-hatred. With it, you are like his grandfather Isaac who takes his own life in order to avoid one he does not respect.TZTZ god and ES god appear in this story disguised as part and whole. Foer has transposed these concepts to human behavior in terms of the absence or presence of independent identity. Totally independent identity being all or the whole of what you could be and limited identity as being only part of what you could be. In literature, creating totally out of your own soul is the whole and creating by copying others is the part, the wrong hole. Personal human identity can be summarized as “I am that I am.” An independent “I” is where ES god can dance. More from Bloom for the connection of identity to the whole of ES via the first sefirot Keter: Keter, the “crown,” is the primal Will of the Creator, and is scarcely distinguishable from the Ein-Sof, except as being first effect to His first cause. But, though an effect, Keter is not part of the Creation, which reflects Keter but cannot absorb it. As it cannot be compared to any other image, it must be called ayin, a “nothingness,” an object of quest the subject of any search. As a Name of God, Keter is the Ehyeh of the great declaration of God to Moses in Exodus 3:14. God says Ehyeh asher Ehyeh, “I Am That I Am.”Identity is the reflection of ES. It is from god’s point of view [as I] that the chapter heading Here I Amn’t is constructed [used three times in first section]. The inferior part is where I am not, Here I Am Not. I Am Not in Jacob, not in TV shows, not in TZTZ creation.Part to whole, from TZTZ creation, infuses several other but related issues that are important in this novel:Defecation by Argus: cleaning the body of the finite.Julia’s interior decoration of a few rooms versus designing the whole house.Jacob’s writing for TV versus his own creative art.Entropy and Conservation of EnergyThe Bloch marriage wears out over time, and the question is why. Foer gave us an answer in Loud and Close as to how a love relationship can stop. He used the second law of thermodynamics, the rule of entropy, which was explicitly discussed in the text. Under this law, separation or coming apart is the inevitable rule of the universe. Just as it is in Kabbalah TZTZ creation. Scary.In Loud and Clear Foer transposed the law from physics to the emotional life of a young boy. Here he does the same for the emotional life of a marriage and family and includes [the price is the same—a chapter title] the law of the conservation of energy as well. In the transposition to emotional life, the laws naturally lose some rigor around the edges. The second law of thermodynamics describes the inevitable movement from more to less order in an isolated system in the absence of additional energy input. Random favors disorder or coming apart because there are more possibilities for disorder and only a few for order. Without additional energy input, separation or less order is inevitable.Foer treats a functioning family as an ordered system, divorce as disorder, identity as an ordered system and loss of identity as disorder. The Bloch marriage loses order; it comes apart, into separate parts. Emotional entropy or disorder eventually prevails. It needed additional energy input to hold its order. That additional energy was not available because Jacob and Julia were not living in their marital or professional lives sufficiently out of their own identities. They were not fulfilling.Foer’s stories preach that without personal identity the energy for real love is not possible and without real love real identity is not possible. Personal identity frees up love energy. You don’t waste energy on yourself and what others think of you or on your own pride. For how that happens Foer looked to the law of the conservation of energy. What he found was transposition, that the same energy can change form but always remains in a fixed quantum, that only so much is available.That conservation law states that energy is never lost, that the total energy of an isolated system remains constant—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed; rather, it transforms from one form to another. In Foer’s formula, human energy can be transformed from love of others to hatred of or other focus on yourself or back again. It can be in one form or the other or presumably part in one and part in another. But not all in both at the same time. Whether as love or hate, it is the same energy and in a fixed quantum. And it can move back and forth. What causes it to move or why it moves to the other zone is not explained in this story. The conditions for movement are displayed as gain or loss of personal identity. But that seems to me to be more of a result than a cause. But whatever, let us go on.Foer displays an example of the transformation of energy in the last scenes with the description of Jacob experiencing self-anger, anger at himself, because of his lack of identity. Self-anger, anger projected within, is the opposite of love projected outward for others. It uses up the energy that otherwise could flow out as love. Pride or other focus on yourself would have the same result, using up the energy. Lack of identity [not knowing who you are] allows that energy to create forms of self-disturbance such as fear, sadness and guilt or pride and self-absorption. They prevent connection to others. As one chapter title says, the price [in energy] is the same.Here from page 570 at the climax of the story is a moment of movement of energy from one to the other zone in Jacob:“That’s interesting.” Jacob said, and in an instant, as the g freed itself from the back of his hard palate, his discomfort with the vet’s use of Argus’s name morphed into anger at himself—the anger that was often deeply buried and often projected, but was always there. . . All day he’d been experiencing fear, and sadness, and guilt about not being able to give Argus a little longer, and pride at having given him this long, but now at the arrival of the moment he was only angry.For a picture of the energy transformation formula, look at that featured letter g. In that letter viewed as a picture, the spaces above and below are closed off and the same size and shape. Equal and alternative forms of energy. Gee! A g with identity would be upright and open for flow outward and look like this: G. Think about mystic letters in K.In Foer’s treatment, this self-anger resulting from lack of identity is not lost but is normally buried or projected onto others, which is what Jacob does to the Rabbi at the start of the story. When buried within, it creates potentially self-disabling pressures that must be attended to in terms of attention to self. But at the end of the story Jacob experiences some anger directed not at others and not buried within but consciously directed at himself. He begins to feel some identity, which begins to absorb his normally buried self-anger. This becomes conscious and is the beginning step in his spiritual recovery to ability to connect with others. Conscious of the process, he begins to understand the dark side of lack of identity and self-absorption and begins to dial down his own self-absorption. This happens because or as he finally is able to give love to Argus and bring him relief.Read in terms of these two formulas borrowed from science, the story seems to say that the Bloch marriage got tired because neither Julia nor Jacob did or were able to live enough out of their own truths to give enough to others. Architect qualified Julia designed remodels for kitchens instead of ground breaking homes and Jacob wrote for television not artfully for the ages. Living only in part of their identity potential, they directed considerable energy at themselves [for example with masturbation and self-endorsement] and eventually did not have enough energy left over [since there is only so much] to always be giving to others: to the children, to relatives, to work, to the common bank account and to each other. They did not retain responsibility for their essential selves, which could conserve and add to their emotional energy in the form to be devoted to others. In was in this sense that the marriage got tired.Identity and ResponsibilityThis story centers on responsibility. Identity reflects responsibility for self. The main event in the story is Sam’s BRM, the Jewish ritual designed to mark the emergence at age 13 of a child into adulthood and moral responsibility for her or his own actions. For a story with this main event, Foer uses an omniscient third person narrator, something new compared to his earlier first-person narrator based novels. This one has an outside narrator. Like someone watching. Like a Rabbi officiating. Like someone withdrawn and not responsible for what happens. This narrator choice indicates that the identity necessary for a first personal narrative is not present here from the beginning. In a manner of speaking the narrator is taking responsibility for the content.Several metaphors contribute to the integrity of the story about break up. One is “coming apart,” which describes Jacob’s lack of identity, the divorce, the earthquake in Israel, and Isaac’s suicide. Biblical Jacob the sneak pretending to be Esau returns as Foer’s Jacob and his secret sex texting phone calls and his secret hair restoration efforts. This Jacob can’t even get his relationship with his dog right, much less his family. He can’t get it up with his wife because he worries about being able to. His energy went to himself, not to her.While Foer in his first two novels assessed the effect of identity mostly in individual lives, here the effect is felt in the wider delta of family. What Foer shows is that when the marriage and family commitment becomes especially demanding, the adults need their own personal identity to be in good shape in order to be able to give even more of the kind of selfless love that is needed for family stability and maximum nurturing growth. I think this is true generally, not just in the Jewish household. Identity, Choices and DivorceBoth the husband Jacob and the wife Julia in the Bloch family fail in their responsibility to themselves. This leaves them with a limited self that is unable to support the other when family stress is high; they don’t have enough self to be all in when the choice chips are down. Their marriage finally comes totally apart at the instigation of Julia after she finds Jacob’s sex texting phone and he does not go to Israel, for which trip she endured considerable difficulties. These two events are in the nature of two last straws that break the back of the camel. Jacob characteristically thinks once again all trouble will blow over, the camel will get up until finally it doesn’t.Failure in personal responsibility was well represented by the grandfather Thomas in Extremely Loud and Incredible Close. He was the “renter” who was not personally invested in marriage with grandmother to the point of risking emotional loss. He left town whenever his personal pleasure was threatened. The title Here I Am represents the statement by several biblical characters to indicate they were “all in” and ready to serve God. Julia was all in when oldest son Sam suffered a serious hand injury as a child. She responded to his need: “I love you, and I am here.” Here I Am became I am here. For Sam’s serious hand injury, Foer had this personal experience:Wikipedia: Foer was born in?Washington, D.C., the son of Albert Foer, a lawyer and president of the?American Antitrust Institute, and Esther Safran Foer, a child of?Holocaust?survivors born in Poland, who is now Senior Advisor at the?Sixth & I Historic Synagogue.[2][3]?Foer is the middle son in this?Jewish?family; his older brother,?Franklin, is a former editor of?The New Republic?and his younger brother,?Joshua, is the founder of?Atlas Obscura. Foer was a "flamboyant" and sensitive child who, at the age of 8, was injured in a classroom chemical accident that resulted in "something like a nervous breakdown drawn out over about three years," during which "he wanted nothing, except to be outside his own skin."[2]Note carefully that Jacob Bloch’s family background [father Irv and grandfather Isaac] is given in great detail while none is given for Julia. Only her maiden name Selman [with its dangerous suggestion of sell to man]. Bloch apparently means son of Levi and Cohen.As presented, Jacob has a weak identity which was wounded during his upbringing by his father Irving. There are hints in the text as to how and why Jacob’s identity was wounded but no concrete examples. His father’s main interest was civil rights outside the house, not his son, and assumed that as his son Jacob would just naturally be great. Irv’s philosophy is Israel right or wrong, which of course leaves responsibility behind. Jacob emerges from this upbringing as insecure and needing constant approval, suggesting approval is what he did not receive enough of from his father. He is proud but not confident. Jacob is meant to remind us of the sneaky biblical Jacob stealing the blessing from Isaac meant for Esau, played here by Jacob’s Israeli cousin Tamir. Jacob thinks of himself as a novelist but instead he has sold out; he writes for television and is guided by what is popular, not what he thinks is good. He is also writing his own work, a novel, and a guide [the “Bible”] to reading it. Note that the guide, like television in general, would limit the development potential of the experience of reading the novel. He can’t get it up for his wife because he is afraid he won’t be able to, just as he is afraid the audience won’t understand his novel without his help in the Bible. His novel copies his life. He does not create it. No new possibilities. Without creative additions, it too will suck.Julia’s love infatuation with Jacob falters after her family burden reaches the boiling point with their 13-year-old, ten year old and six-year-old sons Sam, Max and Benji. Her business role as an interior decorator [interior think emotions] does not match her image of herself as an architect of homes. Her identity-wounded husband constantly needs reassurance and help from her. After years of this, the marriage won’t hold together anymore and she seeks her own emotional life. Her change is triggered by the discovery of sex texting messages that Jacob has shared with a coworker and tried to hide. She reacts by totally pulling away from the marriage, despite injury this will produce to the children. She finally tells him “You are not my spouse.” The marriage fails because of lack of identity which is necessary for “all in” sharing. Foer and novelist Nicole Krauss were apparently married for ten years and divorced in 2014 in a family of two children. This novel was published in 2016 and apparently written over a period of 10 years. You can find the tracks of this divorce experience in both his and her novels. Bar MitzvahThe Bar Mitzvah for Sam is the event around which this story turns. The central idea of the Bar Mitzvah ritual is responsibility, moral responsibility.Wikipedia: Bar Mizvay—responsible for your actions. Prior parents: According to?Jewish law, when?Jewish?boys become 13 years old, they become accountable for their actions and become a bar mitzvah. A girl becomes a bat mitzvah at the age of 12 according to Orthodox and Conservative Jews, and at the age of 13 according to Reform Jews.[1]?Prior to reaching bar mitzvah age, the child's parents hold the responsibility for the child's actions. After this age, the boys and girls bear their own responsibility for Jewish ritual?law,?tradition, and?ethics, and are able to participate in all areas of Jewish community life. Traditionally, the father of the bar mitzvah gives thanks to God that he is no longer punished for the child's sins (Genesis Rabbah,? HYPERLINK "" \o "Toledot" Toledot?63[2]). In addition to being considered accountable for their actions from a religious perspective, a thirteen-year-old may be counted towards a?prayer quorum?and may lead prayer and other religious services in the family and the community.Note that prior to Sam’s 13th birthday, his parents Jacob and Julia are responsible for his actions, including the creation of his offending word list at Hebrew School. Conceptually, they as his parents should be penalized and apologize to the Rabbi and the school. This possibility does not occur to them. The phrase Bar Mitzvah [“BRM”] means responsible to the law, meaning the religious law. The girl has a Bat Mitzvah [“BTM”] on her 12th or 13th birthday. Keep in mind, particularly for the first chapter, this idea of the parents’ responsibility prior to the BRM.Bloch Family ChartHere is the family by generations:IsaacSarah [died age 42]U.S.Benny?IsraelIrving*DeborahSchlomo*AdinaJacob*JuliaTamir*Sam*Max*Benji*Noam*Barak* Isaac and Benny were brothers who survived the holocaust by hiding, hiding their whole beings not just their Jewish identity. They married sisters they met in displacement camps. Isaac moved to America and Benny to Israel. They separated. The children of the union above are indicated by a *. For example, Irving is the child of Isaac and Sarah. Jacob and Tamir are contemporaries.Said and WroteKeep in mind throughout this written story what Jacob the writer tells us, that he is writing his magnum opus entitled Ever-Dying People [an old subject] and a “Bible” for interpretation and how to “play it.” Amazingly, this opus is close if not identical to the actual experiences in his life. Jacob claims it anticipates events or conversations. That I doubt and his project is not a surprise. He is really writing his own autobiography, copying his own life since he is not capable of creating an imaginary story. He is copying his own life in his copy opus. Just as he copies other people in his actions. You need your own identity to create [remember this when we get to Spielberg]. He is bound to what has happened. He thinks the reader will be like himself, needing direction as to how to “play it.”Ask yourself whether this novel could be meant to be the text of Ever-Dying People, that is reveal it and be it. A process similar to the action of ES god in human identity.Jacob and EsauFoer’s Jacob plays against the biblical story of Jacob and Esau. Jacob pretended to be his one minute older brother Esau in order to get from his father Isaac the family blessing, which means he would be in charge of the greater family when Isaac passed away. This biblical Jacob lived a life divorced from his identity in order to achieve the approval of his family as the responsible one. Biblical Jacob used animal hair to trick his blind father into thinking he was the naturally hairy Esau. Likewise, this Jacob uses hair restorer and lives a pretend life. Note that the biblical Jacob’s mother Rebecca does not urge Jacob to apologize and make it right but to leave the area and let time cure the inevitable rift with Esau. Let it blow over. When biblical Jacob comes back to his home land, he fights with an angel at the river and the angel names him Israel. This is his official and real blessing as the authentic Jacob.Sections and ChaptersTake some time to view the section and chapter headings. They give you the flavor of the material. The page numbers are from the hard cover version:I Before the WarGet Back to Happiness 1Here I Amn’t 14Happiness 19A Hand the Size of Yours. A Home the Size of this One 28Here I Amn’t 61Epitome 72T-H-I-S-2-S-H-A-L-L-N-‘-T-P-A-S-S 79Epitome 88Here I Amn’t 101Someone! Someone! 105The N-Word 119Notice the repetition of the identity denying title for the second, fifth and ninth chapters: Here I Amn’t. We also have a title Someone! Someone! for some identity please. Two epitomes, which means a summary or miniature form of something else, with an emphasis on other. It is apparently from the Greek meaning to cut short. The seventh Chapter heading is based on the more familiar “This Too Shall Pass.” But here is shall not pass. In the self-destructing family, we read this as: This Two [or Couple] Shall Not Pass. Notice the chapter headings announce minor wars before the big one. Having read the section title Before the War, the reader goes into these chapters with strife in mind.II Learning Impermanence 131Antietam 131Damascus 135The Side That Faces away 141Not Yet 153Someone Else’s Other Life 160The Artificial Emergency 167Someone Else’s Other Death 179A Complete Rebirth 183The American Civil War, suggested by Antietam, is an analogy to the Bloch divorce and a foreboding of the war of all Arab states with Israel. For the Bloch divorce it is a very heavy analogy. Impermanence soaks the subject matter.III Uses of a Jewish Fist 190Holding a Pen, Punching, Self Love 191The L-Word 213Maybe It Was The Distance 219In The End, One’s Home Is Perfect 227Here Come The Israelis 229Real Real 247Vey Iz Mire [the price is the same] 251The Second Synagogue 262The Earthquake 266IV Fifteen Days of Five Thousand Years 276V Not To Have A Choice is Also A Choice 290The I Word 291Absorb or Absolve 301What Do The Children Know? 309The Genuine Version 328There Are Things That Are Hard to Say Today 340The Names Were Magnificent 355Reincarnation 362Just the Wailing 370In the Hinge 402Who’s In the Unoccupied Room? 402De Selbe Prayz 420 VI The Destruction of Israel 434Come Home 435Today I Am Not A Man 437O Jews, Your Time Has Come 441Come Home 446Today I Am Not a Man 449O Jews, Your Time Has Come 453Come Home 454Today I Am Not A Man 456O Jews, Your Time Has Come 458Come Home 460Today I Am Not A Man 462O Jews, Your Time Has Come 464Come Home 466Note the three interwoven chapter titles which are repeated to make up this section VI: Jews come home to defend Israel, Sam’s BRM manifesto, and the call for both Shia and Sunni Muslims to forget their differences in order to kill Jews. Come Home suggests coming home to yourself. The leader of Iran urges all Muslims to think just as Muslims not as Shia or Sunni and not as individuals and to kill Jews, to disregard your own private view of Jews and Israel.VII The Bible 473VIII Home 537ArgusYears ago Jacob brought home the dog named Argus over the objections of Julia. Now despite this history irresponsible Jacob does not feed Argus or help clean up the many senior bowel movements in the house. Argus serves as an example of losing control of self. His mounds of poop may suggest TZTZ creation. His unconditional love may be viewed as an expression of ES in TZTZ creation.Even Max knows that euthanasia is the loving solution, to put Argus out of his misery. However, Argus loves Jacob unconditionally and Jacob does not want to lose that one source of unconditional love, given all the family flack coming his way. At the end of the story Jacob has learned enough to put Argus down mercifully. Argus with a hundred eyes means watchman.From The Odyssey:As they were speaking, a dog that had been lying asleep raised his head and pricked up his ears. This was Argos, whom Odysseus had bred before setting out for Troy, but he had never had any enjoyment from him. In the old days he used to be taken out by the young men when they went hunting wild goats, or deer, or hares, but now that his master was gone he was lying neglected on the heaps of mule and cow dung that lay in front of the stable doors till the men should come and draw it away to manure the great close; and he was full of fleas. As soon as he saw Odysseus standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master. When Odysseus saw the dog on the other side of the yard, dashed a tear from his eyes without Eumaios seeing it, and said:'Eumaios, what a noble hound is that is over yonder on the manure heap: his build is splendid; is he as fine a fellow as he looks, or is he only one of those dogs that come begging about a table, and are kept merely for show?''This dog,' answered Eumaios, 'belonged to him who has died in a far country. If he were what he was when Odysseus left for Troy, he would soon show you what he could do. There was not a wild beast in the forest that could get away from him when he was once on its tracks. But now he has fallen on evil times, for his master is dead and gone, and the women take no care of him. Servants never do their work when their master's hand is no longer over them, for Zeus takes half the goodness out of a man when he makes a slave of him.'So saying he entered the well-built mansion, and made straight for the riotous pretenders in the hall. But Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years.Odysseus left home for 20 years [10 fighting and 10 returning] in order to be a warrior, an identity and life which was inconsistent with his adult roles as a husband and father. He comes home from slavery to warfare to find the usurpers in charge at his home and waiting impatiently to usurp his wife Penelope. More warfare. Odysseus takes them out. Likewise, Jacob has failed his role as a husband and father and finally comes home [to himself] after his domestic home is splintered. He comes home by finding some identity in the appreciation of life as such, as a living being. Life is