'Digging to America' - part 2

Digging To America

A Culture Clash in polite society– ethnic assimilation, resistance and narrative perspectives in Anne Tyler’s middle-class suburbia

Part 2

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Extracting key quotations on the theme of American-Iranian interactions can be a useful critical exercise:

..and Bitsy said, “Ah, well, Jin Ho doesn’t have that problem because we’re keeping the style she came with. I guess we just don’t feel we should Americanize her.”

    “Americanize!” Ziba said. “We’re not Americanizing!”                                             Chapter 2

“Is that right!” Bitsy turned to Mrs Hakimi. She knew it was laughable to think that a louder tone of voice would make her more easily understood, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself.      Chapter 3

Why couldn’t Ziba just shrug Bitsy off? Why was she so susceptible to Bitsy’s criticisms? Maybe they should find some Iranian friends. Enough of this struggle to fit in, to keep up!....Clapping Brad’s broad, damp back, stumbling around the yard in a clumsy dance, Sami imagined that to the relatives, the two of them must resemble two characters in some sitcom, two wild and crazy Americans, two regular American guys.                                                                                              Chapter 4

Dave laughed. He enjoyed the Yazdans. On the surface they seemed all primary colors, so innocent and impressionable, but he’d had glimpses of more complicated interiors from time to time. Mr Hakimi, for instance. Now, there were some darker hues, for sure.                                                   Chapter 5

  “Oh, no? Tell me,” she said putting on an earnest tone of voice, “what are your people’s folktales, Maryam? What are your local customs? Tell me your quaint superstitions.  “You should have been at Farah’s with me,” Maryam told her. “Then you wouldn’t ask. Such a point her husband makes about her foreignness! It seems she’s not really Farah at all: she’s Madam Iran”    

  “Dave wouldn’t do that.””                                                                                      Chapter 6

As well as saying something about the contrasts and the contradictions on both sides of Tyler’s ethnic fence – about host community fetishization of foreigness or about immigrant community duality regarding Americanization – this sample tells us something equally significant about Tyler’s third person authorial voice. Look closely and it is just possible to differentiate between the American and the Iranian-American voices, but the differences are marginal. Despite many references to the importance of language by the characters, and despite some misunderstanding of verbs like ‘shanghai’ and ‘flummoxed’, Tyler maintains a similar tone, register, lexis and syntax for all her characters, so much so that the narrative told from seven year old Jin Ho Donaldson’s point of view sounds more or less like most of the other chapters. Tyler is clearly more interested in describing thoughts and feelings from particular viewpoints without voice impersonation or ventriloquism, so that her third-person narrative voice remains consistent, albeit with an occasionally characteristic ‘note’ consistent with the chapter’s designated standpoint.

But not in Chapter 1 - a notable exception to the patterns established by the rest of the novel, and an opening which deserves more attention than I have space for here. Set in Baltimore airport, Tyler chooses to describe the arrival of the South Korean infants Susan and Jin Ho without attaching narrative perspective to any character. Instead, she adopts an intermittent second person voice, putting the reader in the position of a roving, ostensibly neutral observer:

‘But you could hear a distant hum, a murmur of anticipation, at the far end of Pier D….Step around the bend, then, and you’d come upon what looked like a gigantic baby shower…’ And as observers, or, perhaps more accurately, like theatre-goers watching a play in ‘real’ time, we are invited to witness what the characters look like, hear them speaking and observe their actions; and, like a play, we are not allowed to know their names until the characters tell us: ‘  “Donaldson. That’s us,” the father to be said.’

 Although Tyler’s unattached perspective is unique to this chapter, never to be repeated, it is here she manipulates an apparently ‘neutral’ viewpoint in order to introduce a key theme developed throughout the novel as a whole, namely the marginalization of non-European immigrants: ‘ “Yaz –dan,” the woman called from the rear. It sounded like a correction. The crowd parted again, not certain which way to move but eager to be of help, and three people no one had noticed before approached in single file: a youngish couple, foreign-looking, olive-skinned and attractive, followed by a slim older woman…’ By ‘ignoring’ the Yazdan characters until this moment, Tyler puts the reader into an uneasy, collusive relationship with the well-meaning yet self-absorbed and blithely over-bearing Donaldsons, Tyler’s representatives of mainstream Americanism, to whom the Yazdans are either invisible or ‘foreign looking’.

