Jane Yolen, The Devil's Arithmetic and Sister Emily's Lightship

[oyceter]

The Devil's Arithmetic: The YA counterpart to Briar Rose. Or rather, given the publication dates, Briar Rose is a more adult look at the Holocaust. Hannah, a girl who is sick and tired of hearing her relatives' stories about the Holocaust, ends up opening a door on Passover that leads to the life of Chaya, a Jewish girl in 1942. I was calmly reading most of the story, despite the horrors of Hannah-as-Chaya finding herself and her entire community sent away to a concentration camp.

I don't know if the -- I don't want to say "prevalence" -- maybe the cultural permeation of the Holocaust and of Holocaust narratives have somehow dulled the impact of yet another Holocaust narrative. I mean, there are works like Maus and Schindler's List, and there's also Life is Beautiful and Jakob the Liar. Not that I've seen Jakob the Liar. But sometimes it's as though the Holocaust has been distilled so anyone can use it if they want to make a tearjerker, and that seems wrong on very many levels.

I've only read the first book of Maus right now, but it reminds me a little of most of The Devil's Arithmetic. The horror is there, but it's off in the distance, buried under the daily hardships and worrying about food and learning how to survive. The blood inherent in the concentration camps has been momentarily hidden. It breaks out in the very last chapters of The Devil's Arithmetic, and suddenly, a book I thought I was emotionally all right about made me cry in bed. Part of it is because it's so sudden -- we know what goes on in the concentration camps, but it doesn't directly affect Hannah. And then, suddenly, it does, and three little girls go to the gas chambers.

Sister Emily's Lightship: Short stories! Jane Yolen does a lot of fairy tale/mythological/etc. rewrites, and for some of them, the endings can seem a little too "shocking" -- you can see Yolen trying hard to turn the formula over. While I liked her rewrite of Rumplestiltskin ("Granny Rumple") as a tale of bigotry and anti-Semitism and her rewrite of Snow White ("Snow in Summer") with a much less stupid Snow White, the revisions felt a little too PC or something. I don't know. It's that feeling of righting a fairy tale gone wrong, of fixing it so that it fits in with our modern morals. "Lost Girls," her redo of Peter Pan, felt like that as well (although I liked the disturbing picture of all the Wendys).

Ones that I did like were Allerleiraugh, a very disturbing rewrite of an already disturbing fairy tale (Donkeyskin/Coat of Many Colors/Tattercoats) and the satiric take on Beauty and the Beast and "The Gift of the Magi" in one ("The Gift of the Magicians, with Apologies to You Know Who"). I also liked the world of "The Thirteenth Fey" and the other two stories in that world -- reminded me a great deal of the Enchanted Forest of Patricia C. Wrede in terms of sensibility toward fairy tales. I also liked "Become a Warrior," a new fairy tale in the shape of the older ones; that is to say, bloody and rather merciless. And "A Ghost of an Affair," which is my idea of a good love story. I think I would have enjoyed the title story more if I knew more about Emily Dickinson. The only resonance it really had for me was one line in which she talks about her dog stopping for death, with the lines "Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me" ringing through my head. I suspect there are more snippets of her poems throughout the story, except I am not knowledgeable enough to pick up on them.

Comments

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

When she came to talk to my class, Jane Yolen talked about Terri Windling's Fairy Tale series and how the person who was supposed to do the Sleeping Beauty dropped out and there had already been publicity done saying a Sleeping Beauty was going to be coming out, so Terri asked Jane (who had been planning to do a Snow White, which ended up as "Snow in Summer" and she said she thinks it actually works better as a short story) if she would be interested in doing it and it's been a while since she came so i know i'm gonna blur some stuff. Anyway, i think Terri wanted her to give it a Jewish slant and Jane generally doesn't do Jewish themed stories and i think there was one other possible angle besides Holocaust that she said might have been a possibility but after The Devil's Arithmetic, for which she had immersed herself in the Holocaust for a year, she didn't want to do another Holocaust novel. Did i mention she was promoting The Devil's Arithmetic at this time? Yeah, it was *very* soon after she had immersed herself in all that research. Terri kept on her, though, and Jane said there was this thing about a castle she had heard about somewhere and Terri said "That's it, go with that!" but Jane couldn't remember where she had learned about it or even very much about it. Anyway, she was at a Jewish book convention or something, promoting The Devil's Arithmetic and it was lunchtime and she was looking for something to read and she picked up this Jewish history alphabet book and C was Chelmno and that was the castle and ultimately we got Briar Rose.