precious. He is finally able to own the Argus situation and mercifully put Argus out of his misery. For this maturation Foer rewards him with the gift of interior monologue free of the didactic narrator.Argus’s turds on the family rugs and floors give us a vivid example of wasted part. Just what Jacob leaves with his family. Foer’s Narrator ArtFoer indicates the change in Jacob by a contrast between the relation of the narrator to Jacob in the opening scene with the corresponding relation in the closing scene. Please allow me to introduce this topic in general by reference to work on narrator art in Flaubert and Sentimental Education I did previously. See Appendix 1. Now for our author Foer, our budding American Flaubert.In the opening scene in the Rabbi’s office, the third party narrator is fully in control of the text, just as the forces of the other are fully in control of Jacob’s life. Jacob’s partial recovery by the closing of the story is indicated in his ability to do the right thing out of love and have Argus put down. In this ending scene, Jacob self criticizes his own use of that’s interesting in a passage [page 570] that is in the form of an interior monologue. The monologue indicating by way of narrator style [that is no third party narrator] that Jacob has partially turned the corner on the issue of identity. Jacob processes his own reaction, his self-reaction, rather than worrying about what other people think of him. And at the same time he takes care of his responsibility for Argus. Identity within responsibility.Here is material from the early scene [in the first chapter] in which Jacob is buffeted in a conference with Julia and the Rabbi. The purpose of the conference is to discuss the list of offensive words and phrases found on Sam’s desk and in Sam’s writing. This comes right after the scene of 12-year-old boys overreacting to a view from the rear of a girl leaning over the water fountain. As Jacob is to do, the boys are overreacting because their identity is not strong enough to control their response. If so, TZTZ god must overreact. Have a quick temper. Get angry.Jacob overreacts when the other two do not agree with him. Notice his exasperated and hot tempered responses, overreacting. He assumes the Rabbi is judging him. His remarks include:Sam is not an adult.He didn’t do itHe did not do thisHold on. Now you’re calling Sam a racist?You’re calling me a liar?These overreactions are reported by a merciless third-party narrator who remains in control, does not comment and lets the reader reaction chips fall where they may. The narrator allows the reader to join those who are judging Jacob. Julia frantically tries to get Jacob to join her point of view and act together like a set of parents should; she uses sign language for two of one mind, her mind. But to no avail. Only the narrator delivers and controls material here and for most of the story. The characters of course speak but how this is reported is controlled by the pare that with the narrator treatment at the end of the story with Jacob at the vet with Argus. First, we have on page 569 a modified interior monologue about Jacob’s reaction to euthanasia:“OK,” Jacob said, but he thought, I don’t want this to happen. I’m not ready for this to happen. This cannot happen.Notice the narrator remains in partial control with the “he thought”. Another version of this type of combination from Anne Carson’s short story Flaubert Again is this: Now I’m writing, she would be able to say. But the narrator’s control is beginning to slip. It is gone when the full interior monologue comes on the next page 570, again in the scene about Argus:[Narrator] “That’s interesting.” Jacob said, and in an instant, as the g freed itself from the back of his hard palate his discomfort with the vet’s use of Argus’s name morphed into anger at himself—the anger that was often deeply buried, and often projected, but was always there. [interior monologue]That’s interesting. What a stupid thing to say right then. What an unimportant, cheapening, disgusting remark. That’s interesting. [narrator] All day he’d been experiencing fear, and sadness, and guilt about not being able to give Argus a little longer, and pride at having given him this long, but now at the arrival of the moment, he was only angry. [material in brackets added]This interior monologue arrives without partial narrator control such as “He thought . . .” It announces via the temporary withdrawal of the narrator that at least in part Jacob will judge himself, not others. That is a big change. He realizes the preciousness of life as long as it is lived on your own terms. The fact that Jacob learns this lesson in connection with a dog rather than his own wife and children is disheartening. And as we shall see in detail, at the very end of the story the narrator loses control almost all together. This technique Foer could have learned from Salinger’s Franny and Zoey.AestheticThis story is centered where your life should be, in identity. The identity of this story is identity. The connections beyond that center are like rooms in a house, one connected to the next and all connected by the walls and roof in the same space. Like one Julia would design if someone asked her. Meanwhile, she builds models, like she builds children.This novel carries on the themes of Foer’s first two books. This time through loss of identity and divorce. Scenes in this story acquire additional layers of meaning by reason of scenes before them or scenes after them with some of the same elements. Like the Sefirots. The big ideas, like lack of responsibility, can be found in most scenes. The style of narrator that Foer uses reflects the basic ideas in the book. You will note as we go along that chapter headings provide guides to interpretation of materials in other chapters. A kind of misplaced signal, like the sex-texts. For example, the chapter heading The Price is the Same announces indirectly the theory of the conservation of energy, which is used in other chapters.With moving earthquake faults in mind, we can watch the book come together aesthetically as the Block family comes apart emotionally and the Arabs and Persians join the forces of group hate of Israel. The weak fault in this book is that we are not given sufficiently the reason in his upbringing that Jacob ended up without identity and instead got negative self-orientation. We can guess that his father Irv was too preoccupied with himself but he also had Deborah, mom. Perhaps Foer was silent on this subject deliberately so we would have to think about it. That would be direction of the reader by absence or withdrawal of the author, a meaty Kabbalah concept. An ayin author.Text I. Before the War 1. Getting Back to Happiness.Note the section heading Before the War. This choice by Foer indicates some kind of connection between theBloch family strife presented in this chapter and the future war in Israel. That literary connection is humanseparation.The story starts with Isaac, the survivor. And the text of the story starts without an indent in the first paragraph, a device used by Foer in Loud and Clear to indicate connection with prior materials [indent indicates the start of a new topic]. The missing indent is used in this story for the start of all the new chapters. Perhaps that pattern suggests connection with the foregoing chapters. As if they are all strung on the same chord, strung like Sefirots, above and below.Notice the subject at the beginning and the subject at the end of this chapter are the same: about separating or checking out. Out of this world and out of the Rabbi’s office. Out of responsibility. Both Isaac and Jacob are responsible for their own death in life, Isaac in the body but not the spirit and Jacob in the spirit but not the body. These are the book ends for the novel that champions putting live spirit in the live body by acting out of identity.Isaac takes responsibility for his own death. He commits suicide. Isaac’s sense of responsibility for himself is set up in the first line:When the destruction of Israel commenced, Isaac Bloch was weighing whether to kill himself or move to the Jewish Home. . . the timing was unfortunate: it was only two weeks before his eldest great-grandson’s bar mitzvah. . .This sentence introduces Isaac’s sense of responsibility and the BRM, the responsibility shifting event. SinceIsaac hangs himself, the use of weighing is an anticipatory choice of words.Isaac saved himself from the Nazis and at this point has for some time lived alone in America. He won’t have it that others take care of him, as would be the case at the Jewish Home. He refuses to abandon personal responsibility by leaving his personal home that records years of his life and his deceased spouse. He refuses to go to the just sit around at the Home with the other non-functioning Jews. It would weigh on him. In short, Isaac takes responsibility for his own death. He ends his life by hanging himself with his own belt. Isaac who takes his own life in order to avoid one he does not respect. Note that Jacob is just the opposite. He lives a life he does not respect in order to have a life.Isaac is the model in this story for personal responsibility for yourself. His sense of responsibility is the foil for Jacob’s lack of personal responsibility. How Isaac treated his wife and children is not mentioned. But he produced Irv who produced Jacob, so it wasn’t all good. While Isaac’s family tree was pruned by the Germans [contrast this euphemism with the bush that was not consumed and the tree of Sefirots], he survived the Nazis with his own personal actions and the help of a few others. After all that, he commits suicide rather than being compelled by family to leave his home to go to a Jewish “rest” Home where he would be taken care of by others. This despite missing his great grandson Sam’s BRM [that he paid for] and being buried in the disrespected suicide part of the cemetery. Isaac’s kind of person is one who is what he does and does what he is. He controls his own life choices and his choices in life are the subject of the first paragraph of the story. Two generations later of soft life in America his grandson Jacob has lost the guts to live life out of his own identity. Jacob would have helped the Germans. What do you want mine Herr?Contrast Isaac’s control of choices with those of the second subject in the story, the 12-year-old boys at Hebrew school. They are reacting to the stimulating view from behind of a girl student [Margot Wasserrman-suggestively means pearl in water] leaning over the water fountain and lapping water [lapping suggests a dog, which mounts from the rear]. The point is made by the narrator that the boys are not yet in control of themselves, not morally responsible for their choices which at this point are driven by the recently arrived instinctive sex urge. They are not morally responsible for themselves. In this context of irresponsibility, oral and anal sex are the hot topics.Margot represents life potential and connection potential for the future, the fountain of divine waters of K. Those waters are here controlled by the Hebrew School and morals. We will remember the boys’ remarks when we read Jacob’s equally irresponsible and oral and anal oriented sex texting messages. Both feature the same orientation, which is without mutual intercourse, and present the possibility of connection with left-over human waste. Sodom featured sex as domination, a crude kind of taking, not loving and giving connection. This kind of sex only offers part of what whole sexual togetherness has to offer. And it can be totally anonymous. Slam bam thank you mam. This slate of subjects leads from Isaac to the water fountain to Sam sitting outside the Rabbi’s office. This opening scene, perhaps a nod to the opening of David Wallace’s Infinite Jest, involves a youth in the den of adult authority. He is doing what he has been ordered to do by his parents and the Rabbi for doing what he won’t take responsibility for. His being there under those circumstances is similar to what his father does for a “living.” Sam is charged with writing a list of offensive expletives, including the N word, words young boys are very interested in because they are “bad” and relate to sex or hate. He left the list at his desk. His parents are inside arguing with each other and the Rabbi about how to fix the problem presented by exposure of the list--so the BRM for Sam can go forward. Having learned morals from his father Jacob, Sam has refused to take responsibility for the list. The anonymous list. In this respect, he is his father’s son.Note the omniscient, fully in charge third-party narrator who knows all: now, before and after. The narrator is personified by the Rabbi. No explanations or justifications are offered for Jacob’s explosive behavior during the interview. So the subjects announced in the first lines are all about responsibility: Isaac for himself, the boys for themselves, Sam for his list and the BRM, the responsibility shifting ceremony. Later in the section they are lined up again. This is all part of Before the War. For Foer, it is all part of the evil of separation.Notice that each of the topics addressed takes on flavor and meaning based on what has gone on before and what surrounds it. Just like the Sefirots. Just as Sam is punished by being required to sit in front of the Rabbi’s office, when everyone in school knows what it means.The discussion by underage boys [pre BRM] at Hebrew School is about their sex fantasies, which typically involve only them taking and not sharing with a partner. Note the mistakes they make due to lack of experience. Their weak self-identity and group orientation [all the neat guys] are paired with selfish sex. The narrator lets them off the hook with the comments that they have not reached the age of responsibility and are made in the image of their god. Compare their attitudes and remarks with the messages on Jacob’s sex texting phone we reach later. Passive Sam who does not take responsibility for what he wrote will remind you of his father Jacob who writes for a television show. Jacob writes what the audience wants, which involves hot topics, and not what he respects as literary art. Unlike the boys, Jacob is of age and is made in the image of the absence of god, at least ES God.The other boys criticize Sam. He does not return their comments but just remains on “the crap side of the screen,” a remark born of on-line game playing and an image of this life in TZTZ land, the screen being death. The Hebrew School is named Adas Israel, which means red earth, a description of an Esau Israel, an aggressive hunting Israel. Esau the son with plentiful red hair hunted while Jacob the son studied in the tent and kept close to mommy Rebeca. She favored Jacob over her other son Esau and apparently advised Jacob how to pull off the sham and what to do afterwards to dissipate his brother’s heat.Jacob and Julia argue in front of the Rabbi who is in charge of what to do about Sam’s transgression of writing the list. Arguing is of course insane in terms of their objective to save the BRM. The Rabbi apparently wants both Sam and his parents to apologize in front of the whole school. Jews know what it is to be called bad names. Remember Jacob and Julia as parents have pre BRM the moral responsibility for the actions of their child. Note the list was not given to anyone else or read aloud. It was just found, so it represents the thoughts of Sam and the issue is the responsibility for the thoughts, or moral responsibility. Note he just copied down “hot button” words other people use. He didn’t make up any new ones. His list is a condensed version of his father’s type of writing.It is given wisdom that parents should speak with one voice in a situation like this, but Jacob and Julia don’t. Jacob’s view is my son right or wrong [we can hear Irv in the background] and Julia’s is a mommy’s viewpoint, it was bad for him to talk back to the teacher [which avoids the point of the list] and how do we get back to happiness. Neither focuses on responsibility and thus fails to solve the problem. Each fails for reasons related to his and her damaged identity. Jacob in particular does not act like an adult; he is still on basic instincts, a movie title he quotes in the discussion as authority on morality. An authority from his professional life. Later we learn that Jacob projects his own self-hatred resulting from lack of identity onto the Rabbi.The text morphs to the history of Jacob’s take on his religion and their marriage. This contains the statement by Max in his BRM three years later “You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of.” The marriage begins to get tired and their early youthful marriage practices begin to get just too demanding. They begin to feel like an empty religious ritual. They begin to let go of them. Foer does not say what is missing. But we can guess what is missing is identity, which is necessary for the power of giving. The Rabbi mentions Ohr Ein Sof, the divine light envisaged by K in every person, and quotes the Hasidic proverb: “While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.” Contentment is that which persists on its own, happiness demands more and more input. The discontented Jacob bolts from the Rabbi’s office at the end of the chapter with: “You’ve got the wrong guy.” While not so intended by Jacob, this means in context that he has no contentment because he has no identity, the stuff that would see him through to taking responsibility. Other people have “got” him.Remember that the Rabbi controls whether Sam can have a BRM at the family synagogue and what that entails. Jacob’s arguments to the Rabbi are as off subject as the 12-year-old boys thoughts on male/female sex. Responsibility means little to Jacob. Jacob’s thoughts are instinctively framed in terms of what others think: Hold on. Now you’re calling Sam a racist? The Rabbi characterizes him as boxing at shadows. The shadows of the others in their opinions. The issue of intentions, Sam’s intentions for the list, colors the argument about formalist religion and intention religion [in Christianity your intention or attitude is what matters—did you want to harvest your neighbor’s wife?]. Notice that Jacob takes the list with him. He needs it for his personal work Ever Dying People. His death work copying his own life. Note no Argus in this chapter.I. Before the War 2. Here I Amn’tStill in Section I and still in the context of a future war on Israel because she is weakened by a rift earthquake. When she is not herself, when she comes apart. Here we have a chapter title signaling for all to see the lack of identity. Here I Amn’t. Where ES god from K is missing.The I in the chapter title refers to Sam and of course to ES’s removal in the TZTZ creation, where ES is no longer. Sam is initially in the hallway in the synagogue and then later in his bedroom on-line. He is not here in either place, not here in his own identity. His identity as a Jew is being threatened by the possible loss of the BRM. His identity as a person is being threatened by the influence of his father and their mutual refusal to accept responsibility. Since Sam is not there in identity, ES God is not there either. No “I” means no identity means no ES.When thinking about this chapter, imagine how the whole story would be different if this chapter were left out. What would be missing.The connection to the story is that lacking identity [by the title Here I Am Not] is immediately reflected in Sam’s devotion to the on-line game Other Life. He is in Other Life not in this his own life. This is where he goes immediately after the humiliating session outside the Rabbi’s office when his fledgling identity was battered. He takes refuge on-line in his make believe character, an obsession for which the story blames Jacob. Like father like son. Jacob’s Other Life is television.In the connections in the story, lack of ready in present identity is connected with the fault line that ruptures in Israel. Lack of identity of American Jews with Israel leaves most of the Jews in America during the existential war for Israel. She loses her identity as the Jewish homeland, the diaspora Jews do not return. The Arabs and even the Persians, the Sunnis and the Shiites, gained greater unity in group hate. Jews split; the Blochs split. Sam is the picture of threatened identity. In his on-line experience called Other Life [it is not a game] he can build his own character at his discretion. Your character in Other Life does not build its own identity. The on-line experience does not change Sam’s soul, it reveals it. You will compare his experience with Jacob’s sex texting. From the game Sam has learned helplessness, when in the game he by mistake submerged a growing forest in a lake. While immersed in the game, Sam is the same as those trees under water, he is not growing due to lack of sunlight from real human experience and identity. Remember the title of his father’s novel, Ever-Dying People. People losing energy.Without his own secure identity and a sense of responsibility, Sam obsesses on animal and human cruelty. He can obsess on it because he is not responsible. In Other Life he sends baby Moses down the Nile and back again [to his mother] in an endless loop. He is not responsible for the child’s upbringing or the danger to the child from the Egyptians. He reads an article about a boy in a Nazi concentration camp who observed his BRM by making an imaginary synagogue in dirt. But is not moved. The narrator tells us Sam needs a synagogue, a real life structure representing his spiritual system. Note the real life interruptions: Jacob telling him it doesn’t matter whether he wants a BRM because he is going to have one anyway. This kind of treatment [perhaps what Jacob received from Irv] as opposed to making it his or a joint decision does not help Sam’s forest grow. We get a version of Sam’s internal obsession on evil, which he can control in the game but not in life. Instead of studying for his haftorah to be delivered at the BRM, he is building changing stained glass windows in his bimah. Note: The haftarah or haftorah (alt. haphtara, Hebrew: ?????; "parting," "taking leave", plural haftoros or haftorot is a series of selections from the books of Nevi'im of the Hebrew Bible that is publicly read...?en.The halftorah is another version of our coming apart fault, taking leave by separating the section in question from the rest, leaving only half a torah. The synagogue he built around the bimah served to correct experiences in the world that infuriated Sam. Other life he constructed was a better world than the one he found himself in. He loves videos of dog owners and dogs where the owner loves the dog more than himself. This is to be Jacob’s final resting place in his relationship with Argus. Which currently is a form of animal cruelty, Jacob letting the dog live too long in order to get for a needy owner unconditional love from the suffering dog.Again layered in Sam’s world is a conversation with Mom, which ends with Sam’s question whether Dad is bad at life. Mom just wants to start over with Sam taking responsibility for the list and the family being happy. On line Sam moves his synagogue in a prelude to the family separation. The narrator tells us that know it or not, Sam needed the synagogue [and his family]. Sam is not himself in the game, he is Samantha, which is feminine and apparently means vassal or listener. This is what his family experience has done to Sam. The connection of life to the game is explored in the last sentence: He didn’t long for one [a synagogue], he needed one: you can’t destroy what doesn’t exist. Substitute family for synagogue. Sam breaks up the synagogue in the game into large pieces which he has transported to a new location. He is obsessing on the future breakup of his family. I. Before the War 3. HappinessHappiness is Julia’s objective, happiness at home. Here we see what is at home when she is not there. There are a lot of needs, starting with Jacob who lies to his children to try to get them to eat their breakfast. This expose shows us what she has to get past to have happiness if not permanent contentment. No one thanks her for being a good mom.The narrator pontificates in the first paragraph, talking about the persistence of unhappiness, and we think particularly where identity is missing. The narrator holds the chapter captive. Max and Benji show the raw material of identity potential. This is reflected in Benji’s preference for raw food, called unrealized foods by the narrator. Irv and Jacob show identity wasted. Irv’s identity is centered in pages in Caro’s book on Lyndon Johnson. His identity is written by others. Jacob is writing for a television audience, also writing for others.Jacob and Irv and Deborah have been at home with Max and Benji. Jacob comes home with Sam, who post Rabbi interview goes upstairs to avoid embarrassment. Down below, Irv cannot resist butting in or dissing his son