Any conclusions about Tyler’s own point of view on the complex world she represents in Digging To America might tentatively be drawn from the final chapter, again from Maryam’s perspective, where, initially, she reflects on the hard lessons to be learned from her break-up with Dave Donaldson:

For the sake of being needed she had linked herself to a man so inappropriate that she might as well have fished his name out of a hat. An American man, naïve and complacent and oblivious, convinced that his way was the only way and that he had every right to rearrange her life. She had melted the instant he said, “Come in,” even though she knew full well that inclusion was only a myth. And why? Because she believed that she could make a difference to his life.

And yet, by the end of the chapter, she is once more ‘seduced’ by the neediness of the whole Donaldson family, as they call for her to come with them to the Arrival Party:

“It’s us!” Bitsy called. “It’s all of us! Maryam, are you there? Please open up. We’ve come to collect you for the party. We can’t have the party without you! Let us in, Maryam.”

For Tyler, it seems that the insistence of Americanization can be resisted to a degree, but that the process of assimilation has a certain inevitability about it. As Farah, ‘Madam Iran’, observes about a  party at the Hakimis’, the second generation Iranian-Americans appear to be ‘ “…losing their culture, the young ones….They go through all the motions but keep looking at everyone else to see if they’ve got it right. They try to join in but they don’t know how…”’

Few would argue that Anne Tyler’s representation of this multi-faceted social world is not wonderfully observed, often sharply ironic and, at it’s best, rich with ambiguity and paradox. And for the curious reader, interested in developing post-colonial perspectives, the novel’s ‘narrative gaps’ provide a fertile area for exploration: the issue of country to country adoption, for instance, has become a controversial issue in recent years, especially in relation to South Korea, where serious questions have been raised about the continuing social policy of sending babies for export as an alternative to supporting their disadvantaged mothers; further internet research reveals potential problems facing  Korean children growing up in countries they didn’t choose to be sent to. It would appear that many adopted South Koreans experience increasing feelings of isolation and disorientation, painfully related to a growing sense of being rejected, not just by their biological parents, but by their home country. Set against these contexts, discussions about the characterization of Susan Yazdan – a South Korean girl brought up by Iranians in Baltimore – take on a whole new cultural dimension.

“The #1 Baby Exporter”

South Korea has struggled over the years with the label koasuch´ulguk or “orphan exporter”.  A general feeling exists inside South Korea, and many other countries as well, that international adoption is “a shameful admission to the world of the government’s inability to care for its own, the loss of a vital national asset, and … the ultimate example of exploitation by rich nations of the poor nations of the world.”  South Korea’s position has been made all the harder when starting in the 1970s, North Korea used international adoption in its public rhetoric against South Korea.  Here is a taste of what was reported in the North Korean newspaper, the Pyongyang Times:  “The traitors of South Korea, old hands at treacheries, are selling thousands, tens of thousands of children going ragged and hungry to foreign marauders under the name of ‘adopted children.”

South Korean Adoptions: Canary In The International Adoption Mine?

Posted by Dawn - September 13th, 2011

'Digging To America': A Culture Clash in polite society– ethnic assimilation, resistance and narrative perspectives in Anne Tyler’s middle-class suburbia. Part 1

Considering MM's relation to this genre throws up a number of interesting questions, the first obvious one being, in what ways is she interested in americanisation and immigrant experiences? Intellectually clearly, and politically too, but in terms of culture and gender, for instance, does she tend to accept or resist convention? It's worth a look, if not a thesis.

This article, what I wrote in 2008, first appeared in emagazine in the UK.

Digging To America

A Culture Clash in polite society– ethnic assimilation, resistance and narrative perspectives in Anne Tyler’s middle-class suburbia.

“Such a noisy bunch, Iranians could be! More than once Dave had pointed out that they were a whole lot noisier than the Donaldsons. Maryam would have to concede his point, but still it seemed to her that the Donaldsons were…oh, more self-vaunting, self-advertising. They seemed to feel that their occasions – their anniversaries, birthdays, even their leaf-rakings – had such cataclysmic importance that naturally the entire world was longing to celebrate with them. Yes, that was what she objected to: their assumption that they had the right to an unfair share of the universe.”

