350 Years and Counting

By JOAN LEEGANT

NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF JEWISH AMERICAN LITERATURE
Edited by Jules Chametzky, John Felstiner, Hilene Flanzbaum, Kathryn Hellerstein.
1221 pages. W. W. Norton & Co. $39.95.

The Norton Anthology of Jewish American Literature—the newest in the impressive Norton stable, which now features compilations of African-American Literature, Literature by Women, Expository Prose, Short Fiction, and many others in addition to that staple of college survey courses, The Norton Anthology of Literature—is a welcome addition to the growing number of collections of Jewish writing now being published. While naturally covering some of the same ground as other recent anthologies—I'm thinking, for instance, of the fine Prairie Schooner Anthology of Contemporary Jewish American Writing edited by Hilda Raz–the Norton is distinguished by at least three characteristics that commend it to any reader interested in the broad sweep of Jewish American writing.

For starters, there is the sheer scope of years covered in this collection. Though from a literary point of view some readers may find the earliest selections among the least compelling, they are certainly of historical interest. The editors have assiduously unearthed an array of Jewish American writings dating back to 1654, consisting in part of diary entries, letters, public addresses, prayers, synagogue sermons and poems, including a particularly wonderful selection of poems by Emma Lazarus (1849-1887), whose lines grace the Statue of Liberty. They then move rather thoroughly forward in time to a final chronological section entitled "Wandering and Return: Literature since 1973," presenting 145 writers in all and showcasing many more individual pieces than that. Biographical notes accompany every writer presented, which, in keeping with the anthology's exhaustive approach to its material, go beyond the usual single paragraph or two outlining career highlights and provide insight into their artistic processes, personal lives and larger place in the culture.

Yet, even more than its chronological scope, what makes this anthology shine is the variety of genres presented. In addition to the expected fiction, poetry, essays and memoirs, the Norton takes the unusual step of including cartoons (nine pages from MAUS II, Art Spiegelman's bold Holocaust strip), song lyrics (selections from Oscar Hammerstein II, Irving Berlin, Stephen Sondheim and others), and a separate section devoted to Jewish humor, which contains, among other offerings, a "scattering of contemporary and perennial Jewish jokes." There is, as well, one play (Clifford Odets' "Awake and Sing!"), a generous sprinkling from A Bintl Briv from the Yiddish Forward, and a section at the end devoted to Jewish works in translation from the Hebrew, Yiddish, Italian, German, Hungarian and Spanish.

Contributing to this sense of variety is the choice of works presented. Thus, while we all know Arthur Miller as a great playwright, it is eye-opening and humbling to find in this anthology not a play by Miller but a short story. Norman Mailer is represented not by excerpts from his novels but by commentaries on the then-recently reissued Tales of the Hasidim by Martin Buber, which Mailer published in Commentary in the early sixties. While many of the "big names" of contemporary Jewish fiction—Bashevis Singer, Philip Roth, Malamud, Ozick and Grace Paley, for instance—are represented with their best known, and often most anthologized, work, the editors generously give two selections for each of these writers, bonuses that are especially welcome by readers familiar with these masters. The overall feeling is that, while the anthology contains many of the landmarks of Jewish American literature–readers will find here Ozick's "The Shawl," Philip Roth's "Eli the Fanatic," Ginsberg's "Kaddish," portions of Henry Roth's "Call It Sleep," Singer's "Gimpel the Fool"—this is not a collection that, like others on the market, merely replays the old standards.

Finally, in keeping with its breadth of scope, historical bent, and intended use in college classrooms, the anthology provides a comprehensive series of notes and commentaries which rival some those found in contemporary bibles and constitute, in themselves, a nearly complete study of Jewish American literature. These range from the exhaustive "General Introduction," which goes so far as to provide a brief history of the Jews, to the detailed discussion of the Jewish influence on Broadway in the section featuring Jewish songwriters. All these commentaries—there are eight in all, plus the "General Introduction"–give the reader a solid grounding in the cultural and historical context in which the works were created, and are invaluable aids to all readers, academic or not.

What, then, is there to quibble with? As with any anthology, but especially one with such a broad sweep, one is bound to feel shortchanged in some areas and a bit buried under in others. A fan of American songwriting, I found myself wondering how the Gershwin brothers, say, could have been left out, or, in the section on Jewish humor, why the editors restricted themselves to showcasing the work of only two humorists, Groucho Marx and Woody Allen. Presenting the work of only twenty-two writers since 1973, out of the many hundreds writing today, is naturally fraught with subjective judgment since the ultimate reputations of writers who publish currently is yet to be determined. These limitations are to some degree addressed by the editors and, in the case of the songwriters, is more than made up for in that section's notes, which mention the many lyricists who, for reasons of space, could not be included. In any case, the thorny issue of what is, and what is not, included is a given in anthologies, and one would be hard pressed to fault these editors for their choices, given their attempt, in over a thousand pages, to be as comprehensive as possible. Lastly, readers familiar with Jewish terminology and culture may find the heavy footnoting a distraction—the anthology is clearly edited in the mode of college literary texts—but that seems a small price to pay for having these works made available to a wider audience.