Jacob. This chapter starts with an aside on unhappy mornings resulting from a universal source [TZTZ creation]. This is right after the totally unsuccessful meeting with the Rabbi. Feeling guilty, Jacob offers to get groceries for Julia to lighten her load and allow her to have a day “off,” a day for herself. Misogynist Irv asks day off from what. Sam goes upstairs to avoid this situation.Identity even fails at breakfast. Jacob gets the orders wrong, starts to give Max’s to Benji. Max notes that Benji is getting cheerios with agave not with honey, not the identity of Honey Nut Cheerios.Jacob’s worries about Julia finding his lost sex-texting phone. This worry begins to emerge in the text. He calls her. Note the worry comes in at a different level of the narrator:You seem bothered. [Jacob to Julia]You aren’t bothered? [Jacob to Julia who is not answering]Had she found the phone? [Jacob thought]This third line is a shift in the narrator from the third person to Jacob first person. His interior monologue of worry. Another coming apart, another shift. Instead of Here I Am, Jacob wonders where am I? Where is it? And his I is a recording on a phone, not even an actual live conversation. Jacob avoids talking to Julia about the Rabbi conversation by putting it off. He promises to deal with it that night. Like a mother to her child, Julia has him promise to do so. We note later he avoids it by staying out late.Jacob, who has trouble being taken seriously in life, thinks that believing what Sam says is the best course. Julia thinks the best course is loving him, which requires consequences [think Argus] but love as the final consequence. Jacob agrees [in bad faith] to adopt her approach as the mutual approach. Jacob thinks he is betraying Sam, since he would like to get him off the hook. Jacob reminds her of his HBO meeting that night. Jacob uses it to avoid the agreed discussion about Sam. We get a paragraph on touch, which is generally missing for reasons not given.Driving Sam back home Jacob is reminded of Driving Miss Daisey [the driver stealing food] and allows Sam to violate the family rules by using his ipad in the backseat. At home, Max catches Jacob lying to Benji about what he fixed for brunch. Irv and Deborah are there babysitting. In this scene you can feel Benjj coming into the world of words and ideas and mimicking others, picking up words and ideas. Max is sternly righteous. Irv is all for a confrontational approach to the school problem. He takes every issue within the context of free speech and the survival of Israel. This problem cannot have its own identity. Irv’s hatred for Arabs surfaces; he calls them animals in order to deny them human identity as individuals. He thinks wives don’t need a day off. The N word gets uttered and Benji runs with it guessing: noodle, no, married? Irv diminishes Jacob as he always had: “Your house stinks, Jacob. You just can’t smell it, because it’s yours.” Argus and Jacob feel no responsibility for the shits.Irv analyzes Sam’s transgression as context based. This would be the legal analysis. Irv thinks Sam has legal rights before he has religious responsibilities. We must remember that the issue is a religious or moral issue, so it is not context based. But logically prior to the BRM, Sam would apologize to himself and his parents and his parents would apologize to the entire school..Benji returns to ask what happened to the sound of time, a totally new topic. This brings up acting, taking a role as The Rhythm of Space and the Sound of Time?examines the place of Chekhov's Technique in contemporary acting pedagogy and practice. I. Before the War 4. A Hand the Size of Yours. A House the Size of This OneNote that the narrator here is influenced by Julia. Her certainty in interior decoration choices. This chapter features Julia’s identity, which we find to be in good shape as a mother but not otherwise. Not in her work or her marriage. That is not to be enough to keep the family together.We learn that Julia has very specific and unusual ideas about the house that would be hers but is not. She does not live in a house that fits her identity. She does not live in Her house. The one she lives in is not her size. And she does not practice the home architecture she loves, just does inferior interior decoration. Kitchens and bathrooms. Foer has her bang her forehead with a door knob in the scene with Mark. She is in her identity as a mother, her ultimate identity. However, she is not in her identity in her personal relationship with her husband. He can’t get it up because of his insecurity about getting it up, even on an anniversary trip retracing their romantic history. His hand [hand to penis size] is small but large enough to “beat off.” Once he shakes the foundation of the family unit with sex text play, he is no longer her spouse, no longer the right provider and child raiser, no longer a good helper for her primal role. Since neither of them lives in tune with their identity they don’t have the kind of extra love potential that can walk across partially damaged bridges and forgive.This chapter starts with the details of what Julia likes in the way of interiors. In the way of a home. Think mommy’s birth system as the ultimate interior. She has very detailed opinions. The problem is that the details are not her home. As with identity in general, she lives in something else. She does live and act in her identity as a mother. The sign of this connection is her infinite patience as a mother, which we note is missing in Jacob’s case as a father. In her case as mother reacting to Sam’s seriously injured hand, she utters without thinking those famous lines: I love you and I am here. With these she came to understand herself. Her hand for Sam was the right size.Phrases from the lost phone sex texting messages generated by Jacob are interspersed as separated and unconnected items in this text. This grammatical separation captures their spiritual flavor as acts of separation rather than connection. They describe brutal and selfishly one-sided sex acts. In them Jacob acts like the alpha in the cave. Another more light heartened one could say: I am going to bang your booty.Against the house plans and the secret sex texts, the chapter next relates Jacob and Julia early in their marriage making plans and promising to share everything without exception and without boundaries. At her unwise request he shares his last withholding, withholding from her his hurt during the special breakfast he had made for her when she asked if the frittata was salted. The point of this and other instances is how little the withholdings were and could be jumped over if the right spirit was there too, if he was not so needy. In these early stages they play the kind of sex the sex texting is missing. They play it with love and mutuality. Then they walk around the room with their eyes closed. A summary of their relationship. Children arise. But it began to wear thin. They began to consume not give.What Julia gave to her children would not necessarily reduce what she could give Jacob, but there was not enough there. It was not the real her in their love relationship. It was a forgiving her. This is not love which grows in its own humus. His insecurity increased. Her on-going patience with the children became an inability to express urgency to him. In contrast to his parents’ emotional difficulties, Max develops out of his early identity a natural unclogged pipe of giving. Which the parents worry away and substitute notions of comparative value, which make him a compulsive trader rather than giver. You will feel the influence of the law of conservation of energy in this change in Max.The husband and wife estrangement involves getting used to what used to be exciting, which means it wasn’t ever anything more than exciting, not the fulfillment that comes out of the big well of identity. Distance between them grows out of nothing. The psychology of separating is nourished by more lines from the sex texting. Jacob’s sexual insecurity is played as a recurring trauma [see Everything is Illuminated for traumas].Back to her Saturday. Julia resents the appointment with what she thinks will be Mark and Jennifer on her Saturday off. Being a mother is not fulfilling her. She needs time for herself. But Mark is there at the appointment just by himself, having been separated from his wife, and wanting to flirt with her not talk interior decoration. Using the appointment for a different purpose, a one sided purpose. He would like to decorate her interior. He is the confident type. I like to read Mark as the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Mark shows the underside of identity, selfish personal choice. She reminds him of his kids’ well-being. The door knob she sees in the store reminds her of one of her wedding presents, a dildo. It, of course, is the opposite of mutual sex designed to create children. Sex with Mark would be like sex with a dildo, purely selfish. Remember that Jacob has been using regularly his built-in dildo.In this context of doubt, Foer cruelly plays memories of the Bloch’s 10th anniversary trip to the same Pennsylvania Inn they went to on their honeymoon. Preparations were more complicated this time because of family. Memories of finding things with larger insides than outsides. Think identity. They drive through the autumn of their lives and the surroundings. The “book” of checkers games and chess games [details move by move of games previously played] revisit the issues of repetition and highlight the moment when a novelty is reached [new move used]. They try to recreate their last visit. Jacob puns cleverly on butter/better. Just as they approach the bed Julia thinks about their children. Jacob worries about his ability to erect. Jacob applies several facial creams born of worries, hers born of a desire for looking younger. He pretends to be tired missing a chance for a good sexual connection in their marriage. The conversations that could have been and would have brought them closer are shown in the text as could have been but not uttered. This is an alternative reality akin to Other Life and the sex texting, divorced from human connection. Their marriage pipeline is clogged. The clock Jacob had stolen the first time and brought along this time as a loving memory [never brought out] suggests time being stopped. Mark comes back into her world as she comes out of the Pennsylvania memory. He reminds her that they will be together soon at the model UN weekend at a hotel. How convenient.Enough for that chapter. It is enough when I say it’s enough. I. Before the War 5 . Here I Amn’t With the last chapter having surveyed Julia’s identity, here the subject is Sam’s identity, or lack thereof. He in fact detests himself, detests his own body. His own form of self-hatred. His approach to life is mainly negative. He is like totally broken up underground topography. His closest analog is Argus, shitting in his own house. The narrator is influenced by a 12-year-old. Perhaps this is a 12 year old narrator without responsibility.Here with the BRM in the background, identity and taking personal responsibility are put in the same app. Foer takes a shot at trying to explain the psychological topography of a 12 or 13 year old boy in an increasingly disturbed environment. The other players on-line demonstrate the typical 12 year old emphasis on self, which can be a preparation for a life of either self-responsibility or of self-selfishness, depending on how it focuses, how the parents influence them. Sam is in his room after returning home from the disagreeable Hebrew School visit to the office of the Rabbi, who is holding Sam’s Bar Mitzvah hostage to his taking responsibility for and giving a large apology for the bad language list. In his room is where he is in Other Life, his on-line and constant preoccupation [and a brilliant idea of Foer’s]. It is not the program for Here I Am but for Here I Amn’t. We see him not with his real life family but in his Other Life life, the life of his avatar [Samanta] he can shape and control. An avatar in this case means the embodiment of a quality or concept or subsequent embodiment of a person. Sam is the earlier person and the concept. Critically, the on-line character does not build its own identity. Sam does. Fearing loss of control in his real life, Sam is happy to control his avatar Samanta, control at least someone. He is in his room, but not in his room of his own, which right now serves as jail. In a fitting conclusion, the chapter ends on dog shit.In the Other Life game, which the issuing company and dutiful players refuse to call a game, we learn as the novel goes on that players take responsibility for their negligent actions by otherwise losing selected aspects of their on-line environment which they have earned and built up over time. The loss can be made up with money but it costs so much that that easy form of repair is discouraged as lacking in responsibility [think of rich men buying off assaulted women]. But other humans are not affected, just game players. They of course are affected by the value assumptions built into the game. Jacob finally reaches responsibility bottom when he plays Sam’s game, carelessly damages Sam’s avatar and then tries to evade and refuses personal responsibility for his actions. But righteous Max was there and knows the truth.The narrator here is hard to read and understand; the narrator is affected by the Other Life participantsat the Bat Mitzvah for Sam’s Other Life Latina character Samanta. It is as if this is all personal. The narrator makes no effort to explain. The lack of responsibility and lack of connection marinates the on-line chatter and even Sam’s real life responses to his mom about altering his clothes.Samanta, a female and Latino, is Sam’s representative in the game. The one he chose as his substitute in Other Life. He is trying to bring her to 12-year-old responsibility [as daughter of the commandment] and identity ahead of his own 13 year old Bar Mitzvah [as son of the commandment]. Perhaps hers will make his unnecessary, which will mean he will not have to confess to authorship of the bad word list. Samanta as a name apparently means “listener” but can also mean the name of god, not the name of but the name for. This chapter starts out with connection but an anonymous connection, Sam reaching out for help from the internet community about how to take pictures of the stars without a flash or moving too much to blur the picture. The basic issues in the novel are embedded in these Q and A in condensed form. Sam is the first voice and then every other. The second voice, the voice on the second and every other line, is the voice of a different on-line 12 or 13-year-old smart aleck. The stars would represent the eternal, the always there in the present. The stars of Personal Identity would be your personal eternal. It is hard to get your hand holding the camera to remain still, not to shake when trying to capture copies of them, capture your own eternal. As we know, this does not work because you are looking in the wrong place for yourself. Something like looking for angels. The star/identity connection is brought into focus when the first other on-line user asks whether Samanta is referring to the real stars or the stars in the concrete on Hollywood boulevard, those short-lived versions of stars made in the opinions of others. The blur problem in taking star photographs with the flash off is a picture of personal disturbance [lack of identity so can’t hold still] in receiving the eternal truth about your life. Note the responses from others do not try to connect. Treating her as real and separate from him, Sam complains to Samanta that the place for her Bat Mitzvah is too bright, fucking lit. Sam’s last question is a perplexing one: what happens at a bat mitzvah. Perplexing since he is directing one whose implicit subject matter is personal responsibility. And responsibility in real life not Other Life. Playing the game [I will call Other Life a game] is like living his real life without his own identity.Sam is as far from embracing personal responsibility and identity at this point as this Samanta character is from Sam. Indeed, Sam detests his own physical identity, particularly in the context of his parents’ looming divorce, when he will need all the help he can muster. Contrast his real life girlfriend Billie who is already there, even though her parents have been divorced for a year. She has had her Bat Mitzvah. She is a paragon of responsibility in her human relations, playing for Foer the role of a young foil for Sam. You may find her too perfect. She is the whole.This chapter shows Sam’s identity being off line. He detests the injustices in this world, does not connect with other young persons [except Billie] or even with Other Life participants. Here [on line] he is himself at least as far as he feels it. He is comfortable only with other people several mgbs removed. He is himself in a direct personal relationship in real life only with his mom and Billie, his female loves. We are told that Sam read on-line a Jewish piece about time zones, a relative aspect of time. [The companion truth is that identity changes with age.] These allusions relate to how the supposedly eternal aspects imbedded in religious ritual play out when the time zones change rapidly in outer space or otherwise the basic situation changes. What remains true? What is relative? Sam has read an article about the Israeli astronaut [Ramon] who took with on his fateful mission a drawing of Earth as seen from space made by a boy who died young in WWII. Ramon was on board the Columbia, which blew up on reentry. Sam wonders what happened to the drawing, not Ramon. Note that a space mission, a divorce and puberty all require reentry. The angels mentioned would relieve identity of responsibility. The angels made me do it.Time is artificial in Other Life, always dusk, pointedly the time of change like puberty. When dusk inside meets dusk outside it is Harmony time. In decisions just as arbitrary as religious-based decisions in reallife, Other Life participants either consciously remain off line or intentionally go on line at the Harmony time. Sam’s choice of a Latina for the game is discussed by the narrator. Sam’s possibly gay characteristics arediscussed. Sam is self-conscious, about his clothes, his walk, even his thoughts and his nipples. He dreadshimself, his own physical identity. He loves his own knowledge identity.The Bat Mitzvah begins in the second group of on-line entries with hostile remarks from the various participants. Sam’s voice is the fifth, saying Today Samanta becomes a woman. In response, the others make crude jokes about reaching puberty. Next Sam says Today she’s becoming a Jewish woman. Anti-Israeli and Semitic remarks follow. Sam quotes Wikipedia [pointedly not his own knowledge] to the effect that she now takes responsibility as an adult. Note the responses are in the free zone on line of not taking responsibility for what you say. The effect of time as primal reality suffers with the idea of an app for your phone that registers time a short time ago. Which would require constant recording. The work in progress and sensitive Max enters Sam’s room and Sam exposes his younger brother to the radioactive knowledge that his parents are about to divorce. That brings on the joke of the shit zhu dog in the zoo. When you reach this end, you know why the children like Other World, because you can build it and control it and in it shit does not smell, in the living room or in marriage or in the synagogue.I. Before the War 6. Epitome Death is the main stimulant for and the main enemy of identity. See my piece on Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. Here the issue is the impact on Benji’s identity as he learns of the inevitability of death. Death is the epitome of what? Limitation? Extinction?Julia returns from her day “off” with Mark to find Max and Benji with Jacob, Irv and Deborah. Conflict has developed because Jacob is not man enough to handle the children well. Irv is no help, always showing off. Deborah tries. Benji learns from Max he is going to die. With knowledge of death, Benji claims superhuman powers so he will be exempt. He claims he can lift the kitchen, mommy’s place. In the troubled discussion that Julia tries to damp, for the first time 10 year old Max pushes back at a Jacob he does not respect: Enough yourself. Or not enough self.Fresh from flirting with Mark, Julia goes upstairs to be alone, examines her body and then for the first time in a long time masturbates. This time using the bathroom doorknob. She joins Jacob’s practice of “loving” herself. She first imagines being with Jacob in a car but then accepts the reality of the bathroom doorknob. A doorknob she would select for “interior decoration.” Then she sees her own burial by her sons. Death needs sex or sex needs death. Just at this self-oriented moment, she hears a buzz from the cell phone lost by Jacob. She finds it behind the toilet bowl [where else?]. It is a call from another Julia: What happened to you? Guess why Jacob would have picked a woman named Julia. Guess why Foer chooses Julia’s self-absorbed doorknob moment for her to find Jacob’s doorknob. Several epitomes [read pity me]. I. Before the War 7. This2Shalln’tPassFor starters, consider the title revised with a “too” and Jacob’s foundation attitude: This too shall pass. Also consider the 2 as a two and you have a twosome or marriage that won’t last: This two shall pass. The sex texting concentrates a lot on the body substances passed in limited sharing. That is all that is shared.This chapter title is the code that opens Jacob’s sex texting phone that Julia has found. She seeks Sam’s help in guessing the password. He has already found the phone, guessed the password, read it and put it back behind the toilet where it fell out of Jacob’s trousers. [Jacob leaves his identity in the bathroom.] He makes her guess it, which she does on the second pass. That the pass word would comport with the result of the moral responsibility broken by the sex texting is another chapter in coming apart. We are blessed with an episode in Other Life, which Sam says he “lives in” not “plays at,” involving Samanta’s Bat Mitzvah. Note the outside participants do not respect the importance of the occasion. The venerable Torah selections are combined with discussions of seeing the past history of the stars in real time in ages old light arriving at earth and electronically preserving the past in real time. Unfortunately for a 12-year-old anticipating his parents’ divorce, the past is fixed. The past on which his identity must be based. His family is about to collapse, like a building on a fault, like a star into a black hole.In her conversation with Sam, Julia takes from Jacob and gives to Sam. She no longer has enough for both. You can feel in their conversation the connection between Julia and Sam strengthen as her respect for Jacob withers.I. Before the War 8. EpitomeEpitome means the essence of, which in a human character would be his or her identity. Here the subject is the essence of the problem in this family, which is lack of essence. Jacob asks Julia to give, to forgive, but this time is too much too many times. Julia finally puts him down, separates emotionally. The same essence of separation is at work all around in TZTZ creation and the second law of thermodynamics.The narrator is reasonably neutral but on Julia’s side. After drinking with the boys at work, Jacob comes home late, contrary to his solemn promise to her about discussing Sam’s situation. In addition, she was left to clean up, her designated role with Jacob. In other words, Jacob ducked once again. Confronting him with his broken promise and the sex text phone, Julia explodes. She confronts him with the phone. He lies about it. She gives him a chance to tell her, to confess, but he can’t take responsibility even when caught “red handed.” She says she wants him to be a person. Pressed by her to open the phone with the password she gives him, he feels like a child, being told what to do. Putting him directly in the same boat with Sam’s list, she reads him the riot act about words having consequences, whether accompanied by actions or not. She extends the blame to bringing Argus home initially. She belittles him by telling him he doesn’t have the balls to do the kinds of things he recorded on the phone. Jacob finally screams a whimpering pussy response: you are my enemy! This Benji hears, having come down stairs, and tells Jacob what he meant to say was “you are my epitome,” which sort of sounds like enemy and a word he has just learned and wants to use. But it does not make sense for Julia to say to Jacob you are my essence. Benji is picking up Dad’s example of behavior. Behavior without a self but yet again not selfless behavior.