                                                                                             Digging to America by Anne Tyler

For five hundred years America has experienced wave after wave of mass immigration. From the 16^th to the 18^th century, new Americans arrived as enslaved Africans or western European colonisers; over the last two hundred years sources of immigration into the US have globalised, with migrations from all over Europe, the Middle East and Asia, from South and Central America, from Africa and the Caribbean. As a nation populated by people with roots in other nations, speaking different languages, holding onto ‘old country’ traditions and values, it’s not surprising that fictional representations of immigrant experiences in the United States have become embedded in American Literature. Literally hundreds of novels have been written on this subject, more than fifty in the last fifteen years alone.



One of the most ambitious and hard –hitting examples of this recent crop is Annie Proulx’s 1996 epic Accordion Crimes. Spanning a century of turbulent history, the novel’s remarkable central protagonist is a green diatonic button accordion, skilfully hand-made by a Sicilian anarchist who sails to New Orleans in 1890, full of hope for a better life. Within a year, however, he is brutally murdered by an anti-union, anti-Italian lynch mob and, as the story unfolds over nine further episodes, his instrument passes into the hands of a succession of immigrant families from different ethnic backgrounds. Their lives are typified by poverty, violence and racism, mainly as victims, but also as perpetrators: in the novel’s epigraph, Proulx cites Cornel West’s observation that “Without the presence of black people in America, European Americans would not be ‘white’ – they would be only Irish, Italians, Poles, Welsh and others engaged in class, ethnic and gender struggles over resources and identity.” In Accordion Crimes, Proulx’s representation of de-mythologised immigrant experiences emphasises the cruel cultural and physical costs paid by new arrivals fighting for survival in the ‘land of opportunity’.

Anne Tyler’s 2006 novel Digging To America, contributes to this genre of immigration literature in a completely different way. Rather than setting cultural collisions against a gritty backdrop of urban poverty or rural racial tension, Tyler constructs her contemporary story in the comfortable homes and leafy suburbs of bourgeois Baltimore. Without obvious melodrama, Tyler explores the subtle and pervasive influence of ordinary, everyday social interaction on perceptions of ethnic identity, for both the immigrant and ‘host’ communities. Lined up for the middle-class characters in Digging To America there are a succession of Iranian/American parties, a few minor confrontations, countless opportunities for thoughtful reflection as well as a significant romantic interest. Essentially, the cast perform a modern comedy of ethnic manners, as they strive earnestly to adjust to the unspoken codes of a foreign culture. If this sounds a little light-weight, when compared with Proulx’s narrative, for instance, then think again: Tyler’s breezy style belies a serious interest in the gradual processes of change – on outlook, behaviour and identity - that result from regular, often daily, social contact between families from different racial backgrounds. Rivalry and friendship, resistance, acceptance and fascination create an ever-evolving dynamic in Tyler’s world, represented as a shifting balance of power which is both private and public, the subtle struggle for cultural advantage influencing individuals and communities. Maryam Yazdan, perhaps the most significant character viewpoint in the novel, reflects on her own experience of Americaization in terms which are obviously personal yet somehow global:

“Americans are all larger than life. You think that if you keep company with them you will be larger too, but then you see that they’re making you shrink; they’re expanding and edging you out. I could feel myself slipping away.”

From August 15^th 1997 (‘Arrival Day’ in Baltimore for the two South Korean baby girls destined for adoption) to August 15^th 2004, Digging To America unfolds a complex narrative of multi-cultural suburban life, as different generations of the Iranian-American Yazdan family adjust to the forces of Americanization, mediated through their growing friendship with the Donaldsons, a white liberal American family who, far from asserting any overtly supremacist attitudes, appear acutely sensitive to and supportive of  all things ethnic. In Tyler’s Baltimore, assimilation is a two-way street where elements of the ‘host’ community value ethnicity, often expressed as a fascination with the ‘exotic’, just as elements of the ‘immigrant’ community embrace conformity to the American way of life.

