Realism and Sacredness

Tennessee Williams' shocking play Suddenly Last Summer  is one of his efforts to confront, with an overwhelming amount of courage and honesty, the horror of sexual dissociation. Young Catharine, suspected of mental illness and under threat of lobotomy, is injected with a truth serum, and under its influence tells a terrible story. Her cousin Sebastian, who traveled with her abroad, exploited her to lure young men he could have sex with (as he had exploited his mother before her.) Eventually, a heated, incited mob of hungry, abused children, chases Sebastian in the streets of Spain and exacts a terrible revenge: they mutilate and murder him and even feast on his flesh. The story is too much for Sebastian's relatives to handle. It horrifies us, as well, and at the same time captivates us, as horrible things often do. There's a reason why cultural heritage is universally infused with stories of mobs and sacrifice. The classic, of course, is the Greatest Story Ever Told. The lu...

Shortly before the election, David Brooks published a fascinating piece titled Donald Trump's Sad, Lonely Life . Among other things, he writes: Imagine you are Trump. You are trying to bluff your way through a debate. You’re running for an office you’re completely unqualified for. You are chasing some glimmer of validation that recedes ever further from view.  Your only rest comes when you are insulting somebody, when you are threatening to throw your opponent in jail, when you are looming over her menacingly like a mafioso thug on the precipice of a hit, when you are bellowing that she has “tremendous hate in her heart” when it is clear to everyone you are only projecting what is in your own.  Trump’s emotional makeup means he can hit only a few notes: fury and aggression. In some ways, his debate performances look like primate dominance displays — filled with chest beating and looming growls. But at least primates have bands to connect with, whereas Trump is so alone,...

A few weeks ago, a trusted friend forwarded me an email from the mother of one of the inmates at Corcoran. There was a heatwave, she explained; there were no fans in the rooms and, with no ventilation, life for the inmates (many of whom were segregated) became unbearable. Several people were hospitalized. She wanted us to write to the warden. I did. I was careful to denote that I had no personal knowledge of the conditions, but cautious not to mention the sender of the email, out of fear of retaliation. A couple of days later, my friend forwarded me another email from the original sender; apparently, her son received some relief and said, "I don't know what you did, mom, but they came to check the temperature." Several days after these events I received a detailed email from the Corcoran warden. He wrote that the information I had was false and that I was misleading people, and attached a detailed heat protocol for the prison. I had to sit back and breathe a bit. Pe...

January 12, 1900. A 19-year-old Yosef Haim Brenner, freshly disillusioned with religion and with a Yeshiva boy career--and two years before his first novel, In Winter , will launch his meteoric literary career, writes to his soulmate and friend, Uri Nissan Gnessin: We must sacrifice our soul and decrease the evil in the world, evil of hunger, slavery, dismissal, hypocrisy, and the like. It is essential to understand everything, understand and distance ourselves from mysticism and mirages. It is essential to increase the realism and sacredness in the world. It is essential to mend the Israeli People's life to make it normal. And the terrible agony of my soul is the outcome of my doubts in general: Is there a remedy? Are we going forward? ... A few days ago I became a plant eater (vegetarian.) You are writing a historical poem - and that I do not understand. Can we afford to distract ourselves, even for a moment, from the present? Do you know the situation of our youth? Do you rea...