“You are my enemy” is a flat statement born of Jacob’s writing for television experience. It confronts one character against another, so the audience can easily tell what the causing motivation is. Sort of like at school among 12-year-olds. The more accurate “You are acing now like my enemy not my spouse” would not sooth the audience for the upcoming commercial.Jacob puts Benji back to bed with some reassuring we will think about it tomorrows. Just before falling asleep Benji tells his dad I’m here. He means here for you. Just what Jacob is not. He does not have that kind of “I.”At the end of the chapter, Jacob watches himself disappear. Julia destroyed it. What little Jacob person there was.I. Before the War 9. Here I Amn’tThis chapter contains the text of what appears to be Sam’s Bar Mitzvah speech. But biblical Jacob like it turns out to be the Bat Mitzvah speech of Samanta in Other Life, the one Sam would like to give himself but like his father is afraid to. During the speech, he calls it a Bat Mitzvah for his Latina. The real Sam is not in the speech. Thus the title Here I Amn’t.This Bat Mitzvah is given early, that same day as the visit to the Rabbi. This is before Isaac commits suicide. Isaac was the biblical character that took his sacrifice by Abraham “lying down.” Sam does not take lying down his sacrifice of going through with this speech and his apology. He makes them his own. He is not his father’s son. He does take responsibility for his speech. At least so far in Other Life.Sam lets go of restraints in this speech, uses “fucking,” one of the worst words on his list. He disses the meaning and importance of this ritual, suggesting the real purpose is to get those checks and bonds. This speech reflects a torn marriage, a torn family, a torn son. Coming apart into pieces. Separation from childhood.The text uses the analogy of an airplane’s take-off and landing for birth into responsibility and death into the unknown. They are the occasions for the greatest possibility of loss of life, when the degree of responsibility for life changes. Sam’s response to those watching in Other Life is You can follow the lighted path out of the synagogue. It will show you the way. Or you can follow me. A summary of the plot of this story.Sam reads the Abraham in the Isaac sacrifice story as being all in, being ready. Here I am. Hineni. His very personal reading of assigned scripture is that of Foer’s, being all in or being prepared. “Here I Am” defines primarily about who are wholly there for and how that, more than anything else, defines our identity. This statement is the heart, no the backbone, no the balls, of this story.I. Before the War 10. Someone! Someone!For starters, conceive the title revised as Someone? Someone? Jacob has been wounded by Julia but thinks that like always this trouble will blow over. But this time the trouble begins to fall. The narrator speaks of the end. We see a very weak Jacob. Like a biblical Jacob that would have been caught by his dad stealing the blessing. We are in the War, the domestic war. The separation. Two someones show up at the Bloch bathroom sinks, a least one is a person. Jacob, we find, flosses only in Julia’s presence so he can get credit for being a good dental daddy. Always needy. What little identity he has needs constant feeding, just like an infant at the breast. He seeks praise for mention of his early game of post office, not the traditional one that involves a kiss of the opposite sex but one where he is the boss. This time Julia calls him on it. He remembers writing letters to his mom so he would have some to deliver. Secret letters to the oedipal mom. In order to brush, Jacob tries to force something that wouldn’t come [think erection] and doesn’t look for more tooth paste himself, just tells her the tube is empty. This boy needs all kinds of help. Where is the tube? Feeling he would like to hurt her, Jacob asks Julia in his defensive way: Why are you trying to hurt me? The old television emphasis on motivation. Foer takes this moment to preach another underlying formula that marriage is the opposite of suicide, but is its only peer as a definitive act of will. Let’s go to bed doesn’t do it this time. Jacob goes through his same ritual of pretending to pee but inserting an hydrocortisone acetate suppository in his rectum. A ritual replacement for anal intercourse with a male. Even on this night when their marriage is in the balance and if he had any brains at all would know that his wife wants make-up sex. The sex text you don’t deserve to get fucked in the ass graces the moment. The matches by the toilet are to cover the smell. Argus is valued when they thought he was lost. Otherwise he is forgotten. He had just been in the guest bathroom. Jacob and Julia sought happiness that didn’t have to be at the expense of anyone else’s happiness, a version of the preservation of energy. Jacob finally breaks down and says to mommy: I wish you’d known me when I was a kid. . . Julia, I am not . . . myself. Julia cannot resist helping him, like a vulnerable child. She acknowledges his love but classifies it as a different kind than she needs right now. She needs mate love.Julia gets the details on the phony affair. She tells him he didn’t go far enough in what you lived. Texts come close to words in Sam’s list. Julia says I don’t believe you’re there at all. At this pinnacle point Benji cries through the monitor I need you! Someone!I.Before the War 11.The N-WordComing back from comforting Benji, Jacob can’t sleep so he sees a light in and enters Sam’s room without waiting for permission. Sam is watching TV on line, no doubt forbidden activity. The point of this chapter is that the parents are competing for Sam’s approval. Jacob is upset that Sam has already discussed several important matters just with Mom. We witness Sam and Jacob’s history of a need for perfection because important things were not right. Like their family. Like Sam’s body. Jacob makes a weak attempt to concur in Julia’s approach to Sam’s word list.Given his response to the Subaru joke, Sam seems to know that his father cannot manage an erection. The joke is built on what you do and don’t have. What is the difference between a Subaru and an erection: I don’t have a Subaru. Sam laughs but at his father’s expense, indicated by his reply that you do have a Subaru [in real life]. Sam’s identity is struggling to emerge. The divorce makes uneven the ground for emerging. Jacob’s little identity is draining away like motor oil in a tired old Subaru. As with the conservation of energy, there can only be one alpha male in the family.Sam makes an important point by insisting that he loves Billie, not that she is his girlfriend and not that he is in love. He loves her. Dad tries to buy Sam’s love by suggesting they go to a ball game, they finish the chess game and he give Sam money. Sam declines all the purchase offers. Sam’s distress is measured in earthquake terms as a tremor and he registers fault for the family trouble. Seeking appreciation and sympathy, Jacob registers that he was named for a great great uncle Yakov who died in Birkenau.Sam registers that he built but destroyed the first synagogue in Other Life because he wanted to feel comfortable at least somewhere. But the imperfections prevented that. And the imperfections could not be fixed because he would always know it had been wrong. So he destroyed the first one.In line with Other Life, Jacob relates to Sam that as a young man he Jacob wrote out lyrics from songs as they played on his tape deck. Note he did not compose new ones. One line escaped him. He listened to it over and over and always heard I can see from shame [suggests limited vision because of internal disturbance]. The correct lyric was aqua seafoam shame. While Jacob opines that it does not mean anything, that is just exactly Foer’s point, because it refers to masturbation, the shameful activity of a male or female adult masturbating, shameful because and to the extent it is a substitute for real togetherness.II. Learning Impermanence 1. AntietamWith allusions to death and divorce in the title, we remember the American Civil War battle called Antietam in which the Union Army under General McClellan did not follow up on the north’s initial advantage. An uncivil war is brewing in the Bloch household. As with the North and South and blacks and whites, a separation is developing. Everything has become uncertain, even in the terrain of the family. They stop listening to each other and listen to their own insides.Here, like the Civil War armies, Jacob and Julia begin to withdraw from each other, and as in marriage war in Loud and Close spaces in the house are claimed as exclusive.Julia begins to talk about the necessary arrangements for a separation of families but Jacob continues to think this too will pass. He does not try to change personal course and figure out what is necessary to keep it together. These would be the lessons in impermanence in the title. An intact family is no longer taken for granted by both parties. Their differences are coming to the surface. It affects their role as parents. At the Max school recital, Jacob takes cheap potshots at the performances in the interests of padding his own importance. They don’t ask Max why he didn’t perform. We would guess the family tremors. You can feel a connection to Dome of the Rock, supposed to be the permanent axis mundi for this world.Wikipedia: The?Foundation Stone?and its surroundings is the holiest site in Judaism. Though Muslims now pray towards the?Kaaba?at Mecca, they once[year?needed]?faced the Temple Mount as the Jews do. Muhammad changed the direction of prayer for Muslims after a revelation from Allah. Jews traditionally regarded[year?needed]?the location of the stone as the holiest spot on Earth, the site of the?Holy of Holies?during the?Temple Period.According to Jewish tradition, the stone is the site where Abraham prepared to?sacrifice his son Isaac.Now the son is about to sacrifice his father. The Holy of Holies is where god was thought to dwell in the Temple, the house of god. God does not dwell in the temple of this father.I got the feeling reading Foer about the Dome of the Rock and Well of Souls as a depression in the ground and symbolically as the Axis Mundi [where god meets the earthly existence] that it can easily refer to the female sex organ, the mother of the race and the holy of holies in human terms, the place where god must dwell. It has been busy throughout history. At her most fundamental identity, Julia is still a woman and would no doubt be impacted by a direct sexual advance by Jacob, who doing that would have to risk rejection. That could turn things around. Just as Jews and Muslims could share the Dome and use that as a start on building mutual trust. II. Learning Impermanence 2.DamascusThe gradual dissolution of the Block marriage is tied to the destruction of Israel. Haram in Arabic means forbidden. A low tip to the Uber driver gives the Bloch family a haram rating by the driver. You get it: someone else is driving them. Haram is forced separation.The first subject is male potency, keyed by the discussion of Oliver Sacks’ 30 years of celibacy. He was denying his homosexual identity. Lack of potency for having children is haram.Even Benji is starting to let go of family. His disconnect or separation is beginning. He is the sounding board for the whole family and decides not to say his thought that he won’t miss his dad. His brain is beginning to control his tongue. What his Dad does not do.Why Damascus in the title? Why Syria? Where it starts? On the day before the beginning of the destruction of Israel. Irv and Deborah, nicknamed Opi and Omi, have arrived at the Bloch house to baby sit Benji. Omi tries to make a hit with the boys. His failures with Jacob are hinted at. They plan to see a presentation of Pinocchio, the boy whose nose grew longer whenever he lied [was false to others]. To his father’s claim that Benji will miss his parents, Benji avoids lying but only by not saying anything, which could be classified as moral lying. Jacob and Max are taking Argus to the vet, and Julia and Sam are going to the mock UN meeting. The arrival of the cousins from Israel the next day is introduced.II. Learning Impermanence 3.The Side That Faces AwayHere we see the damaged Jacob and the truth teller Max at the vet. As background we have recollection of an outing by Jacob and Irv to the Museum of Natural History, where they viewed a bison diorama, separated from them by a glass case. The subject is the condition of being wounded by fear of death. As indicated in my guide on Loud and Close, identity is the natural antidote to fear of death, being in charge of yourself regardless the inevitability of death. Jacob demonstrates the view that dogs are in the family in order for the humans to receive unconditional love from the dog. Not the view so that the human can experience unconditional love for the dog. But to give that kind of love even to a dog requires that you have your own identity. Your own to give. Unconditional love would put Argus down because he is ashamed of pooping in the nest and he is suffering physically. Moreover, Jacob has laid on Julia the job of cleaning up after Argus two times a day in the context that Jacob wanted to have a dog but she didn’t. Is poop a reverse Pinocchio nose? Dog euthanasia gets a good name in the first paragraph. A McNuggets kind of paragraph. Despite the upset stomach they give him, Jacob feeds Argus McNuggets because he likes them so much. Jacob thinks Argus will like him as a result. Get some brownie points. Smarter than Jacob on this score, Argus intuitively knows enough to throw them up. Jacob and Max also get McNuggets for themselves, against the rule of the house. Because they can when she is not there. They do not throw them up. In this context Jacob is forced to remember Julia saying to him I don’t believe you’re there at all. Max asks what Jacob’s own personal ethos is and he has to say Let me think about it. Max correctly brands that as his ethos. He has no intuitive identity, only a speculating identity about who he might be.Here we see Jacob without sufficient strength to do what is good for his children or for Argus. Jacob stupidly tells Max he and friends used to buy beer underage at the local grocery store. This is a misguided effort to earn praise from Max for daring, Max who believes in rules and becomes a judge. Jacob has to have Max promise not to tell Mom he told Max that story. More secret life and more separation.Jacob does not like the fact the vet is young because he thinks she will instinctively devalue older life.This chapter is about the other side in its many aspects, death as the other side of life. Max is the adult here, having soothed Argus with good boy good boy, what Jacob continued to need. Max knows the charitable thing to do is put Argus down. Instead Jacob puts himself down. Hiding the other side of the diorama or the side that contains the mark of the death of the bison reminds us death is the other side of life and much of what we like to do is not, as with McNuggets, good for longevity.Jacob asked his father Irv on one of their few outings how the inside of the glass on the diorama is kept clean, citing the difficulty of being inside. Irv suggested the enclosure is airtight. Jacob does not buy it. These are metaphors for separation and the influence of others. An airtight enclosure would be a strong identity. A human is wounded by too much concern for the opinions of others. Irv suggests that Jacob look closely at the face of the stuffed animal so he can see indirectly see the results of the wounds on its other side, the side that faces away. The separated side with the wound.II. Learning Impermanence 4. Not YetHere we see the effect of Jacob on Sam, who is with and insecure with Billie. Unable to use the L word. Their jokes contain sexual allusions, double talk. Sam nervously wonders if she will like his new synagogue in Other Life. The chapter title Not Yet refers to his becoming a man a la Bar Mitzvah style. They are at the mock UN conference at the hotel where his BRM is scheduled to be held. Foer suggests both are mock in some aspect.We also see the recent effect of Jacob on Julia, when she is in charge of the UN Outing children. She is too insecure to handle them properly and rather than being herself tries to be cool, much to the chagrin of Sam. Without family love in the mix, she is ineffective because she is wounded in identity. Unlike a homing pigeon that Sam wanted for his 11th birthday, Julia no longer automatically returns to nest faithful behavior and instead plans to have a drink drink with the confident and effective with children Mark, who talks to them like a marine drill instructor. With authority but not love. He is gunning for her. Gunny Mark. Serpent Mark.Lack of identity fuels the joke about who uses 10 gallons of gas but goes nowhere, the Buddhist monk. This refers to Buddhist monks setting themselves on fire, separating from his life, in protest of the Vietnam war. Going nowhere is a description of their view of the great Nothing. Or human energy used for the wrong purpose. Self-immolation suggests destroying your own identity.II. Learning Impermanence 5. Someone Else’s Other LifeHere we see Jacob’s identity weaknesses before Max. Jacob is both pushy and weak. Thinking he is entitled to be pushy as older and as father. This is Jacob’s low point in the story.Sam is with Julia at the mock UN convention, and Benji is with Opi and Omi at their house. Jacob and Max have just returned from the visit to the vet. Julia is with Mark in the bar at the hotel and does not call home. Jacob foolishly tries to enter Max’s world and earn respect with word jokes. With his usual lack of responsible behavior, Jacob manages to ruin Sam’s avatar in Other Life by smelling the flowers without being careful, the bouquet of fatality [think suicide]. Despite Max’s repeated warning. Note Max was playing with Sam’s Other Life before Jacob did. Jacob only looked at the outside of the flowers and did not seek to learn their identity. Jacob does not understand how serious the mistake is and proceeds in his normal nonchalance. Later he finds out it would cost $1200 to fix his damage or years of working within the damaged material.Not able to understand Max’s hysterical reaction to the damage to Other Life [for which Max knows he was secondarily responsible], Jacob earns a fuck you from his middle son. And family respect has separated and hit bottom. He learns by further snooping that Max has been reading on-line articles on dog euthanasia, showing he is a responsible owner and not yielding to his father’s opinion.Benji calls and Jacob answers, hoping it was from Julia or at least for him. But it is Benji for Max and Max wants Jacob out of the room for the call. Julia does not call, something she would normally do.This family is hanging on by a thread.II. Learning Impermanence 6. The Artificial EmergencyFoer paints a picture of human beings young and old easily excited to raucous confrontation against their most sacred connections. Think of Eve in the Garden of Eden denying god’s rules.Julia dolls up for a drink with Mark in the hotel bar. He tells her of his divorce and he plays the role of the serpent in the Garden. The Garden’s Tree of Knowledge has lead to nuclear energy. Because she is buzzed and against her better judgement, she tells Mark about Jacob’s text messages, and he tries to convince her they are the same as infidelity, hoping to get himself laid. He does not have her best interests in mind. Keep that in mind when reading about the nuclear weapon that falls into the hands of Micronesia.Just then Billie brings to Mark and Julia the excitement of the news that in the mock UN Micronesia has acquired a nuclear weapon, recovered at the airport from a smuggler. This is the artificial emergency in the title but there are plenty of other ones in this chapter. With the out of bounds flirting with Mark and a psychosomatic buzz and the artificial emergency, the memory surfaces in her trauma center of Sam’s hand injury when she was there for him, when she was a very good mother: I love you, and I am here. In this disturbed condition, Julia goes into her basement identity, a mother responsible for protecting children. In this mode, women are not to be denied.Strong serpent-suggesting Mark introduces to the reconvened student group the position the bomb would make Micronesia an independent country getting respect, a country with an identity, and the bomb should be kept. The serpent said to Eve you will become god-like. We read this in the context of Mark’s earlier concern for his hair and gut. A Jewish child suggests giving it to Israel, a suggestion not born of the best interests of Micronesia. Other countries bid money they don’t have. Julia argues vehemently against keeping or selling the bomb to another country on the grounds it is a death weapon and they are responsible people, responsible for not causing death. Having a bomb is necessarily to be open to using it [contra Israel coming up]. The children cheer the small victories in the Julia vs. Mark argument; they like to watch adults argue. This is seeded by the confrontation centers in their developing brains left from cave life and the excitement centers they still have. Urged on by the confrontation of Mark and Julia, the children suggest bombing someone, anyone. Let’s Just Do It. It is just a game.Julia and Mark continue to argue about what to do about the bomb without engaging the children. Because she is embarrassing him, Sam attacks his hysterical mother as always being about herself and always nagging for control, a distant cousin to what is happening here and more a picture of Sam. Reacting without thinking, Julia attacks Sam, much as confronting nations do. Then she attacks Billy. She may be right, but Julia is being selfish, being Wrong. Just like the Micronesians would be wrong by brandishing their bomb.Only Billie tries to keep things calm. She tells Julia she tried to understand her own parents by reading her parents’ books about parenting. Hers is an attitude of understanding missing in the other action in this chapter.II. Learning Impermanence 7. Someone Else’s Other DeathJacob pretends even with the Other Life representative on the phone not to be at fault for the death of Sam’s avatar. In this process Jacob finds out that moves in Other Life have serious consequences and responsibilities. This causes him a great deal of annoyance. In this case 6 months of restoration work or $1200 to fix the problem immediately. Jacob is initially joyous by the availability of an immediate fix but upon hearing the price goes ape. Notice Jacob is a smart ass in this conversation, as if it mattered what this representative in India thought of him. He is trying to impress someone, anyone.II. Learning Impermanence 8. A Complete RebirthThe mother laments as the serpent enters her hotel room when she is distraught. Sam has just attacked her misguided behavior as a mother. She has nothing to fall back on other than her back. Mark promises to make things different for her. Different all right. He kisses her in an attempt to seduce her when she is distraught. III. Uses of a Jewish FistHolding a Pen, Punching, Self-LoveIrv is driving and Jacob and Max [on his iPad] are going to the airport [won’t call it Reagan] to pick up the Israeli cousins. Irv is disturbed by a balanced presentation on NPR on Israeli settlements. His view is Israel right or wrong, but notice he is living in America. He threatens the Palestinians with Israel’s nuclear weapons. He counsels the world will always hate Jews so the Jews must be strong. They will fight with the pen, the fist and love themselves even if no one else will. And they won’t watch where they are driving.Likewise, Irv berates his son. Mercilessly. As he must have done in the past when Jacob was young. As with the Palestinians, Irv seems more interested in crushing his son than changing him. Irv crushes Jacob’s weak, ironical responses. Irv thinks he can turn Jacob around by berating him and pointing the way. Any rational view of what is good for Jacob would not recommend that. With this kind of help, Jacob loses some of what little identity he has left, particularly when Julia delivers the double whammy in his most vulnerable zone telling him that she had just kissed Mark. Confession releases her guilt.The narrator is influenced by Irv. Irv attacks Jacob’s lack of identity and his job choice, which Irv pontificates is not what he was put on the earth for. Irv equates Jacob’s attitude with that mistaken view of some Jews: Believing that if we can only be loved, we’ll be safe. We learn Jacob believes he cannot publish his real book Ever-Dying People as long as his grandfather Isaac is alive. That is what the publisher might say but is a solvable problem. Jacob just fears another rejection, this time from the publisher. He does not try after Isaac dies.Jacob’s book is about his family. Even this book is without an identity. It keeps pace with his life as lived. Jacob’s identity is so weak his life followed the writing and the writing followed his life. Jacob claims Julia speaks lines he had written earlier. Earlier after failing in guitar lessons, he designed imaginary record album covers for his band. But he couldn’t play bare chords [have sex]. The book or show complemented his life, the less his life the more the book. Like [copying] Salinger he created a book [a “Bible”] for each of the characters, so they would not have their own life. Salinger kept his on hooks in his writing/privacy shed.The idea of how to play an issue brings back HOW TO PLAY THE SOUND OF TIME from Chekov. The members of the family have different sounds for the sound of time, Benji the buzz of the refrigerator. Irv sounds like Donald Trump.Julia calls and Jacob takes the position both he and Max ruined Sam’s character in Other Life. Jacob refusing to take responsibility right in front of a son he should be the example for. This when Julia tells Jacob that Mark just kissed her. Trying to remove her guilt by confession. Cleaved means both split apart and hanging on to. He cleaved [hung on] to the life from which he cleaved [split apart] himself.