The time-sequence and structure of the novel are clearly designed to chart the steady evolution of these influences. Told chronologically, at a fairly even pace over ten chapters, the story avoids both major time leaps and lengthy flashbacks, though there are many opportunities for Tyler to have her characters reflect on their own ‘back’ stories. As for what happens in the novel, the events the story chronicles are far from sensational, with many of the most dramatic moments – critical illness, death and relationship break-ups, for example - happening ‘offstage’, as reported incidents. Tyler creates tension and interest from this potentially mundane material by focussing sharply on disparities and contrasts, sometimes startling, sometimes shrewdly comic, relating each chapter’s proceedings from a different character’s standpoint (with the notable exception of Chapter 1, which offers a unique perspective and time-sequence and which I’ll return to later). For example: after ‘meeting’ all the main characters at the airport in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 focuses on events – including the Donaldson’s leaf-raking party - from Maryam’s viewpoint; Chapter 3 sees things through the intensely liberal eyes of Bitsy Donaldson; and Chapter 4 is written from the often contradictory perspective of Sami Yazdan. This kind of basic analysis reveals a number of  things about Tyler’s techniques: firstly, it’s clear that she wants to establish some kind of balance between points of view from both communities; that she consciously avoids matching characters directly to dramatic events in order to focus on more distanced, observed responses, rather than on immediate emotional reactions; that she explores a range of ‘reliabilities’ regarding her character viewpoints, from the relatively unreliable seven year old Jin Ho Donaldson in Chapter 9,  to the highly reliable (if a little snooty) Maryam in Chapters 2, 6 and 10;  and that, in giving Maryam Yazdan the lion’s share of perspective, it’s fairly safe to conclude that Tyler is most interested in representing this character’s sensibilities at greater length and in greater depth.

Merry McCarthyness!

McCarthy Theatre Critic - still resonating after all these years

Sales Figures

A skillful new Broadway revival of Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman cannot overcome the flaws of this dated and stilted play

By Judith Miller|March 22, 2012 

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Left to right: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Finn Wittrock, Andrew Garfield, Elizabeth Morton, Stephanie Janssen in Death of a Salesman, directed by Mike Nichols. (Brigitte Lacombe)

Was I a “glutton for punishment”? That’s what Mary McCarthy called theatergoers who subjected themselves to plays she called “sadistic fantasies in realistic disguise.”

Mary McCarthy hated Death of a Salesman. I did, too.

So, I thought about her as I watched Mike Nichols’revival of the 1949 iconic drama, currently at Broadway’s Ethel Barrymore Theatre, that critics have long called Arthur Miller’s masterpiece, his finest play, indeed, an American tragedy.

There was much to praise in Nichols’ rendition of Death. But despite his brilliant direction of a gifted cast, superb sets, lighting, and music, my aversion to this play could not be denied: Salesman is awful.

To begin with, Death of a Salesman is melodrama, not tragedy, as the old chestnut about the play asserts. Two men are discussing the play after a performance. “Such a pity!” one says to the other. “He had the wrong territory.”

The dialogue of this ostensibly timeless American saga is dated, clunky, and artificial. Consider the play’s emotional climax—long-suffering wife Linda’s impassioned defense of her husband, who has descended into suicidal dementia even before being fired. “Attention must be paid,” she says. And in case you missed it the first time, Linda repeats her shrill command: “Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person.”

Who talks like that? No one. Who ever did?

The words ring false because they are false. And this artificiality underlies the play’s essential flaw—its absence of real characters. Willy Loman is, as Linda needs to remind the audience, a person. Or make that a Person. For as McCarthy wrote in Sights and Spectacles, 1937-1956, Willy is a “capitalized Human Being without being anyone.”

Although Willy seems to be Jewish, judging by his speech cadences, he could not be Jewish because as McCarthy observed, he had to be “America.” “Wholly conceptualized,” she wrote, the play is filled with stereotypes, with “cut-out figures.” Willy Loman is not a man, but a “type.”

Miller’s own stage directions make that clear. Willy’s mistress is called the Woman. Willy is called the Salesman.

Miller’s ambitions were obviously huge. By erasing Loman’s specificity as a human being—as a Jewish salesman—Miller undoubtedly thought he was creating something grander and more enduring. But as the Greeks surely should have taught us, tragedy is universal only when those experiencing it are seen as flawed individuals, not merely stand-ins for the “common man.” Miller’s desire to erase Loman’s specificity to give him universal resonance created an abstraction, or as the (Jewish) joke suggests, a salesman with rotten territory.

Miller, of course, was not the only writer of his era who sought such universal resonance in assimilation. The promotion of “humanist” politics was characteristic of many liberal and leftist Jewish writers of his generation. But just as McCarthy was astonished by the play’s popularity at the time, its endurance—its performance at every high school, college, and regional theater company, not to mention at least four revivals on Broadway—attests to the flatness of the dramatic earth around it, the relative paucity of great tragedy from American playwrights, then and now.

