Book Discussion: The Great House

by Peter Shapiro
Read the review of this book in Reform Judaism magazine
See other Significant Jewish Books

A reader of Nicole Krauss's novel "Great House" in my judgment will either like it or dislike it but there will be no middle ground. The plot lines are complex and the central characters are difficult to identify with nor do they garner any empathy from the reader. They are chained to the past, having been exposed to losses that make it impossible for them to lead normal lives. For many those losses are rooted in the Holocaust.

Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, in her review states:

"The characters of 'Great House' lack all traces of exuberance. Normal life does not beckon them. They inhabit their sorrow with a lover's ardor, cultivating it into an art form. There is forbidding, and seductive, remoteness about them that captures those who draw too close and then can get no closer."

A common thread that binds these diverse characters is an artifact from the past, a writing desk. It is as an impediment to some welding them to the past and preventing them from considering a future. It is a crutch to others which when taken away leaves them mired in the past, unable to move forward with their lives. Another thread is an imaginary giant shark with electrodes and wires attached to its greenish body. It was dying, as were the sleeping patients to whom its wires were attached. The shark was a repository for human sadness, taking what in life the dreamers could not bear and absorbing their accumulated feelings. A third theme is writing, which in this case shields several of the characters from confronting the perils and joys of real life relationships.

The narrative reflects the characters' own shattered lives which have been shaped by what they have lost. It is difficult to garner the author's message from the plot lines.  The reader feels like he or she is putting together a complex jigsaw puzzle without the picture on the cover as a guide. It is not until almost the end of the book that the author injects the story of Rabbi Yochanan Ben Zakkai, who left Jerusalem, settling in Yavne shortly before the Temple was destroyed. On hearing of this unspeakable loss he instructed his students to compile more than one thousand years of oral law, stating that instead of making sacrifices to God, the Jews would now pray to Him. Those scholars got so absorbed in their work that they sometimes forgot the question ben Zakkai asked them to ponder: "What is a Jew without Jerusalem?"

The answer he wanted which evolved over time was:

"Turn Jerusalem into an idea. Turn the Temple into a book, a book as vast and holy and intricate as the city itself. Bend the people around the shape of what they lost, and let everything mirror its absent form."

Ben Zakkai's school became known as The Great House.

Nicole Krauss's message is that like the scholars at ben Zakkai's school one can be too absorbed in one's work or dwell too much in the past and then be unable to live in the present and have meaningful relationships with family friends and God.  The destruction of the Temple was an unspeakable loss that made normal life unbearable; yet the Jews were able to create a new and vibrant way of life and worship of God. In particular she makes the point that the Holocaust to some is a chain to the past and to others a crutch (i.e. a victim mentality), neither of which will benefit ourselves, our family or our community.

The author has little empathy for those affected by the Holocaust or a lost  child, a friend or a family member who fails to heed ben Zakkai's advice to remember the good that there was before the unbearable loss and build a new and vibrant life that mirrors those qualities and memories. It seems her premise is that those types of people and by extension the ultra-orthodox are like the giant shark sucking the life out of their relationships and society.

What message do you think the author wants to impart to the reader? What do our sacred texts say about how we should act after an unbearable loss and how individually and as a community we address that person's needs?  Do you agree with my initial premise that one will either like or dislike the book, there being no middle ground?

Please join the conversation. Your comments and questions are welcome.