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 2. The L-WordWhile Jacob is riding to the airport and being belittled [be little] by his father, Billie is back at the hotel preparing her remarks for the pretend General Assembly of the UN. Notice she is a responsible participant. She lights up the story of brave Achilles for Sam’s benefit. We see Jacob through Sam through Billie’s rendition of the myth of Achilles. Jacob who as it turned out would, like Achilles, have been better off as just gay. And guess who would be Jacob’s partner—none other than butch strong Mark.This chapter is Foer with his high hat on. The narrator shows off in the first paragraph.Sam texts Billie on the phone. On this book’s page, Sam’s text is in the left column, Billie’s the right. Not one on top and one on the bottom, more equal side by side. Process art by Foer. Sam tells her about his wounded hand, his big secret that he had tried to hide. The hand that was wounded when a door shut on it, symbolizing in this story the closing of possibilities in connection with others. She has already noticed but not mentioned it. Sam’s reluctant and hidden hand is the counterpart to Jacob’s lack of basic masculinity, his reluctant and hidden penis. Hidden in shame. The wounded hand that would masturbate, continuation of which would kill bisexual love. The hand that could write only a list, not create. You get the feeling Billie has enough identity to heal Sam’s wounded hand. She begins by telling Sam she wants him always to touch her with that hand, not the good one. Magic medicine. Imagine Julia telling Jacob she wants him to touch her labia with his penis, especially his limp penis. Guess what would happen. Micronesia would rise.The ending piece about the effect of Sam’s wounded hand features the myth of Achilles’ heel, which Billie brings up in the context as relevant to the discussion about Sam’s wounded hand. She brings it up with a did you ever wonder? Wonder why it mattered if he was wounded just in the heal. Billie suggests that under the usual interpretation that Achilles was mortal only in his heal, he would be an immortal with a limp, but still immortal as to the rest of him. That is to say he Sam could get along with an embarrassingly limp hand and a strong identity. Billie reads the Achilles story differently, that all of his normal mortality was just in his heel, not just a heal portion of his total mortality. To make the point that any mortality is enough for death. You die as a whole not just your heal. In other words, he is as vulnerable as his weakest part. You either die completely or you don’t; you would have a limp identity or you don’t. Whether in the heal or in the hand or in basic identity. Any damage to identity is enough for death in life. Billie extends the concept to being in the same building, upper floors or basement, when disaster strikes. We get the impression from his last remark that Sam does not fully understand how this interpretation applies to him. When everyone drowns in the basement, they don’t have children. He reacts So? As if it were not a big deal. The left Sam right Billie page orientation tells us they are on the same page emotionally and will get the big L word on the same line. It comes easily for Billie but not so much for the identity wounded Sam. His emotional pipes are clogged by living without a parent who lives fully out of their identity. Without Billie he is likely to end up like his father Jacob and like Achilles, whom they discuss, who is a male only in anger:From ThoughtCo: The Greek warrior Achilles is never portrayed in the Greek histories as a married man. He had a close relationship with?Patroclus of Phthia?that ended when Patroclus fought in his place in the Trojan War and died. The death of Patroclus is what finally sent Achilles into battle. All of that has led to speculation that Achilles was gay.However, after Achilles entered the Trojan War,?Briseis, the daughter of the Trojan priest of Apollo named Chryses, was given to Achilles as a war prize. When King of the Greeks Agamemnon appropriated Briseis for himself, Achilles expressed his outrage. Certainly, that seems to suggest that Achilles had an interest in women regardless of whatever his relationship was with Patroclus.With Billy Sam is likely to end up with a full identity and saved from his father inheritance. The effect of his father is to be excised like a wounded hand. Put down like an old dog.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 3. Maybe It Was the DistanceThe chapter title suggests there is to be a fundamental difference between the Israeli cousins and the American cousins. Maybe the distance produced the difference. We are to find it was not the distance but the cultural differences in the countries where they were raised. The opening emphasizes whose cousins they are, that is to say the relationship. Tamir and Jacob are so different that Jacob wonders in the first lines of this chapter if they are His cousins or the cousins. The narrator is third party omniscient but not a friend of Jacob.Grandfathers Benny and Isaac were brothers. Their father Rabbi Gershom Blumenberg. Benny and Isaac’s sons were Shlomo and Irv, nephews. Their sons were Tamir and Jacob, cousins. Unlike Jacob, Tamir does not operate with guilt. He is what he does. He easily masturbated in front of Jacob. Jacob thinking he was not as big but surely as long as Tamir, which means tall in Hebrew, a man of standing.The point of this chapter is a comparison of Tamir and Jacob, who are cousins and suggest the biblical Esau and Jacob. The point of the comparison is for us to see Jacob in the light of this contrast. To see what is so dramatically different in Jacob. Since the biblical Jacob finally came around as Israel, we hold out hope for this Jacob.Grandfathers Benny and Isaac survived the holocaust together, spent 200 consecutive days in a hole together [food?] and more in the forest, more in a displaced person camp, and who married sisters they met in the camp. The main difference in the two family lines is that Isaac emigrated to the America while Benny emigrated to Israel. The differences between the two countries play a part in forming the different spirits of Tamir and Jacob. Compared to the US, Israel is a tight knit family of a country. Because of the threats from all around Israel. They derive identity from their threatened country.We see the self-assurance and confident identity of Tamir in the context of the tight connection of the state of Israel and its citizens, a kind of one voice protective family. A Jewish state for Jews. Tamir took responsibility for his country in military service, while Jacob smoked pot on the without responsibility sidelines and his father worked for free speech. Tamir is all in for his country. Jacob does not even take responsibility for his self, much less his country. Tamir is what he does; he is not ashamed of masturbating in front of Jacob. He does not hide his porn movies. Jacob worries that Tamir is longer where it counts. Tamir is an entrepreneur, Jacob an employee. Tamir is self-reliant, Jacob is needy. Tamir takes care of himself, Jacob needs others. His own grandfather Isaac even liked Tamir better than Jacob. The Jewish military inspired technology into its commercial sector.The glue that ties the Jews together is remembering the Holocaust, what Jews believe will happen again if they forget. Holocaust recollection day is Yom HaShoah [usually April 11], which Jacob experienced on one of his trips to Israel. Note he has made several such trips but the political/individual cohesion did not rub off on him. Consider that Julia would be instinctively attracted to the confident Tamir after she has had her fill of the shifty and word crafty Jacob.The interest issue posed by the construction of this chapter is the extent to which the country affects the spirit of this the third generation, first cousins. Israel is like a tight family for the Jews, America is like a lose melting pot which melts all individual identification and which after WWII was not united.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 4. In the End, One’s Home is PerfectThis short chapter rendered by a sympathetic narrator records the results of Isaac’s decision to take his own life, be responsible for ending his own life on his own terms, not in the Jewish home. Curious that it apparently occurs just as the cousins are coming to visit.This chapter inventories what Isaac could not give away. After everything was gone, his home would be perfect, perfect for leaving that is. The old and tired bubble wrap he accumulated by saving remains as an indication of possibilities for his life not used. The old pockets of air have been deflating for many years in the closet, expanding as the temperature rose. His last moment is given in the negative: . . . what sudden disturbance, awakened the fizz of the last ginger ale in the fridge? In other words, what popped the cap?From Jewish Virtual Library:Suicide in Jewish law is a very serious offense. The?Talmud?says, "For him who takes his own life with full knowledge of his action [the?Hebrew?word is?b'daat] no rites are to be observed. . .There is to be no rending of clothes and no eulogy. But people should line up for him [at the end of the burial ceremony] and the mourner's blessing should be recited [as the family passes through] out of respect for the living. The general rule is: Whatever rites are [normally] performed for the benefit of the survivors should be observed; whatever is [normally] done out of respect for the dead should not be observed."Jewish law does not, however, place all suicides in the same category. One category of suicide, as stated above, includes those who are in full possession of their physical and mental facilities (b'daat) when they take their lives. A second category includes those who act on impulse or who are under severe mental strain or physical pain when committing suicide. Jewish law speaks of an individual in this second category of being an?anuss, meaning a "person under compulsion," and hence not responsible for his actions. All burial and mourning rites are observed for him.The first?anuss?in Jewish history was?King Saul, who, after being defeated by the Philistines on Mount Gilboa, realized what would have happened to him if he were taken alive. He therefore impaled himself on his sword (I Samuel 31:4). This action gave rise to the expression?anuss K'Shaul, meaning "as distressed as Saul."Consequently,?Joseph Caro?in his "Code of Jewish Law" (Shulchan Aruch,?Yoreh Deah?345:3) and most authorities of subsequent generations have ruled that the majority of suicides are to be considered as distressed as Saul and as having acted under compulsion when taking their own lives. As such, they are not responsible for their actions and are to be accorded the same courtesies and privileges granted the average Jew who has met a natural death.Anuss went the fizz in the ginger ale; anuss went the life force in Isaac. The question is why, and the answer offered by the story is to avoid going to the Jewish rest home where he would not take care of himself, where he would not be independent, where he would not respect his life. The perfect home in the title is the perfect rest. Isaac remained in charge to the last moment.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 5. Here Come the IsraelisThis chapter has great energy. As befits Tamir. The narrator forgives his every lack of grace.The larger than life Tamir with dutiful son Barak arrive at the airport and are met by Irv, Jacob and Max. Tamir comes like a caravan with three rolling suitcases and two duty free bags [purchases on departure delivered on the plane]. Likewise, Tamir’s spirit carries no duty. Tamir is what he wants. Tamir arrives in America at the moment when the big earthquake hits Israel. It is no coincidence given that Tamir arrived in America secretly looking for a home to move to and representing the diaspora. And just as Jacob obsesses on his wife in bed with Mark. And something happens in Sam’s Other Life. The narrator sees what Jacob sees, Tamir’s manliness. Tamir is action; Jacob is words. Tamir’s presence pushes Jacob competitively even more to his word side. Tamir’s shirt reads you look like I need a drink [seeing yourself in others], whose meaning Jacob parses as psychological need for a drink yourself. The meeting is given in a Israel military defense image and fed by the Esau/ Jacob story; He went right to Jacob, like an Iron Dome interceptor, took him into his arms, kissed him with his full mouth, then held him at arms length.You have to get the joke here. Jacob was named Israel after his struggle at the river with the angel. But here Tamir is shrouded with Israel’s Iron Dome of identity. As the conversation starts, Barak speaks when his dad speaks to him and overwhelms Max, and Irv favors Tamir. Jacob argues about senseless subjects, like whether Max should go to the bathroom or hold it in, having asked if they are clean. Marginalized by Tamir’s present, Jacob looks to carve out a place for himself. That turns out to be the restroom. Going himself, at the urinal Jacob is next to someone he recognizes but can’t identify [there is identity again]. He thinks it is Steven Spielberg, the movie director. Coughing as cover, Jacob sneaks a look at the penis next to him to find shockingly it is uncircumcised, is “intact,” the word that would also be used for identity. As a writer, director and producer, Spielberg would be a god to Jacob. But with prohibited foreskin he is just Schlock or inferior goods, a bad Jew not a good artist. With this skin removal issue in the air, Irv thinks of Spielberg’s Jaws. Upon returning Jacob tells everyone in his group in order to gain attention. Tamir goes in and coming back out later pretends to have discussed this and his personal wealth with Spielberg. It is difficult to believe Spielberg was at the urinal that long. The text leaves open the issue of whether this really happened, and you can reach your own conclusion. Think about whether the book publisher would require Spielberg’s consent. Think waste. Think emanation. The point about Spielberg and being intact is that it takes identity and perhaps being different to be creative. The Jacobs can only copy; biblical Jacob read the old books.Tamir is attractive to all kinds, even to the Spielbergs of this world. So his report could be believable. Tamir puts off seeing Isaac since he doesn’t want to. He eats pork and Isaac would criticize him. Irv holds his tongue. Spielberg holds his foreskin. Tamir is more an Israeli than a Jew. Irv and Jacob are more Americans than Jews.Just like any American entrepreneur, Tamir brags about his monetary success, which Jacob classifies as performance, which he knows all about from his TV work. This chapter is about what it means to be Jewish. Both America and Israel spawn entrepreneurs, start ups in commerce, who talk about their wealth. Only in America do we have Spielberg, the creative artist of the cinema. Tamir claims the best Italian food in the world is in Israel. Circumcised pasta. Here is what Spielberg said on the subject of being Jewish:[on his childhood] Being a Jew meant that I was not normal. I was not like everybody else. I just wanted to be accepted. Not for who I was. I wanted to be accepted for who everybody else was.Ironically an uncircumcised person is referred to an intact. Circumcised Tamir is intact psychologically and spiritually but not circumcised Jacob. Circumcision does not guarantee identity.In front of Tamir Jacob wants to drive, despite the highways making him anxious. Tamir brags about their wealth and apartment, a triplex with 8 bedrooms. He sounds just like a nouveau rich American. Safety is not Tamir’s primary objective. Jacob keeps thinking about Julia and Mark, the worry worse than the result if it had already happened. He thinks of his youngest child falling asleep in the car. In this context, the radio reports something big has happened in the Middle East. The earthquake is announced in the next chapter in the model UN meeting. Julia passes a note to Sam in the meeting saying I can see over the wall. Can you? This apparently refers to a wall in Other Life. And means that Sam let his mom look at his current on-line status. Since his dad had seen it and ruined the avatar. The wall she can see over is apparently the ruins of his first synagogue, again an emphasis on place. Just like the urinal. And seeing beyond into the future:But the ruins of his first synagogue were shimmering beside the foundation of his second synagogue. The ruins would be their family life before. Now what they both can see is the coming divorce. The old present of the intact family is gone. The family is to be circumcised.Scattered among the rubble were the fragments of his stained-glass Jewish Present, each shard illuminated by destruction.Refer to Kaballah for the meaning of the charged shards, the pieces of a broken world. Here a broken family in a broken world. No one with the energy to mend.Wikipedia from Lurianic Kabbalah:From the non-corporeal figurative configuration of Adam Kadmon emanate five lights: metaphorically from the "eyes", "ears", "nose", "mouth" and "forehead". These interact with each other to create three particular spiritual world-stages after Adam Kadmon:? HYPERLINK "" \o "Akudim" Akudim?("Bound" – stable chaos),? HYPERLINK "" \o "Nekudim" Nekudim?("Points" – unstable chaos), and? HYPERLINK "" \o "Berudim" Berudim?("Connected" – beginning of rectification). Each realm is a sequential stage in the first emergence of the sephirotic vessels, prior to the world of? HYPERLINK "" \o "Atziluth" Atziluth?(Emanation), the first of the comprehensive four spiritual worlds of creation described in previous Kabbalah. As the sephirot emerged within vessels, they acted as ten independent?Iggulim?forces, without inter-relationship.? HYPERLINK "(Kabbalah)" \o "Chesed (Kabbalah)" Chesed?(Kindness) opposed? HYPERLINK "(Kabbalah)" \o "Gevurah (Kabbalah)" Gevurah?(Severity), and so with the subsequent emotions. This state, the world of?Tohu?(Chaos) precipitated a cosmic catastrophe in the Divine realm.?Tohu?is characterised by great divine? HYPERLINK "" \o "Ohr" Ohr?(Light) in weak, immature, unharmonised vessels. As the divine light poured into the first intellectual sephirot, their vessels were close enough to their source to contain the abundance of vitality. However, as the overflow continued, the subsequent emotional sephirot shattered (Shevirat HaKeilim?– "Shattering of the Vessels") from?Binah?(Understanding) down to? HYPERLINK "(Kabbalah)" \o "Yesod (Kabbalah)" Yesod?(the Foundation) under the intensity of the light. The final sephirah? HYPERLINK "" \o "Malkhut" Malkhut?(Kingship) remains partially intact as the exiled? HYPERLINK "" \o "Shekhina" Shekhina?(feminine divine immanence) in creation. This is the esoteric account in?Genesis[11]?and?Chronicles[12]?of the eight Kings of?Edom?who reigned before any king reigned in Israel. The shards of the broken vessels fell down from the realm of?Tohu?into the subsequent created order of?Tikun?(Rectification), splintering into innumerable fragments, each animated by exiled?Nitzutzot?(Sparks) of their original light. The more subtle divine sparks became assimilated in higher spiritual realms as their creative lifeforce. The coarser animated fragments fell down into our material realm, with lower fragments nurturing the? HYPERLINK "" \o "Kelipot" Kelipot?(Shells) in their realms of impurity.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 6. Real RealBack at the mock UN General Assembly where a nervous girl representing Saudi Arabia urges Micronesia to turn over the weapon to the Atomic Energy Commission. They don’t want Iran to get it.Now the breaking of the vessels is to take on cataclysmic scale. We have had Sam’s trouble at school, Sam’s mangled fingers, Other Life shards, marriage shards, identity shards and now add an earthquake deep beneath the dead sea. The dead vessel in which almost nothing would grow.We find out about the wall, the brick wall being constructed by Julia on paper as she worries about why she told Jacob about the kiss. She writes to Sam I can see over the wall, can you? Sam writes back on the back: The other side of the wall is no wall. Billie goes off scrip to make demands on behalf of Micronesia. A delegate appears to announce a major earthquake in the Mideast. The vessels are splintered once again, the fragments nurturing the Kelipot in their realms of impurity.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 7. Vey Is Mir [Woe is Me]The Kelipot shards accumulate: a family marriage, Sam’s fingers, Jacob’s identity, Isaac’s suicide, Other World avatar, torn responsibility. Now the big banger, the earthquake under the Dead Sea that destroys a great deal of the Middle East. SEPARATION AND COMING APART BIG TIME. Tamir remains calm; Jacob starts to come apart; he voices every worry he has.The destruction results are given by an Israeli engineer to a precious American NPR announcer, who cannot even imagine what is happening. Jacob utters Vey Is Mir or Woe is Me when it isn’t his problem. Jacob remembers when he felt safe in Tamir’s bomb shelter. Tamir thinks Jacob is playing games by suggesting what Tamir should do relative to his family.III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 8. The Second SynagogueWhy is this chapter here?Sam becomes aware of death as part of learning how Samanta died. With Isaac in the background Sam thinks about how bubble wrap is made and has ginger ale in his frig in Other Life. A synagogue without an avatar. Sam begins pushing its walls down with a crude avatar:Sam wasn’t destroying, and he wasn’t Sam. He was carving a space out of a larger space. He didn’t yet know who he was.Consider Ein-Sof and creation. He gives his avatar white hair. He is growing older fast with a great grandfather committing suicide and Israel rocked by an earthquake. III. Uses of a Jewish Fist 9. The EarthquakeIsaac dies on the day of the earthquake. Takes his own life. Julia tells Jacob when he returns with Irv, Max, Tamir and Barak, who have just heard about the earthquake. The three quakes coming together at the center of the book: Mideast, Isaac and the Block family breakup.Even before meeting the Israeli cousins, Julia has something to tell Jacob and it is not about the earthquake. She takes his hand. Jacob thinks he has done something wrong and needs to apologize. This anticipatory guilt brings to memory the speech his mother gave at their wedding, about how Jacob as a child pretended to have serious physical ailments so she would pay attention to him. Deborah finally saw it as the pattern of his life ahead. She saw his life in marriage would be in sickness and in sickness, not in sickness and in health. This memory is out of whack time wise because it takes more time that Julia would wait to tell him.Deborah and Irv end the wedding speech by saying: There are no miracles. Not anymore. And there are no cures for the hurt that hurts most. There is only the medicine of believing each other’s pain, and being present for it.Right at that moment and by holding his hand, Julia is there for Jacob. But Jacob is not there. He doesn’t even hear her at first. This is their family earthquake. Isaac is dead. And the end of Part III.Interlude: Rock and RollI would like to do between parts III and IV what Foer invites us to do, to compare the rift in the Bloch marriage and family and the earthquake rift in the bed rock plates beneath the Dead Sea. The bedrock beneath the sea slips as does the rock of the together bed. Foer’s choice of accommodation of these two events suggests that the family suicide and family rift is of the same nature and just as important in the overall scheme of things as the rift type earthquake. Separation and coming apart.Here is material on the fault zones near Israel. The main one is a rift, which by nature is not continuous. Think of the accommodation zones as Julia. Think of divergence as separation.WikepediaRiftFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaBlock view of a rift formed of three segments, showing the location of the accommodation zones between them at changes in fault location or polarity (dip direction)Gulf of Suez Rift showing main extensional faultsIn geology, a rift is a linear zone where the Earth's crust and lithosphere are being pulled apart[1][2] and is an example of extensional tectonics.