Most critics, of course, did not share McCarthy’s view. As the hosannas piled up, Miller became a celebrity, and his sense of his worth and work grew as well. In an interview with Christopher Bigsby in 1990, he compared Death—favorably—to King Lear. The problem withLear, he says, is that the gloom is “unalleviated.” Setting aside “the beauty of the poetry,” Miller observes, “Lear is unredeemed; he really goes down in a sack, in a coal chute.”

McCarthy, too, compared Miller’s play to Lear. Both plays, after all, deal with “an old man, failing powers, thankless children and a grandiose dream of being”—as she put it—“well-liked.” But Lear was not just any old king. “He is Lear.”

bloggerlees' radical youth : MM & RAR

A bit of context - while researching and meeting the magnificent MM in the early 80s, I was active in the Anti-Nazi League and Rock Against Racism, campaigns that were pivotal in defeating fascist groups the British National Party and the National Front. One of my jobs in Hull RAR was to help produce silk-screen posters promoting anti-racist gigs: with agit-prop artwork inspired by Paris 68, the incomparable German anti-fascist John Heartfield and The Clash, the poster designs seemed to stand the test of time, and were collated for an exhibition in Hull in 2007, as part of celebrations marking the bicentenary of the end of the slave trade in the British empire. Will Slater made this short film promoting the exhibition at the Ferens Art Gallery, shown on the hour every hour for six weeks on a big giant screen in the city centre - Yaphet Kotto has never rocked so many shoppers.

40,000 plus pageviews ! Welcome Palestine: Margaret Atwood, on receiving the MM Award, predicts: "The beleaguered Palestinians will finally be a recognized state." - an event picketed by pro-palestinian protesters

On Friday, May 21, I went to upstate New York to partake in the ceremonies at Bard College, http://www.bard.edu/, where I had been given the Mary McCarthy Award. You should know that I admired Mary McCarthy, having read her famous novel, The Group, in 1963, but also that Mary McCarthy was one of the first reviewers of my 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. The review was a stinker, and gave my publishers much grief.  http://nyti.ms/ciy2TV Mary slapped my wrists, especially, for my deplorable lack of imagination.  (True, in a way, as my rule for The Handmaid’s Tale was not to put in anything that hadn’t happened, at some time, somewhere.)

This review gave me grief of a different kind, as well: interviewers always ask you about your bad reviews, hoping for quotable sparks, but I’d received a letter from The Times telling me that Mary McCarthy had suffered a stroke shortly before writing the review. Could I say, “Well, what do you expect, she’s just had a stroke?” That would be too mean. So I said, “I was bought up never to say rude things about people much older than myself,” which seemed about the best I could do under the circumstances.

But, dear Mary, all is forgiven – I am now almost the same age as you were when you wrote that review, and I can see all sorts of  — what shall we call them –challenges? addlements? – coming my way. In any case, your review did not finish off my career the way it might have; and I learned from the experience, and vowed never to review books I don’t like or understand. So I was happy to accept.

But beyond that, Bard is a very impressive institution – a small, underfunded liberal arts college which nevertheless manages to practice many creative forms of outreach through its affiliated institutions, http://www.bard.edu/institutes/, including a very successful prison programme http://www.bard.edu/cep/ and a number of educational initiatives in Palestine: http://www.alqudsbard.org/Among the graduates was Carlos Rosado Jr., who’d just been released from prison. His Project was  “The Diet of Punishment: The Transformation of Prison Food in the Post-Rehabilitative Era.” It included the raising of organic vegetables, I understand. He’d be a great speaker for the Save Our Prison Farms rally in Kingston, Ontario, on June 6:  www.saveourfarms.ca — an effort to change the Federal Government’s short-sighted plans to close all the prison farms – dealing a blow to community food efforts, retraining programmes, and prisoner health, and upping the public’s long-term prison bill. (We know that in-prison training reduces recidivism, and that interaction with nature markedly reduces illnesses in prison.)

In any case, here’s what I said to the Class of 2010.

Commencement  AddressMargaret Atwood came to Bard College on Friday, May 21st to receive the Mary McCarthy award, after accepting the Dan David prize at Tel-Aviv University.  Bard was hosting the President's dinner and awards ceremony at Fisher Center.