[3]Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben with normal faulting and rift-flank uplifts mainly on one side. Where rifts remain above sea level they form a rift valley, which may be filled by water forming a rift lake. The axis of the rift area may contain volcanic rocks, and active volcanism is a part of many, but not all active rift systems.Major rifts occur along the central axis of most mid-ocean ridges, where new oceanic crust and lithosphere is created along a divergent boundary between two tectonic plates.Failed rifts are the result of continental rifting that failed to continue to the point of break-up. Typically the transition from rifting to spreading develops at a triple junction where three converging rifts meet over a hotspot. Two of these evolve to the point of seafloor spreading, while the third ultimately fails, becoming an aulacogen.Note in a rift the two earth pieces are pulled apart. Vertically. One goes down while one stays up. The lithosphere or rock mantle goes down. The Dead Sea fault is a rift fault. Resulting from divergence. The Bloch marriage fault is a rift fault. Jacob goes down because his identity rock is weak.You might consider the rock plates beneath the Dead Sea as a glass or a plate, like those that are broken in the Jewish marriage ceremony. Or a broken identity. The rock glass would hold the Dead Sea. Trembling in the rift; trembling in the Temple of the family:From My Jewish Learning for rifting at a marriage: The Jewish wedding ceremony ends with a famous bang. Stomping on a glass is one of the best-known features of Jewish weddings. Traditionally, the groom did the deed; today the couple often share the honor/pleasure, smashing one or two napkin-wrapped glasses.Few Jewish symbols have a single explanation, and this one is downright kaleidoscopic. The custom dates back to the writing of the?Talmud?:Mar bar Rabina made a marriage feast for his son. He observed that the rabbis present were very gay. So he seized an expensive goblet worth 400 zuzim and broke it before them. Thus he made them sober. ( HYPERLINK "(Glick_Edition),_Berakhot.5.2/en/En_Jacob,_translated_by_SH_Glick,_1916?lang=bi" \t "_blank" Berakhot 5:2?)In other words, where there is rejoicing, there should be trembling.By the Middle Ages, synagogue facades in Germany were inlaid with a special stone for the express purpose of smashing a glass at the end of weddings. However, its interpretation changed somewhat by the 14th century, when, according to Maurice Lamm’s?The Jewish Way in Love and Marriage, ?it was viewed as a reminder of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Either way, the lesson is that even at the height of personal joy, we recall the pain and losses suffered by the Jewish people and remember a world in need of healing.The fragility of glass suggests the frailty of human relationships. Since even the strongest love is subject to disintegration, the glass is broken as a kind of incantation: “As this glass shatters, so may our marriage never break.”In the Middle East, the conflict splits Arabs and Jews. In Washington, D.C. the conflict splits a Jewish family. Why do the Arabs attack? Because they think Israel is mortally wounded and they can and they will end up with Israel’s nuclear capability. The local conflict will split husband and wife and family. As with the countries in the Middle East, Jacob no longer acts responsibly in his effect on her and the children. Julia has come to the conclusion that the wounded Jacob is not good for her and not good for the children, Sam’s reluctance to take responsibility for his list is being laid on Jacob, who never takes responsibility so he will be safe. Like the rift valley, Jacob has sunk and is torn asunder. Like Israel, she will retreat to an defensible position with her children. The children have already felt the fore shocks.Little lives in the Dead Sea. Since salt symbolizes the covenant between YH and Israel, the covenant has slipped. Hatred and separation still live in the hearts of men, and women.IV. Fifteen days of Five Thousand YearsThe mayhem and hatred of the Jews throughout history here reaches its modern peak. All surrounding countries attack, more to get nuclear weapons, clean water and functioning hospitals but spurred on by historical hatred brought on by land grabbing in the area. As with Micronesia, the weapons are seen to drop into their lap. These countries have not reached the age of responsibility despite five thousand years of history. The United States promises aid but only with controls. Unrestricted loyalty is not available.One important point is building for the future, for the future earthquakes. Planning for the possible not living day by day with just concrete walls.One point of this book is to compare this history with the mayhem and bad vibs going on [in the first chapter of Section V] at the same time in the Block family in the presence of the Israeli cousins. How can their little squabbles about Bar Mitzvah party favors raise their ugly heads at all? As Tamir says, because they don’t have enough to worry about, which if they did would reduce concerns to the really important ones. Perhaps it is saying the Arabs attack because like Jacob they have wounded identity.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 1. The I-WordThe President of the United States makes a speech to the United Nations [ha ha] promising aid to the region but chooses not to use the word Israel, an omission which Tamir notes. As with Sam’s list, words do matter, those used and those left out. The US is not “all in” for Israel. Tamir urges them to understand loyalty requires recklessness. In this context Jacob replays more and more memories from his childhood when he was invaded.In the face of this tragedy, Barak and Sam are playing with iPads upstairs. The Bloch family is about to argue about what to cut out in Sam’s Bar Mitzvah in order not to disrespect the damage to Israel and loss of grandfather Isaac. Sam argues for less with the kind of passion with which the Arabs are attacking in the Middle East. Sam argues like his father, cleverly but not wisely. Tamir reminds them while arguing about little things that they are the luckiest people in the history of the world.While the Blochs argue about Bar Mizvah details, on the TV a woman in the Middle East pulls her hair out and beats her chest. In God’s party favors, she received the apparent loss of her family as well as the two 7+ point quakes and the breakdown of human civilization. Evil comes as buildings that fall down and disease.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 2. Absorb or AbsolveNote the chapter title. Absorb is a natural or automatic process. Absolve involves a voluntary act, a freeing from responsibility. Isaac asked to be buried in Israel. At this time in Israel, there are many holes in the ground. Check out the narrator. Remember that in K the Keter emanation, the closest one to ES god, cannot be absorbed in our world.Isaac lies in state remaining fresh in a human crisper, which must be some kind of refrigeration.Jacob, who as son would be responsible for managing Isaac’s burial request, wonders why go to all the trouble to bury Isaac in Israel as he requested. It would be difficult. Jewish tradition leaves them with the difficult task of having someone with the body at all times. Max joins Jacob in sitting shiva, but Jacob is afraid to go in the room. Jacob retails memories of being with Isaac and Isaac’s lack of humiliation concerning his body, given what all it had been through. These are Absorb for Jacob. Isaac is not there to absolve him. Isaac who did not believe in wild cards or beating your grandson at cards.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 3. What Do the Children KnowNote the narrator announces what is to come. Julia wants to start discussions with Jacob on how to tell the boys about the coming divorce. Jacob wants to put it off behind the delay for the BRM and Isaac’s burial. Put it off so it might go away. He is motivated not by the best interests of the boys or Julia but of himself, so he is safe at least for a while. At this point, I began to view Jacob as the one who brings shit into the house. Neither Argus’s or Jacob’s feces are well formed.Jacob’s wishes are played against written wishes put in the Wailing Wall and must be kept secret, a subject Benji brings into their midst. Walking Argus until he poos becomes a subject. They begin to treat the Middle East as a sporting event, more drama please. TZTZ is brought in under these bad family circumstances. Julia cries because she knows an intact family is better for the children than a broken one. That the kids are losing and she is doing it. She knows Jacob would stay. Once again he is not wanted.The narrator compares Julia and Jacob as two opposites: as depth and fun or heavy and light. Julia remembers a single mother who came to their Seder feast and being embarrassed she was so thin on Jewish tradition. She laughs at his joke: embarrassment is the Parmalat of emotions. That makes him feel so good, so good, Robbin Williams style good—never enough now since there was not enough early when it counted: way to go big boy. Julia realizes she will be judged after the divorce break up. In this milieu she latches on to the idea of a vacation house, to hide their second home as the result of a break up. Their discussion of the physics of the split is interrupted by Billie asking a question about Sam’s apology: Foer ties these two seminal events. Benji barges in with a declaration that he wants to change his wish.After this session and Jacob begins to feel the future, he closes off one of his delaying tactics by agreeing with his father Irv to bury Isaac in their neighborhood, not in Israel.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 4. The Genuine VersionSam is sitting shiva for Isaac with Barak. Protecting Isaac’s soul. Mortality is naturally a subject on his mind. As featured in Loud and Close, mortality is a natural enemy of identity. From wikipedia:Shiva?(Hebrew:??????, literally "seven") is the week-long?mourning?period in?Judaism?for first-degree relatives. The ritual is referred to as "sitting shiva". Traditionally, there are five stages of mourning in Judaism. Shiva is considered the third stage of mourning, and constitutes of seven days. Following the prior two stages, shiva embraces a time when individuals discuss their loss and accept the comfort of others.[1]?*** At the funeral, mourners wear an outer garment or ribbon that is torn during the procession in a ritual known as? HYPERLINK "" \l "Keriah" keriah. This garment is worn throughout the entirety of shiva. Typically, the seven days begin immediately after the deceased have been buried. Following?burial, mourners[3]?assume the?halakhic?status of?avel?(Hebrew:????, "mourner"). It is necessary for the burial spot to be entirely covered with earth in order for shiva to commence. This state lasts for the entire duration of shiva. During the period of shiva, individuals remain at home. Friends and family visit those in mourning in order to give their condolences and provide comfort. The process, though dating back to biblical times, mimics the natural way an individual confronts and overcomes grief. Shiva allows for the individual to express their sorrow, discuss the loss of a loved one, and slowly re-enter society.[4]Two of the subjects Sam thinks about under the cloud of mortality are adolescent sexual pleasure in masturbating and the German concentration camps where Jewish mothers went obligingly to the grave with their children. These two subjects are compared with respect to human identity and lack of choice. The sexual pleasure in masturbation is the first real feeling of unadulterated self that Sam experienced, and it instinctively or naturally morphed to interest in sex with a female-like part and then sex with real others as part of a process of gaining identity and connecting with others. And the instinct to produce children to defeat death. These instincts are built in. In this day and age, I should say you either have them or you don’t. The concentration camp examples are of Jewish woman facing certain mortality for themselves and their children and totally losing their identities, even as mothers. They are murdered by male Germans with kill instincts. Both the guards and the mothers are without identity. These two examples show the genuine version of self being nurtured and self being obliterated. The narrator is non-judgmental and does not help the reader understand the point Foer is making. The narrator reports on Sam’s psyche, which presently requires separation from both Jacob and Julia, Julia because she wants too much from Sam physically since she is not getting touches from the pickled Jacob.After Jacob destroyed Sam’s avatar Samanta in the game [and through his own weakness nearly destroyed Sam’s identity], Sam created a new avatar named Eyesick, the threadbare beginnings of an avatar. The avatar now indicates Sam’s limited progress in identity, threadbare beginnings. Eyesick for can’t see well. Not yet anyway. Sam recounts the difficulty of separating identity wise from his mother, separating physically from her kisses and hugs. As Jacob’s son, he is easily shamed.While he is sitting shiva, Sam is in Other Life, where he has control over what happens. Where he is safe. Where he thinks he is alone. This chapter involves Noam’s [Tamir’s other son] lion avatar breaking into Sam’s other world in Other Life. His excellent English shows that masterly of language is not the source of trouble for Jacob. Noam’s lion avatar may recall Daniel in the lion’s den.When the lion breaks in, Eyesick is in someone else’s lemon grove, a grove owned by a corporation that preaches in its ads that drinking their lemonade has something to do with authenticity: real lemons in that aid. Noam embarrasses Sam with talk of acne but energizes him with a promised gift of 250,000 pieces of resilience fruit. As Noam faces increased risk of mortality in combat, his identity for others increases. The fruit, named resilience fruit with the Garden of Eden destructive fruit in mind, will help Sam heal his avatar, and the example of generosity helps Sam heal his identity.Sitting with Isaac’s body makes Sam remember stealing from the corner store and returning the merchandise just to prove he could get away with violating his parents’ rules. This may remind the reader of life and death, taking and returning. He also remembers burying his semen in the backyard, and the first time he jerked off, which was at Great-Aunt Doris’ shiva. While in puberty Sam graduated to dreaming it being someone else’s hand and then building the facsimile of a body organ, all on the instinctive way to appreciation of full intercourse as togetherness with another. The instinctive way to togetherness and the birth of children, which defeat death at least temporarily.Sam remembers the movie at school about the German concentration camps and the mothers who did not try to run away in an attempt to protect their children. Ask yourself why Foer put this idea shoulder to shoulder with the other topics. Women with totally defeated identities, even their identity as a mother. Women without a choice.The maturation movement suggested by hints in this chapter on the human identity level is from no identity, to masturbation, to desire for intercourse with another, to breaking away from mother as that other, to helping others and building an identity. Reaching out and then reaching out. This progression is not just Jewish. But the stages may remind you of the stages of Sitting Shiva.Sam begins to feel the combination of emotions which the narrator tells us is the feeling of being lonely: suffering, shame, fear, belief, dignity and joy, being Jewish. But what was that feeling? Sam might ask as his identity comes upon him at the BRM age. This must be the genuine version of the chapter title.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 5. There Are Things That Are Hard To Say TodayWithout his own proper supports, Jacob is weakened in the presence of death because he is not in charge of himself, but fears death a la Loud and Close. Tamir is blasé. The today in the title refers to the survivor Jews, which the Rabbi speaks of in his eulogy at Isaac’s burial ceremony. Note it may have been difficult to get a Rabbi to speak, given Isaac’s suicide. This young one wears untied sneakers. Irv tries to insult the Rabbi but it doesn’t work, since the Rabbi has his own secure identity.Isaac’s independence is emphasized in the stories told by the Rabbi. Jacob begins by detesting the Rabbi. Until he learns the Rabbi visited Isaac on the day of his death. Isaac told him he was thankful for his life and in Yiddish that not to have a choice was also a choice. A toilet paper story brings in Argus. There are two things that everyone needs: to feel that they have added to the world and the second is toilet paper. As Jacob begins to admire the Rabbi his hatred begins to lose its shape. The Rabbi preaches that he diary of Anne Frank has replaced the Old Testament with life as the ultimate value rather than righteousness. Note that in his final decision Isaac elected righteousness over life.The main topic in the eulogy is the story of Moses being saved from the ravages of the Egyptian murder of all Hebrew male babies because of the belief the Hebrews would always support the enemies of Egypt. The issue in the story is survival. The lines in the story are drawn on national identity, Hebrew or Egyptian. The Egyptian woman, the Pharaoh’s daughter, who sees Moses in the basket in the river recognizes the baby as Hebrew but brings it to safety none the less. And she is acting out of her identity as a [actual or potential] mother, a nurturing mother. Moses’ mother acted out of her identity as Moses’ mother in giving him a chance. Moses acts out of his identity as a baby. Unlike his identity blessed daughter, the Pharoah had no charity towards the Jews and treated them as one, sure signs of weakened royal identity.Given the ambiguity about looking and hearing, the rabbi asks the family why the Princess would say look at crying. Her quoted response is look a Hebrew baby crying, which is a little confusing since you hear rather than see crying. With this story full to the beam with identity, Max, Sam, Benji and Julia give imaginative answers based on their position in the development of identity. Hyper intelligent Max thinks the Princess would have thought that only the Hebrews would have put a baby in the river. Penis oriented Sam thinks the Princess may have seen the baby was circumcised. Fearful of his family’s future, Benji thinks the baby could have been crying in Jewish, which he explains is laughing. Mother Julia thinks the Princess would have heard the baby cry and gone to it. Each answers pursuant to their own identity and experience. Note the Rabbi does not give grades.The intelligent young imaginations of Sam, Max and Benji in answering the Rabbi’s questions are featured as proto righteousness. It is funny, right? That evil should exist and visit Jews more than others. That only an Egyptian mother and not her brothers would save a Hebrew baby, one that was crying. That for Jews laughing is crying. Our religion is as gorgeous and opaque, and brittle, as the stained glass of Nol Nidre . . .Nol is not a stained glass artist but a special vow by those who have been forced to declare for the outside of Judaism, a vow to get back inside their authentic religion:From My Jewish Learning:he first communal prayer service of?Yom Kippur actually takes place immediately prior to sunset on the evening of Yom Kippur. This service is called?Kol Nidrei (“All Vows”). These are the first words of a special legal formula that is recited at the beginning of this service and is chanted three times. This legal ritual is believed to have developed in early medieval times as a result of persecutions against the Jews. At various times in Jewish history, Jews were forced to convert to either Christianity or Islam upon pain of death. *** However, after the danger had passed, many of these forced converts wanted to return to the Jewish community. However, this was complicated by the fact that they had been forced to swear vows of fealty to another religion. Because of the seriousness with which the Jewish tradition views verbal promises, the Kol Nidrei legal formula was developed precisely in order to enable those forced converts to return and pray with the Jewish community, absolving them of the vows that they made under duress.We will read getting back to identity and getting back to Judaism in the same terms. Leaving Judaism because those that formally rejected the Jewish religion in order to avoid being deported had no choice, at least no practical choice.Jacob remembers Isaac saying to him late in the day I want you to have the thing that you want and Jacob cries. Breaks down. Jacob wants his family. And he wants himself. In the mode of the stained glass metaphor with the artificial life in Other Life breathing on us, Jacob wants to go back to what he was before and vow again to his authentic. He needs some resilience fruit. He wails. At the wailing wall of death. The wailing wall where three walls are gone. V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 6. The Names Were MagnificentThis chapter presents the experience of Jacob with Irv at the burial of Isaac. In the suicide part of the cemetery. Note no thoughts of Irv are presented, only those of Jacob. In the presence of death, Jacob quivers some more. Not able to stand tall as himself, he almost falls into the grave for Isaac. The names in the title refer to those of suicides buried in the cemetery. At least the names were magnificent; because they were separated from their bearers disgraced by suicide. Their names do not bear the taboo. This is all that is left now. The names standing alone. Not their former bearers. Not their identities formerly indicated by their names. Max, combining the mortal and the immortal, says out loud in his characteristic search for certainties, which will grace his choice to be a lawyer and a judge: This is the worst cemetery ever. At least death is immortal.Irv’s first shovel full of dirt on the coffin makes a lot of noise, so characteristic of loudmouth Irv. Everyone winces as the sound carries the corporeal reality of the coffin through the air waves. The scene brings to Jacob memory of playing Early Memories. One foundation memory is of a dead squirrel; Jacob thinks he won’t be able to clean it up even when he is a dad. Like Holden in Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, he thinks of thousands of dead squirrels around his house and that: I knew I was going to have to take care of all of them.Jacob remembers that his father let Jacob win every one of the many games of Uno they played—uno meaning one. This deceit must have been a misplaced effort to shore up Jacob’s sense of identity. But it would of course fail to teach Jacob responsibility for his own mistakes. Uno seems by name to promise “one” or individual identity but in the game means only one card left. A player plays or is exposed by copying the card on the pile, by color or number. You can think of discarding cards that are the same as the one on the pile as behavior based on the approval of others. If that player wins by discarding all his cards in this fashion, a sort of copying others, then he wins the game. On the other hand, in life the player who retains unique cards will be the winner. Copying others. Jacob needed help to win. You can also think of the discard pile as the manure pile on which Ulysses found his faithful dog Argus.The reference to where two walls meet at the cemetery reminds us of the riddle in Salinger’s Esme story: How do walls talk to each other? Answer: They meet at the corner. Connection at the corner where the legs of the room meet. Jacob is borrowing from if not plagiarizing Salinger. The common experience of suicide in this part of the cemetery reminds the reader that the living Jacob has taken his own identity, his own inner life. His identity tics have destroyed his natural potential in composure. The detail of how the suicides killed themselves is of course not on the stone but only registered in Jacob’s creative mind. He is flirting with the idea. As counterweight, he thinks about the reasons for living: who will Benji marry?Standing in that unwalled ghetto, Jacob contemplates the Eruv loop hole in his responsibility under Jewish rules for Shabbat not to carry anything from private to public domains [outside the eruv extension of the private domain]. Jacob equates the public domain as his responsibility and an Eruv as an expansion of his own private discretionary domain where he is not responsible. He toys with enlarging the Eruv to solar distances or reducing it to a wedding ring. With a large Eruv, he would be totally free and wouldn’t have any responsibilities, like the responsibility for burying his father . . . or a squirrel.For you code fans out there, notice the series of names separated from the others: Miriam Apel, Shaindel Potash, Beryl Dressler. Reversed and Hebrewized by removing the interior letters, you get MA SP BD or DB PS MA for Db Ps Am.Consider this: “I like to say — and I say it often to my students — the past doesn’t exist. It’s just a representation in our brain,” said Rutgers University psychologist?Tracey Shors, who pioneered treatments for those suffering from traumatic memories.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 7. ReincarnationSam and Israeli cousin Noam are emailing or messaging through Other Life. This is about love as generosity. Here the identity-generosity combination is in Noam, Tamir’s son in the Israeli army. Sam is in the basement of his own house, something like its emotional foundation.Sam learns from Noam that Tamir has been considering moving to the US. Sam wants to talk about parents breaking up. The survival unit. Note that sex texting is as impersonal as it can get. But as indicated by Noam’s gift on-line of resilience fruit, on-line is not inherently impersonal or selfish because it can be used for generosity. Empathy and generosity in Other Life. Noam’s gift is even bigger than previously discussed, all of Noam’s resilience fruit. All in generosity upon shipping out for military duty.We learn that it was Sam who first found Jacob’s special phone and found it in his dad’s nightstand drawer. Sam dropped it in the bathroom behind the toilet when his mom came home. Ironically it was purchased so mom and dad could always reach each other. Now it is to separate them.Sam is reborn as a person, reborn in the spirit not the body, when he empathizes with what Noam must be seeing on his side of the gigantic transfer of resilience fruit. He realizes by contrast the absence generally of kindness in his parents’ marriage. He remembers his father sleeping on the floor downstairs with a recovering Argus, a huge kindness that was missing in the relationship of his father and mother. Sam knows from the Argus experience his father can love all in if he is not afraid of being rejected [Argus wouldn’t]. Recognizing this condition Sam cries as he is reincarnated into accepting the way things are and the necessity of dealing with it. Sam’s reincarnation is referred to in the chapter title. Sam is reincarnated as the previous Samanta in Other Life [with the gift of resilience fruit] and also reincarnated as Sam in real life. Sam with responsibility. The avatar is restored via beams of light that will remind you of the emanations of Ein-Sof in Kabbalah. V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 8. Just The WailingJacob has been crying, presumably at the burial grounds among the many who took charge of their own deaths. Became responsible, the big and final Bar Mitzvah. The narrator gives Irv a light touch. Now the social event after the burial. The food, all dead, is plentiful and Jewish. Presumably memory of the deceased is the purpose of this get together. Jacob is in the basement with the playing children looking for Julia.Benji at age 5 or 6 is dealing with the meaning of god and fear of death, the ravages of certain mortality. Like in Foer’s novel Loud and Close. Dr. Silver has advised Jacob just make Benji feel safe. Was Jacob not made to feel safe? What was Irv doing? What does dying tell us about living?Benji is crying because The Wailing Wall has come down with another quake. Now just the wailing is there. All the written wishes discarded like items from clothes in the washing machine. God let the Wailing Wall come down. What kind of god is that?V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 9. Look! A Crying Hebrew BabyHere we have Julia at that same Bloch family burial party. For the reckoning. And then leaving without being noticed. She pulls a Jacob. He is in the basement with the boys.The requirements of Jacob’s family along with everything else are building Julia’s resentment. It brings out her hatred potential and her fantasies, selfish fantasies. Like looking younger. Like being with Mark. Like Jacob dropping dead. They revolve around attracting a new male to support her children. She even imagined the death of her children. The narrator is forgiving.Here is our formula for what happens when you act not out of your own self: . . . but at a certain point, the requirements of being a good person inspire hatred for oneself and others. Jacob will experience these same feelings near the end of the book.The subject morphs to their pending family rift. She leaves the party and the house looking at the mezuzah on the door frame:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaA?mezuzah?(Hebrew:?????????? "doorpost"; plural:????????????mezuzot) comprises a piece of?parchment?called a? HYPERLINK "" \o "Klaf" klaf?contained in a decorative case and inscribed with specific?Hebrew?verses from the?Torah?(Deuteronomy 6:4-9?and?11:13-21). These verses consist of the Jewish prayer?Shema Yisrael, beginning with the phrase: "Hear, O Israel, the?Lord?(is) our God, the?Lord?is One". In mainstream?Rabbinic Judaism, a?mezuzah?is affixed to the doorpost of Jewish homes to fulfill the?mitzvah?(Biblical commandment) to "write the words of God on the gates and doorposts of your house" (Deuteronomy 6:9). Some interpret Jewish law to require a?mezuzah?in every doorway in the home[1]?except bathrooms (which is not a living space), laundry rooms and closets, if they are too small to qualify as rooms.[2]?The klaf parchment is prepared by a qualified scribe (" HYPERLINK "" \o "Sofer" sofer stam") who has undergone training, both in studying the relevant religious laws, and in the more practical parts i.e. carving the quill and practising writing. The verses are written in black indelible ink with a special quill pen made either from a feather or, in what are now rare cases, a reed. The parchment is then rolled up and placed inside the case.They have written their own message in the mezuzah, about angels watching over every blade of grass. However, despite the request, no angel is watching over this marriage. This grass is turning brown.The point is that she is on her way out. As we learn in the next chapters she stays away from home that whole night and most of the next day. Is she the crying Hebrew baby? Or is she leaving her role as the Jewish princess and becoming the Egyptian princess? She is leaving her bereavement Bloch requirements behind. She is going off to be alone. And selfish.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 10. The Lion’s DenNote that as Jacob is with Tamir he concerns himself only mildly with the fact that Julia has left the house and his entire family. He texts her twice asking “where are you,” not what can I do for you. This chapter is about where Jacob isn’t.Jacob and Tamir first discuss Isaac. Isaac’s last environment is compared to an animal in a small German zoo enclosure, a repetitious life. Perhaps a picture of the German soul.This time Jacob and Tamir reminisce over middle age, beers and pot about their unexpected lion visit at age 13. That earlier moment in the Lion’s Den is a comparison experience to what Jacob is doing now. In that moment he felt himself in a rush of adrenalin. And by comparison with what little he is doing now was in tune with his identity.Being in the lion’s den is a realization that you need to live your life, your authentic life, not one others will approve. This is a problem with the parental process. An important part of this process is that you need to face death, death one stride away. Behind all of this is Isaac’s suicide rather than cede his care to someone else. His big and courageous Bar Mitzvah.This chapter revisits by Jacob’s memory his and Tamir’s visit to the zoo in the middle of the night so many years ago. A visit the day before Jacob’s Bar Mitzvah. The young boys, then aged 13, had a natural instinct to invade and show their prowess. A desire of being super alive through fear inside the lion’s den. When adrenalin is the drug of choice. To Jacob it felt irrepressible and true. One of the big ones like the birth of his first child, big but so few. This is the alpha experience of living out of who you are, in this case a 13 year old discovering yourself. Tamir chides Jacob’s failure to give anything to Israel. To risk anything. For failure to be all in for Israel [or his marriage]. Or all in for anything, not willing to die for anything. Like having an affair when he was married. Not all in in his family. Tamir diagnoses Jacob’s lack of a real life. Everything in his life is dispensable. That is why Tamir will not move to America, where the dispensable is worshipped. His previous wish to do so too now makes him angry.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 11. In the HingeMeanwhile Julia’s 3 hour walk journey is to her version of entering the lion’s den. The hinge refers to Sam’s injury [responsibility for which never established] and the doors she opens now, Mark’s door. The human hinge is the waist or lap, where the sex organ resides. Julia decides to keep hers quiet as she discovers Mark does not have what she needs.Mark the serpent would be more than happy to help her redo her insides. Governed by the moment, Julia evaluates the apartment appointments based on the furniture that is there even though he tells her new replacements are due the next day. In order to cox her in Mark tries the line your life will be different, as the serpent told Eve you will be different, same as the gods knowing good and bad. She feels the transient nature of his life compared to hers.While she is exposed in his apartment, Julia feels like Sam’s injured hand, with the insides on the outsides. She wants her life, her identity, on the outside, everything on the outside. She realizes she is going to destroy her family, put herself in a position where she does not have a choice about the matter. She leaves to go home but instead goes to a hotel. Jacob is trying to reach her all this time.V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 12. Who’s In The Unoccupied Room?Tamir and Jacob are using pot late at night. A resourceful Tamir made a pipe out of an apple. We shall prepare for knowledge of good and bad a la Garden of Eden. The pot is years old but has retained its identity, which in this case is truth serum. Jacob is embarrassed because he coughs since he doesn’t smoke. Tamir doesn’t smoke and doesn’t cough.Jacob reveals that despite his previous assertion, he did not have an actual affair with the telephone pal at work. He reveals Julia’s reaction. Tamir chides him for not being all in for his family, for treating his family as dispensable.In the weed haze, they have a conversation with imagination but without logical responsibility. Apparently Jacob reaches some sort of identity connection. He reveals to Tamir that for 10 years he has been writing a show about his own family, the truth of his own family. That would be really good. Jacob reveals his feeling that he is not worthy of his family line before him or after him. No doubt Irv contributed to this view. The apple becomes a symbol of one’s existential truth –more in Garden of Eden terms.The destruction of dinosaurs by an asteroid and fire is replayed. The mammals surviving underground may remind you of Jacob types, who can’t take the heat of being all in. Jenga is mentioned, a game called The Tower of Jenga in which blocks are pulled from a tower and then placed on top making an increasingly unstable tower. Readers will be reminded of loss of identity and the unstable life it produces. It also suggests the momentary destruction of the atmosphere by the asteroid on its trajectory to the earth. Holes in the atmosphere and holes in the Bloch family. Jacob sees back to the time when he should have tried to save his family.The necessity of risk in all-in love is replayed through teaching blind children to ride bicycles by echolocation. Letting them take risks in order to learn, not in protecting them at all times. Hearing the sound come back is Jacob’s problem, not hearing himself. When Jacob is in a room sex texting, it is unoccupied. Answering the question in the chapter title.In Israel, common humanity in the earthquake is forgotten as Israeli extremists burn the Dome of the Rock causing disparate religions to stoke the conflict. Wikipedia:The?Dome of the Rock?(Arabic:???? ????????Qubbat al-Sakhrah, Hebrew:????? ??????Kippat ha-Sela) is an Islamic shrine located on the?Temple Mount?in the?Old City of Jerusalem.It was initially completed in 691 CE at the order of?Umayyad Caliph?Abd al-Malik?during the?Second Fitna, built on the site of the Roman temple of?Jupiter Capitolinus, which had in turn been built on the site of the?Second Jewish Temple, destroyed during the Roman?Siege of Jerusalem?in 70 CE. The original dome collapsed in 1015 and was rebuilt in 1022–23. The Dome of the Rock is in its core one of the oldest extant works of?Islamic architecture.[2]***The site's great significance for Muslims derives from traditions connecting it to the creation of the world and to the belief that the Prophet?Muhammad's?Night Journey?to heaven started from?the rock?at the center of the structure.[4][5]In Jewish tradition the rock bears great significance as the?Foundation Stone, the place from which the world expanded into its present form and where God gathered the dust used to create the first human,?Adam;[6]?as the site on?Mount Moriah?where Abraham attempted?to sacrifice his son; and as the place where?God's divine presence?is manifested more than in any other place, towards which Jews turn during prayer.A UNESCO?World Heritage Site, it has been called "Jerusalem's most recognizable landmark,"[7]?along with two nearby Old City structures, the?Western Wall, and the "Resurrection Rotunda" in the?Church of the Holy Sepulchre.[8]V. Not to Have a Choice is Also a Choice 13. De Zelbe Prayz [the same price]The Middle east blows up as the Bloch marriage blows up. Past the boundary of no return. The narrator is judgmental against Jacob in this moving chapter.Since Jacob was involved with Tamir, he did not pay attention to the fact that his wife had left many hours earlier. Only when he thinks about needing her to take care of the children in a few hours and putting the house back in order does he reach out for her. For those jobs he needs her, especially because they have guests. What would they think if the house remained a mess?He calls her cell phone. He does not hesitate to wake her up at 2:00 am so he can talk right now, Mr. All Talk, tell her about the fire at the Dome of the Rock. No adult consideration for more sympathetic alternatives, such as “Are you all right? Come home when you are ready.” Her phone takes a message several times, just like the sex text phone. In order to get her attention, he tells the message machine that like Tamir he is going to Israel to fight. In the absence of any sympathetic response and without concern for her, he keeps calling. He does not know where she is. She finally “picks up” and just out of sleep so her response is brutal. She laughs in his face. She disses his claim to bravery. She claims he is all wall; there is nothing there inside. She declares flatly You are not my spouse. References to deafness and sign language lead us to the conclusion they are not hearing each other on the phone. She refuses to agree that she is destroying their family because he is not a member of it.Despite her claim that he is not her spouse, she demands that if he goes, Sam must have his BRM before that and he must put down Argus. Putting down Argus disturbs Jacob. As if he could put down an Arab soldier.This chapter is framed at the beginning and the end in stories of humans overcoming lack of connection, for example in deafness. Especially in the story of the deaf father wishing for a deaf child. In this suggestive context, Jacob and Julia are separated by her absence from home. Their distance and his lack of consideration for her cannot be overcome by signs. The same price is their marriage: it separates whether he goes to Israel or not.VI. The Destruction of Israel 1. Come HomeAs it turns out, after studying the situation like a good procrastinator, Jacob was not ready to put Argus down. He was not all in ready. Note the short parallel sentences at the end of the first paragraph.The Israeli Prime Minister calls for all Jews between 16 and 55 come home to Israel. To make this easier, the country was sending commercial jets to pick them up at major world population centers. The price is the same, whether you go or don’t.VI. The Destruction of Israel 2. Today I Am Not A ManManhood is bestowed on Sam in his BRM. Before he is not a man, afterwards he is, according to the ritual.The boys and Billie pool their knowledge about what has happened. They know that Mom spent the night out, the first physical break up. Sam starts to act like a parent toward his brothers. The effect of the family destruction on the younger boys begins.This chapter is quite touching.VI. The Destruction of Israel 3. O Jews. Your Time Has Come!Julia does not come home the next day until it is time to put the boys in bed. She and Jacob discuss progress on the arrangements for the BRM. The one for Sam. The one for Jacob is going to Israel to fight. To finally being all-in about something. Identity and being all-in about something are equated.The prime image here is the biblical text as to what happened to that version of the Ten Commandments that was broken by Moses. With the marriage breakage in the wings and the BM the next day. It was carried in the Ark along with the intact version to the First temple. Meanwhile Jacob gets ready to listen to the Ayatollah of Iran speak to 200,000 gathered Muslims and the TV. He looks just like a Jew.VI. The Destruction of Israel 4. Come HomeBut the speech you hear in this the next chapter is from the Jewish Prime Minister. Despite all that has been done to them, Here we are. Did the Israelis take over the air waves?VI. The Destruction of Israel 5. Today I Am Not A ManRemember that Sam’s BRM has been rescheduled and truncated because of Jacob’s claim to be going to Israel to fight. The many lanterns Julia made are still in the closet.Sam chants with the grace of being fully present as oneself. He feels the oncoming responsibility of being the oldest male in the house. The writing in school is discussed as an attempt to get out of the BRM, the responsibility. This speech is from the heart. To be and not to be expresses the identity issue. This is the Torah inside Foer’s Torah. Note the logic from the point of view of Sam personally: Let me explain why I wrote those words.Note the BRM speech is interlaced with the speeches of Israel and Iran. This is how the youthful attraction to hate goes public as adults. Hatred is the best way to bring people together for a common cause. Especially for old events that no one remembers.VI. The Destruction of Israel 6. O Jews. Your Time Has ComeJews. Your time has come. VI. The Destruction of Israel 7. Come HomeJews come home so you will have one. Make your identity as Jews.VI. The Destruction of Israel 8. Today I Am Not A ManBack to Sam’s BRM speech. His realization that the banned words on his list were easy to say and that: The hardest thing to say couldn’t be something you say to yourself. It requires the hardest person, or people, to say it to.VI. The Destruction of Israel 9. O Jews, Your Time Has Come!Back to the Ayatollah for more hate: God demands the death of the Jews. You have no responsible part in it.VI. The Destruction of Israel 10. Come HomeThe Israeli Prime Minister blows the shofar, the shout of God’s victory. Televisions shook. Earthquake and heavy emotions.VI. The Destruction of Israel 11. Today I Am Not A ManBack to Sam’s BM speech. He talks about his family breaking up. Billie screams not yet. We later learn this refers to not being a man today.VI. The Destruction of Israel 12. O Jews, Your Time Has Come!The Persians in Tehran pour into the streets. But Jacob thinks small, of his own family and the time he had to sit through a class on child raising.VI. The Destruction of Israel 13. Come HomeJacob and Julia are cleaning up, the heart of child raising. Jacob has even arranged for the divorce papers before he goes to Israel. He reveals the existence and location of his personal masterpiece, which can’t speak for itself.Jacob signs for Julia for the first time, and she is overcome. They manage some togetherness as Jacob is applauded by Julia for his signing. It still might have been.VII. The BibleThis bible is the bible for Jacob’s novel, an instruction for how to read Ever Dying People. Note the instruction motif is built in. How to Play not how to live. Note what items are combined in his mind of memory.Jacob’s problem is revealed in medical terms but not spiritual terms. He uses a hair treatment that reduces testosterone and libido. He is afraid to tell Julia about any of it, even though she would have returned him to normal. His issue is self-induced. Once separated from Julia Jacob stops taking the medicine and loses all his hair. Reading The Odyssey to Benji, the last son, gives us Cyclops and the pun on Odysseus’ name which means “no one.” No one blinded me. Jacob is the local no one.Irv blesses Tamir but not Jacob. Here we have a peek at what happened to Jacob during his formative youth. In the preliminary reception and processing of volunteers for Israel at the airport, Jacob acts like his usual smart ass self. Notice that as per usual the army is not interested in his persona, his identity, just his vitals. They don’t find out he is a writer, for example. He is just a body to them.Isaac’s suicide is spliced in here. Memories of their wedding. Her 40th birthday. The big deal birthday party, the magic trick or process. Note that Jacob was effective in organizing this party and keeping it secret from Julia.Jacob doesn’t go to Israel and comes back home to Benji, his last supporter.Years later the dentist notices a growth in Jacob’s throat and he feels an urge to tell Julia, long since remarried. He calls her and the dialogue has not changed. He is the same with her. He seeks gentleness from her. He finally apologizes to her during the Days of Awe.We start to get conclusions: You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of. The Jewish fist and closeness. Love isn’t the absence of struggle. Love is struggle. Jacob would have had his struggle in Israel. But he chose not to go.Memories. A Leica camera from the past. Jacob gives it to Sam and it brings him out of Other Life. He takes pictures of life instead.Jacob is afraid to mention his throat pain to his doctor. Jacob thinks about his love for Sam, that it was distorted coming through his weak self instead of just through nurturing and play. This shows the effect of identity on love.VIII. HomeIn this material we process Foer’s use of a changed narrator to indicate internal developments in Jacob’s spirit. Here are examples:[Monologue with Narrator still in control]: OK,” Jacob said, but he thought , I don’t want this to happen. I’m not ready for this to happen. This cannot happen. He’d had that feeling two other times . . . [the narrator says he thought][Free monologue]: That’s interesting. What a stupid thing to say right then. What an unimportant, cheapening, disgusting remark. That’s interesting. [notice no intercession by a narrator]Now we are in the womb of the Odyssey episode with Odysseus returning to witness his dog Argus die of neglect on the dung heap. We have Jacob and the Vet [who used to be a classics professor and refers to Homer] where Jacob is to be reborn in the spirit. We get this:Vet: “Don’t forget how it ends,” the vet said, readying the needle. ”Argus dies fulfilled. His master has finally come home.”The narrator reports this: the vet said. This refers to Homer’s Argus not Jacob. Jacob has finally come home in another way.J: “But after so much suffering.” No narrator.Vet: “He has peace.” No narrator.Jacob didn’t tell Argus, “It’s OK.” The narrator is struggling for something to say.He told him: “Look at me.” Narrator is struggling in a limited role.He told himself: Life is precious, and I live in the world. How could the narrator know?He told the vet: “I’m ready.” Jacob is enough all in in life to be ready at least for this.As Jacob becomes stronger in identity, the narrator