The protest was at the intersection of Annandale Rd. and Manor Ave. (on Bard campus) from 4:30 PM - 6:30 PM. We had about 18 people and were gathered along the road leading to the Fisher Center.

Bard College: Commencement Address and Mary McCarthy Award

Dear Class of 2010:

Congratulations! You must all have a great sense of relief – you made it through, you have now graduated from Bard College – a unique and extraordinary liberal arts college, battle-scarred but still bravely standing — where you will have gained invaluable experience in thinking outside the box and in dancing to a surprisingly different tune. I thank Bard for inviting me here, and for the honour they have done me.

I don’t deserve all the nice things you’ve said about me – a writer is doomed once he or she starts believing the billboards — because it’s part of the novelist’s job to represent humanity in its wholeness –warts and all – and you can’t really get into those warts without having some of them yourself. Yes, I am a warty person.

For who but a warty person – or, to put it in more romantic terms, one who has visited the shadow side — would have written two fun-filled, joke-packed novels about the almost total annihilation of the human race? I didn’t get any literary awards for those. Judges might warm to the idea of an atrocity or two, but the entire human race?  Note to self: Margaret. You’re an idiot. You went too far.

I hope these novels will remain just that – novels – and that you won’ t be faced with what’s in them. Still, you must have some apprehension. Ahead of you lies The Rest of Your Life, and that can be a daunting prospect, especially in these tough economic times. The difference between someone your age and someone my age is that I kind of know the plot. I know how my story is likely to turn out, and not so far from now. But you don’t, and that can be very anxiety-making.

Let me try to remember what it was like to be roughly your age – some 47 years ago.

The reason for my being invited here to Bard was the Mary McCarthy Award, which I have incongruously but gratefully received – and, as it happens, when I was your age I was reading Mary McCarthy’s famous 1963 novel, The Group. I can remember exactly where I was reading it – in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the bathtub on the third floor of a Women’s Graduate residence. It was a rambling 19^th century classical white New England building – unbeknownst either to itself of to me, it would later serve as the model for the Commander’s house in my 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale.  It was a warm late spring day; my just-washed hair had been shellacked with a green gel product called Dippity Do and rolled onto big bristle rollers, in my ongoing struggle to make it straighter. The window blind was down, but the window was slightly open, kept from being raised higher by a lock, for this women’s residence was a magnet for prowlers, peeping Toms, and exposure artists.

I was just at the famous numerological sex scene in The Group when in through the open window came a large, hairy hand, groping around to see what might be accomplished. I thought of slamming the window down on it, or putting the wet soap into it, but I did nothing. I merely contemplated it, wondering to what literary uses it might be put. Surely Mary McCarthy would have known.

That story makes those times sound carefree. But consider: World War II had been over for a mere 17 years, and many countries were still recovering from the enormous trauma and destruction that war had caused. Elvis Presley had already occurred, but the Pill and mini-skirts and panty-hose and the Beatles were still in the future; so was the Woman’s Movement that began in 1968-9. Women at college were told they were there so they could make suitable dinner-table conversation once they married a lawyer. We lived in the shadow of the Cold War and the Atomic Bomb, convinced that we could be blown to smithereens at any moment. The Civil Rights Movement was trying to end segregation, and encountering violence and murder. The failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961 was followed swiftly by the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, which had scared us silly.

John F. Kennedy was the glamorous President, but he had less than a year to live: he would be assassinated on November 22 of that very same year. American involvement in the Vietnam War had already begun: a war Mary McCarthy would later oppose, as she opposed many things throughout her life. One of the many things she wasn’t too keen on was The Handmaid’s Tale, which she reviewed unfavourably for the New York Times. Lack of imagination, was her verdict. I suppose she just didn’t believe that religious extremism would ever get that powerful, though she did agree with the novel’s suspicion of credit cards.

Those of us entering The Rest of Our Life back then felt we were living in tense times. And we were. And so are you.  The problems you will face are to some extent predictable – who can now avoid the fallout from the economic meltdown of 2008? The ripples are still spreading. Then there’s the environmental and climate crisis. “If you want to make God laugh,” goes the joke, “tell him your plans.”  All gods were once weather gods, and the weather gods are laughing at us a lot.