becomes weaker, that narrator that reflected the opinions of others, those opinions Jacob always worshipped. Now Jacob has some opinions of his own. Tikkun has begun.Ask yourself where Jacob at this point is on the plate in Appendix 2.Appendix 1Narrator Art.Bourgeois Narrators The revolutionary glory of this novel [Sentimental Education] is the synergistic art that delivers the subject matter. Flaubert said he developed a custom style for just this novel, for the subject or content of this novel. Not his customary style or the style of Madame Bovary, but a new style custom tuned specifically to this subject matter. So the question is what kind of style would be able to warm up these bourgeois characters whom Flaubert found so so repulsive. Warm up bourgeois sex, pigs in the poke? What kind of style works with bourgeois inspired restriction and limitation of human possibilities? What style would reflect the bourgeois tendency to try to please or impress others and the corresponding desire to influence those who are vulnerable? Flaubert uses with great skill and sophistication many different types of narrator in the text. A narrator reports a part of the text. It is the voice in the text. The over-all author selects how the narrator reports and what that narrator reports. Unlike Flaubert, most authors use the same type of narrator for the entire book, usually the third person omniscient, because that is the easiest to use. The first person, I said and I did, is also popular because easy.So for this purpose, think of a narrator as a mini-author and how you would describe an entire book written by such an author in the style of the narration in question. If you think of each of the narrators as a mini-author, then the “bourgeois narrators,” those narrators effaced by or influenced by a character, would be bourgeois authors whose art, according to Flaubert’s theories, would have limited artistic possibilities. Just as FM’s [Frederic Moreau] bourgeois-driven life generates limited emotional possibilities. By contrast, independent narrators as authors would have the best chance of producing the highest art, the art reaching the greatest in possibilities. Just as an independent life generates maximum human emotional possibilities.The effaced “bourgeois narrator” suggests in the most direct way the bourgeois condition, influenced or controlled by others and without independent individuality. In this novel, bourgeois narrators influenced by a character help deliver the story of bourgeois characters influenced by others. This is style speaking psychology. As Flaubert said in a letter: “What we have to cover is the interior of the man, which is very complex, but which comes out much more with the use of form.”Often the bourgeois narrator speaks in questions and is in effect questioning himself. Something like: “What should I do now?” Questioning himself is characteristic for one lacking secure independent identity and seeking the approval of others.Flaubert’s bourgeois narrators also include the narrator who uses typical romantic prose, trite phrases full of exaggeration. Here is my favorite in this novel, which blesses the moment of FM’s conquest of Mad. Dambreuse: “The tall trees in the clouds streaked the sky with long strips of red, and on every side there seemed to be a suspension of vital movements.” There is nothing vital in their relationship and the temporary pumping has stopped. The use of hackneyed phrases puts this romantic narrator in the influenced category, influenced by the typical phrases and exaggeration techniques previously used by other writers in the romantic tradition. Influence in this case leads to copying and repetition rather than independent art.The narrators on the independent side vary in the degree of independence Flaubert gives them. And on the influence side they likewise vary in the degree of influence or control to which Flaubert subjects them. Some paragraphs mix different types of narrators. The nature of the narrator shifts frequently. Here are extreme examples of different kinds of narrators. Consider each of these the entire paragraph:1. Wow! A sexy figure! In bed with her! 2. Upon seeing Mad. A, FM thought she had a really sexy figure and could only dream of going to go bed with her. He missed seeing the better blonde who was near by.3. Upon seeing Mad. A FM immediately thought of graceful willows gently yielding in the wind and rose bushes pregnant with swelling buds. The nearby road, if you will, wound into the blushing sunset.The first example is a narrator totally effaced or influenced by the male’s thoughts. The narrator only reports what the man’s mind is occupied with and not other events. This is an example of a fully bourgeois narrator, a narrator influenced by another, indeed totally taken over by another. There is no “he said” or the like to reestablish the narrator. The narrator is totally effaced.You have to buy in on this point in order to get the most out of this novel. A narrator taken over by a character’s thoughts is the analog of being under bourgeois influence and not independent. Again and again, Flaubert uses this type of narrator, the bourgeois narrator, to report FM’s highly volatile subjective condition and his mental impressions, what he sees and how he sees it, especially when he is influenced by his mother fixation or Mad. A. The bourgeois narrator is frequently used to report FM questioning himself. For example: “What does she think of me?” The bourgeois narrator is not used, for example, for a character to express thoughts of independence, such as “Stick with your principles. Don’t care what she thinks.”Flaubert does not use the first person narrator: I saw her and I thought she was sexy. That type of narrator does not work for Flaubert because such a narrator would by its very nature be immune to a charge of influence or control by another. The “I” or first person narrator cannot be effaced in the sense Flaubert uses it.2. Upon seeing Mad. A, FM thought she had a really sexy figure and could only dream of going to go bed with her. He missed seeing the better blonde who was near by.This second example above is a neutral, independent and omniscient third party [third party--he thought and he missed] narrator reporting independently and without bias what FM is thinking but is not limited to his thoughts. The narrator is capable of seeing what FM does not, namely the blonde. 3. Upon seeing Mad. A FM immediately thought of graceful willows gently yielding in the wind and rose bushes pregnant with swelling buds. The nearby road, if you will, wound into the blushing sunset.The third example is a romantic style narrator whose descriptions are influenced by how similar feelings have been previously described in romantic literature. These narrations often contain totally gratuitous material justified only as expressions of a subjective emotional state [“The nearby road. . .”]. In some cases Flaubert jokes by using “as it were” or “if you will” to call attention to and excuse metaphors of this romantic or “over the top” type. Note that “if you will” itself literally suggests influence or control.A more subtle variation of the bourgeois narrator is the “limited third party narrator,” one of Henry James’ [came after Flaubert] favorite tools. From anenberg learner:For some readers, he seems to neglect "flesh and blood" problems in order to focus on the neurotic anxieties of over-privileged, self-absorbed characters. But for James, the value of fiction writing lay in providing "a personal, a direct impression of life," which to him was best achieved not by chronicling material conditions but rather by examining the subjective, psychological complexities of human beings. His interest in psychology led him to develop the use of limited third-person narration, which is often regarded as one of his major contributions to American fiction. By relying on narrators who are not omniscient but instead render descriptions and observations through the limitations of the central character, James opens his stories to ambiguity. Readers must do more work--and involve themselves more in the process of meaning-making--to understand the relationship of the stories to their narration.For an example of limited third party, we could use:He saw the new girl in the crowd in the hallway. He considered her perfect in every respect.This is third party because it uses He saw and He considered, not the first person I saw and I considered or the thought “There she is”. The sentence suggests subjective limitation by looking at only one girl in the crowd and considering her perfect, when the reader knows no human is perfect. If it said “He only saw the new girl” then the narrator would be more neutral.As noted by Auerbach, Flaubert uses otherwise neutral third party narrator descriptions of situations which are distorted or colored or selected according to the attitudes of a character. In Madame Bovary, the distorting emotion was Emma’s despair at being trapped in a small town and what she thought was a small life. In this novel, the distorting emotion is FM’s bourgeois attitude or outlook. Flaubert mixes that attitude in descriptions through FM’s point of view. This type of narrator gives us a radically subjective and destabilized world [Williams 101]. These are Maya narrators.This type of narrator, the limited third party, is hard to detect without a full understanding of the situation involved. Full understanding is necessary to contrast with the reported limited understanding.Flaubert uses a mixture of all these different types of narrators chosen in the individual instance depending on the degree of bourgeois effect he wished to indicate and in general to achieve variety and maintain reader interest. Often the type of narrator changes in the same paragraph to suggest psychic movement toward more bourgeois or less bourgeois.For an exercise, consider the following passage from Part I Chapter 1, an early [second in the novel] use of the bourgeois narrator. It is used to describe the highly energized reaction of FM upon first seeing Mad. A. It can teach us how Flaubert works the narrator mode [imperfect verbs in italics]: Never before had he seen more lustrous dark skin, a more seductive figure, or more delicately shaped fingers than those through which the sunlight gleamed. He stared with amazement at her work-basket, as if it were something extraordinary. What was her name, her place of residence, her life, her past? He longed to become familiar with the furniture of her apartment, all the dresses that she had worn, the people whom she visited; and the desire of physical possession yielded to a deeper yearning, a painful curiosity that knew no bounds.The first sentence, even though third party, is heavily influenced by FM’s attitude and attraction-based exaggeration [“never had seen a more seductive figure . . .”] It barely hangs on as third party and threatens typical romantic writing with “fingers than those through which the sunlight gleamed.” The second sentence retreats to a more independent narrator bolstered in independence by “as if”. It reliably tells us he is dazed by telling us he stared at her commonplace workbasket as if it were something extraordinary. Then comes the third sentence in the form of questions, the all-out bourgeois narrator taken over by FM. These are questions he asks himself; he is questioning himself. The last sentence moves back toward romantic influence; it is like the first, heavily influenced by FM’s attitude resulting in yearning-powered romantic exaggeration. It does not hold back the romantic aspect. So the paragraph goes from some romantic to less bourgeois to most bourgeois to more romantic. By proximity placement, the most bourgeois third sentence seems to produce the full-on romantic last sentence.Another example is from Part II Chapter 3, which describes FM waiting on a street corner for Mad. A for their initial assignation, a hot moment for FM. The bourgeois narrator is indicated by lack of bold font [only appropriate], the independent by bold and the limited third party by underlining:*No doubt she had met with some impediment, and for that reason she must be enduring pain on account of it. But what delight would be afforded in a very short time! For she would come—that was certain. "She has given me her promise!" **In the meantime an intolerable feeling of anxiety was gradually seizing hold of him. Impelled by an absurd idea, he returned to his hotel, as if he expected to find her there. ***At the same moment, she might have reached the street in which their meeting was to take place. ****He rushed out. #Was there no one? ##And he resumed his tramp up and down the footpath.###He stared at the gaps in the pavement, the mouths of the gutters, the candelabra, and the numbers above the doors. The most trifling objects became for him companions, or rather, ironical spectators, and the regular fronts of the houses seemed to him to have a pitiless aspect. He was suffering from cold feet. He felt as if he were about to succumb to the dejection which was crushing him. The reverberation of his footsteps vibrated through his brain.####When he saw by his watch that it was four o'clock, he experienced, as it were, a sense of vertigo, a feeling of dismay. He tried to repeat some verses to himself, to enter on a calculation, no matter of what sort, to invent some kind of story. Impossible! He was beset by the image of Madame Arnoux; he felt a longing to run in order to meet her. But what road ought he to take so that they might not pass each other?The * material is a bourgeois narrator totally taken over by FM’s thoughts as if inside his head. It changes to “She has given me . . .” which is also his thought as he speaks it to himself but as a quote somehow gives it some limited emphasis and distance. The ** material is a third party reporting what is happening to FM, not FM himself speaking. This narrator judges: “absurd” idea. This judging leaves open the possibility of influence but the narrator is relatively independent. This narrator explains: “as if he expected”.For the *** material, we are back to FM’s thoughts and the bourgeois narrator as in *.For the **** material, an independent third party narrator reports his movements. If this were first party, the text would report what he saw when rushing out or the effect of tripping.For the # material we are back to FM’s thoughts as in *. For ##, the ** narrator. If it said “He resumed his tedious tramp” the narrator would be judging.For the ### material, we have a third party narrator which starts as a limited third party [reporting his limited vision] and then changes to a fully independent third party judging: trifling, ironical, regular, pitiless. The “reverberation . . vibrated” is typical of romantic over the top writing.In ####, the narrator starts with a third party independent protected from romanticism by “as it were”. At “Impossible” is a fully bourgeois narrator of FM’s thoughts. At “He was beset” is back to a third party independent analyzing. “But what road” is back to his thoughts.Perhaps a continuum of narrator types would be helpful, running from most influenced to least influenced, from least independent to most independent:Direct thoughts of a character reported without quotes, sometimes in the form of questions and without a “he said” type handle. The ultimate bourgeois narrator.Direct thoughts of a character reported with quotes.Third party description influenced by romanticism.Third party description influenced by a character in terms of evaluation or reaction or restriction of outlook. James’ limited third party narrator.This is the middle, the DPZ or de-personalized zone. Now the independents:Third party description influenced by romanticism but protected by “as it were” or “as if” or “if you will.”Neutral omniscient third party description describing and judging. The judging possibly carries the bourgeois tendency to tell others what to do or think.Neutral third party description without judging.Neutral third party omniscient. The ultimate independent narrator.A few comments in advance:Most of the novel is delivered by an independent narrator so that when a bourgeois narrator is used it is jarringly noticeable.Conversation in quotes by its very nature must be reported by an independent narrator, so it is by necessity a neutral choice, it does not register independence or dependence. The reliable independent narrator is used for the whole truth deliveries in the text.The bourgeois narrators are used mostly for FM and when he is under the influence, being influenced by someone else or by his sense of insecurity, which is caused by worrying about what other people think about him. Some of his actions, such as acting on his own, are reported by an independent narrator.Mad. A almost always gets an independent narrator, even at her weakest moments. When she and FM are together, the bourgeois narrator is banished even for FM’s private thoughts.Appendix 2Middle East Earthquake Fault MapAppendix 3ReviewsBook of the dayJonathan Safran FoerHere I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer review – trouble on the home frontPersonal and political crises lead an American Jew to question his identity in an imperfect but engaging novelIn 3rd personal omniscient giving it the air of scripture.Alex PrestonSun 28 Aug 2016?02.00?EDTLast modified on Wed 21 Mar 2018?19.59?EDT HYPERLINK "" \l "img-1" INCLUDEPICTURE "" \* MERGEFORMATINET ?Jonathan Safran Foer: ‘The gaze he turns upon a relationship gone sour is withering and unblinking.’ Photograph: Jeff MermelsteinIn a 1993?New Yorker?review, John Updike eviscerated Philip Roth’s?Operation Shylock, calling it “an orgy of argumentation… which also has too many characters, numerous long speeches, and a vacillating, maddening?hero who in the end shows?the right stuff”. Jonathan Safran?Foer’s third novel,?Here I Am, bears more than a passing resemblance?to?Operation Shylock, and Updike’s waspish résumé of the earlier book’s faults might equally be applied to this hefty, often engaging, but ultimately flawed novel.“When the destruction of Israel commenced, Isaac Bloch was weighing whether to kill himself or move to the Jewish Home.” So opens?Here I Am, and the sentence is a neat encapsulation of the novel’s problematic oscillation between the personal and the political. It takes fully?half the book before we finally get?to the Israeli earthquake that unleashes a political crisis, and even here there’s the sense that the author would much rather be dwelling on the?private vicissitudes of his hero, Jacob Bloch, than on the annihilation of the Jewish state.Jacob is the grandson of Isaac, the son of rabid rightwing blogger Irv, husband to Julia and father of three sons – Sam, Max and Benji. Jacob is in his early 40s, a scriptwriter for a popular television series who published several successful novels in his 20s and is now working on a screenplay for a show based upon his own family’s life. Jacob and Julia, after years of apparently happy marriage, have hit the rocks. The opening chapters of the book are penetrated by a series of filthy text messages, which we understand to have been sent by Jacob to a female colleague.These early sections make gloriously painful reading. Safran Foer is brilliant on the quotidian tortures of marital discord, on the way that walls can suddenly spring up between people who’d thought they shared everything. “Julia could clip newborn fingernails with her teeth, and breast-feed while making a lasagne, and remove splinters without tweezers or pain, and have the kids begging for the lice comb, and?compel sleep with a third-eye massage – but she had forgotten how to touch her husband. Jacob taught the kids the difference between farther and?further, but no longer knew how to?talk to his wife.”?The zingy dialogue of the opening passages is replaced later by entrenched position-taking. Something is sacrificedHere I Am?was, according to its pre-publication blurb, “10 years in the making”, and a lot has changed in that time. Gone are the charming, precocious narrators of Safran Foer’s earlier novels, gone are many of the postmodern pyrotechnics and magic-realist?jeux?of?Everything Is Illuminated?and?Extremely Loud and?Incredibly Close, both of which were published when Safran Foer was in his 20s. Gone also is Nicole Krauss, to whom Safran Foer was married from 2004 to 2014 – the starriest of Brooklyn’s literary couples. This is a serious, grownup novel, written on the other side of great pain. The implicit parallel in the book between personal catastrophe and political crisis – between the break-up of the Bloch marriage and the earthquake and subsequent Arab-Israeli stand-off – might at first appear?absurd, hubristic. That the reader just about accepts the comparison is testament to?the coruscating acuity of Safran Foer’s prose, the withering and unblinking gaze he turns upon a relationship gone?sour.***Jacob Bloch’s midlife snafu is compounded by a crisis of religious identity initiated by the situation in Israel.?Here I Am?is divided into three broad sections. The first shows us Jacob and Julia as they drift apart, dealing all the while with their incontinent, lovable dog, Argus; with?their precocious, demanding children. It’s like a Jewish-American episode of?Outnumbered, with, glowering beneath, the real agony of Jacob’s betrayal, of Julia’s pain.The second, a shorter segment, brings us a white-knuckle rolling news?feed of the earthquake. We have long speeches from the prime minister of Israel, from the ayatollah,?an escalating sense of panic as the environmental catastrophe unravels into a political crisis. The section ends?with Israel’s government deciding to issue a call for the world’s Jews to bolster the country’s population, because “The?president of the United States could watch eight?million Israeli Jews be slaughtered, but not one hundred thousand American Jews”.The final section sees Jacob struggling with his position as a shrimp-eating agnostic “in the same?river of history” as the Jews suffering in Israel, wondering whether?his father is right to say that “the answer is the same to every question about us: because the world hates Jews”. Tamir, Jacob’s cousin, is visiting from Israel when the earthquake hits, a hard-nosed pragmatist who gives voice to Jacob’s anxieties about the authenticity of his identity as a Jew. “Every year you end your seder with ‘Next year in Jersusalem’,” Tamir says, “and every year you choose to celebrate your seder in America.” Jacob recognises that American Jews may be too soft for the battle ahead, Jews who “adjusted their aviator glasses with only the muscles in their faces while parsing Fugazi lyrics while pushing in the lighters of their hand-me-down Volvo wagons… They were miserable at sports, but great at fantasy sports. They avoided fights, but sought arguments. They were the children and grandchildren of immigrants, of survivors. They were defined by, and proud of, their flagrant weakness.”Over the course of this third section,?Safran Foer, with no little subtlety, shows us how the crisis in the?Middle East is experienced by Jacob and by extension by American Jews. Whereas the newsreel passage comes at us furious, breathless, insistent, the?earthquake and its aftermath are now presented as filtered, etiolated by the interjection of domestic crises, familial responsibilities. Tamir, as the man of action, is desperate to return to Israel;?Jacob is paralysed by indecision. We listen to a lot of speeches in this later section – the zingy dialogue of the?opening passages has been replaced by entrenched position-taking. It’s admirable and thought-provoking, but something is sacrificed in allowing Jacob’s dilemma to remain unresolved for so long. What might have been a brave and bravura ending is allowed to fizzle out. The political winnows down to the personal, and the novel finishes with Jacob, like David Lurie in JM Coetzee’s?Disgrace, deciding that kindness to animals might be all a human can aspire to in a?frantic and fractured world.Here I Am?is a surprisingly old-fashioned, realist novel of ideas, and sees Safran Foer moving away from the?playfulness and experimentation of?his earlier works. If he doesn’t go quite as far as Roth in?Operation Shylock?and give his protagonist his own name, there are numerous?Ben Lerner-ish hints that we should identify Jacob with his creator.?Here I Am?is the lament of one lost in the wilderness of midlife, a Generation X-er who finds being grown up more?frightening, less enchanted, than?he’d been led to believe it would be. The novel’s title refers to Abraham’s?reassuring words to Isaac?as?he leads him to the place of sacrifice, but it also speaks to the fraught questions of identity that propel the book’s narrative. As Jacob says, despairingly, towards the end of?the novel: “He was a father to the boys, a son to his father, a husband to?his wife, a friend to his friends, but?to whom was he himself?” ................
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