With climate change will come water wars, and worsening conditions for crops, and famines – 25 million people entered the ranks of the malnourished in 2007 alone. Couple these conditions with growing demands for energy, and thus more Co2 and more global warming – how will such forces play out? As populations attempt to shift from less prosperous to more prosperous areas and conflicts threaten, more walls will go up, as those who have try to keep, and those who have not will in desperation try to storm the barricades. Epidemic diseases will break out.  What is a single individual to do? What can a single individual do? It will be part of your story to find out.

But more important for you to consider are the mental walls – the polarization and labelling that seem to be so characteristic of our times. When people can no longer talk about the problems they share, but can only scream as if the debate were one big shock jock radio rant, a democratic society is in trouble. Part of the screaming happens because, as a civilization, we’ve exhausted the usefulness of the old terms of reference –the traditional left and the traditional right have lost much relevance, as global financial systems twist under the strain and neither side seems able to come up with new, useful ideas. Choice of evils debates always produce extremism—people choose what they hope is the lesser evil, then call it good and demonize the other choice. It will be a challenge for your generation to synthesize – to move beyond Us versus Them, to We.

I sometimes make hopeful predictions rather than dire ones, so let me try a few. Situations that seem hopeless and deadlocked today can change in an instant. The Middle East situation will be resolved under the process begun by President Obama, when Israel realizes what many of its citizens already know – that to do otherwise would lead to disaster. The beleaguered Palestinians will finally be a recognized state. All parties in the region will join together to work on solutions to the vanishing water supply, for no one can survive more than three days without water. The entire Middle East, including Iran, will begin talks leading to a nuclear-free zone. Green energy technologies will improve to the point at which we are no longer eating and drinking oil. Industrial hemp – you’d have to smoke an acre to get high, so no threat there  –will once again be grown in the United States, adding a valuable fuel, food, and clothing crop, not to mention paper: the Declaration of Independence was written on hemp paper.

That’s about all the hope I can handle for today.

Back to Mary McCarthy. With her strong and energetic spirit, Mary McCarthy worked her way through various ideologies –adopting them, testing them, rejecting them, to arrive at a belief in – I quote –  “the necessity for creative autonomy that transcends doctrine.” That is the gift all warty novelists ultimately need to have, and that is the gift I would wish for you. It will allow you to work in communities, but not to be entrapped by them; to contribute what lies within your power, rather than what others tell you that you must. Above all, relish your sojourn on planet earth. It may be a strenuous and demanding time, but what time has not been? Enjoy the flowers. For happily, there are still many flowers to enjoy.

The reason why MM's lifelong friendship with HA has airbrushed both from Zionist history - Victory to Gaza

Hannah Arendt: Outstanding German Jewish political theorist critical of Zionists, Zionism and Israel

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975 ) was outstanding German Jewish political theorist and philosopher. She was the author of “The Origins of Totalitarianism” (1951), “The Human Condition” (1958) and numerous other important scholarly works. Her criticisms of Zionists and Israel drew inevitable condemnation from Zionists. She coined the term “the banality of evil” to describe Adolph Eichmann  (see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannah_Arendt ).Hannah Arendt in “Zionism reconsidered”, 1945: “Thus the social-revolutionary Jewish national movement, which started half a century ago with ideals so lofty that it overlooked the particular realities of the Near East and the general wickedness of the world, has ended – as do most such movements – with the unequivocal support not only of national but of chauvinist claims – claims not against the foes of the Jewish people but against its possible friends and present neighbors … But if the Jewish Commonwealth is proclaimed against the will of the Arabs and without the support of the Mediterranean people, not only financial help but political support will be necessary for a long time to come. And that may turnout to be very troublesome indeed for Jews in this country, who after all have no power to direct political destinies of the Near East. It may eventually be far more of a responsibility than today they imagine or tomorrow can make good.” [1]. Hannah Arendt, in a Letter with Albert Einstein and other scholars decrying Nazi-style Irgun Zionists like Menachaem Begin to the New York Times, 1948: “TO THE EDITORS OF NEW YORK TIMES: Among the most disturbing political phenomena of our times is the emergence in the newly created state of Israel of the "Freedom Party" (Tnuat Haherut), a political party closely akin in its organization, methods, political philosophy and social appeal to the Nazi and Fascist parties. It was formed out of the membership and following of the former Irgun Zvai Leumi, a terrorist, right-wing, chauvinist organization in Palestine. The current visit of Menachem Begin, leader of this party, to the United States is obviously calculated to give the impression of American support for his party in the coming Israeli elections, and to cement political ties with conservative Zionist elements in the United States. Several Americans of national repute have lent their names to welcome his visit. It is inconceivable that those who oppose fascism throughout the world, if correctly informed as to Mr. Begin's political record and perspectives, could add their names and support to the movement he represents. Before irreparable damage is done by way of financial contributions, public manifestations in Begin's behalf, and the creation in Palestine of the impression that a large segment of America supports Fascist elements in Israel, the American public must be informed as to the record and objectives of Mr. Begin and his movement. The public avowals of Begin's party are no guide whatever to its actual character. Today they speak of freedom, democracy and anti-imperialism, whereas until recently they openly preached the doctrine of the Fascist state. It is in its actions that the terrorist party betrays its real character; from its past actions we can judge what it may be expected to do in the future. Attack on Arab Village A shocking example was their behavior in the Arab village of Deir Yassin. This village, off the main roads and surrounded by Jewish lands, had taken no part in the war, and had even fought off Arab bands who wanted to use the village as their base. On April 9 (THE NEW YORK TIMES), terrorist bands attacked this peaceful village, which was not a military objective in the fighting, killed most of its inhabitants (240 men, women, and children) and kept a few of them alive to parade as captives through the streets of Jerusalem. Most of the Jewish community was horrified at the deed, and the Jewish Agency sent a telegram of apology to King Abdullah of Trans-Jordan. But the terrorists, far from being ashamed of their act, were proud of this massacre, publicized it widely, and invited all the foreign correspondents present in the country to view the heaped corpses and the general havoc at Deir Yassin. The Deir Yassin incident exemplifies the character and actions of the Freedom Party. Within the Jewish community they have preached an admixture of ultranationalism, religious mysticism, and racial superiority. Like other Fascist parties they have been used to break strikes, and have themselves pressed for the destruction of free trade unions. In their stead they have proposed corporate unions on the Italian Fascist model. During the last years of sporadic anti-British violence, the IZL and Stern groups inaugurated a reign of terror in the Palestine Jewish community. Teachers were beaten up for speaking against them, adults were shot for not letting their children join them. By gangster methods, beatings, window-smashing, and wide-spread robberies, the terrorists intimidated the population and exacted a heavy tribute. The people of the Freedom Party have had no part in the constructive achievements in Palestine. They have reclaimed no land, built no settlements, and only detracted from the Jewish defense activity. Their much-publicized immigration endeavors were minute, and devoted mainly to bringing in Fascist compatriots. Discrepancies Seen The discrepancies between the bold claims now being made by Begin and his party, and their record of past performance in Palestine bear the imprint of no ordinary political party. This is the unmistakable stamp of a Fascist party for whom terrorism (against Jews, Arabs, and British alike), and misrepresentation are means, and a "Leader State" is the goal. In the light of the foregoing considerations, it is imperative that the truth about Mr. Begin and his movement be made known in this country. It is all the more tragic that the top leadership of American Zionism has refused to campaign against Begin's efforts, or even to expose to its own constituents the dangers to Israel from support to Begin. The undersigned therefore take this means of publicly presenting a few salient facts concerning Begin and his party; and of urging all concerned not to support this latest manifestation of fascism. ISIDORE ABRAMOWITZ, HANNAH ARENDT, ABRAHAM BRICK, RABBI JESSURUN CARDOZO, ALBERT EINSTEIN, HERMAN EISEN, M.D., HAYIM FINEMAN, M. GALLEN, M.D., H.H. HARRIS, ZELIG S. HARRIS, SIDNEY HOOK, FRED KARUSH, BRURIA KAUFMAN, IRMA L. LINDHEIM, NACHMAN MAISEL, SEYMOUR MELMAN, MYER D. MENDELSON, M.D., HARRY M. OSLINSKY, SAMUEL PITLICK, FRITZ ROHRLICH, LOUIS P. ROCKER, RUTH SAGIS, ITZHAK SANKOWSKY, I.J. SHOENBERG, SAMUEL SHUMAN, M. SINGER, IRMA WOLFE, STEFAN WOLFE. New York, Dec. 2, 1948