She said that the narrative walls between the reader and the Holocaust story in Briar Rose are there for her the author, because she couldn't get that close again, not after The Devil's Arithmetic.

I would be chilled if people used the Holocaust just to make tearjerkers. I don't think it has come to that yet, though. I read The Devil's Arithmetic and then saw Schindler's List and then Life is Beautiful and somewhere in there i read Briar Rose and i keep meaning to read Maus. I can't think of too many other powerful portrayals of the Holocaust (leaving aside the obvious: documentaries, memoirs, and the like). I think everyone realizes what a huge subject it is and only tackles it if they really feel they have something to say about it.

I first read The Devil's Arithmetic in 4th grade, so i'm rather partial to it, but i've definitely been very affected by all the Holocaust fictions i've read.

[oyceter]

Anyway, i think Terri wanted her to give it a Jewish slant and Jane generally doesn't do Jewish themed stories

Huh, that's interesting, because I was noticing a run of Jewish-themed stories in Sister Emily's Lightship. Heh, and by "a run," I mean "Granny Rumple" and "Sister Death." I think you might like "Sister Death," it feels like a companion to The Devil's Arithmetic in many ways.

I adored Briar Rose in the way you love something that totally cuts you up inside -- read it a year or two before Devil's Arithmetic. Something about the strange but perfect fit of the Sleeping Beauty story really hit me.

I am of two minds regarding Holocaust narratives -- DA struck me hard because of how important memory was, how it was so necessary to pass on the memories, and I completely understand them in those terms. In other ways, I feel sort of voyeuristic, being there so viscerally, when it is not my history, like I'm intruding. I think the impression of there being so many comes from Oscar time polls and people sort of joking that if you've got something about the Holocaust in your movie, you're sure to win. Gave me a squicky feeling.

I've always been very affected by the Holocaust narratives I've read (most of them YA) -- Number the Stars, Anne Frank's Diary, Night, and now Jane Yolen's two.

[hermionesviolin.livejournal.com]

I remember Jane saying that people say she's done a lot of Jewish-themed work, and that for most people the amount she's done would be a lot, but she's written so much that it's not a large percentage of her work as a whole.

I defintely want to read more fairy tale retellings and more of Jane Yolen's work, so hopefully i can at least read her short stories this summer.

Briar Rose was definitely a very powerful story, the fit of the Sleeping Beauty, the theme of stories and memories and history. I may be partial to The Devil's Arithmetic, but i'm not sure i can say i liked either book *more*.

All narrative consumption is voyeuristic in some ways. I guess i've never thought of history as something that certain people have a right to -- i mean, i know the arguments around who has the right to control the stories that get told and stuff, but i've never felt like i didn't have the right to know a story just because i wasn't part of a certain group of people. And isn't it so important for people to know other people's stories, to know where they're coming from and what their history is and all that?

Oscar time polls and people sort of joking that if you've got something about the Holocaust in your movie, you're sure to win. Gave me a squicky feeling.

I can totally see the joke but yeah, definitely squicky.

I really should read Number the Stars as i don't think i have. I was underwhelmed by Anne Frank's Diary, but i remember reading The Upstairs Room (a novel with a similar story) and being touched more by that, though still not as much as by other stories i had read. I think there's something about the distance from the brutal horrors... i mean obviously it was horrible being confined to such a small space and knowing the risk of being discovered and all, but the stories mostly consist of day-to-day living which is honestly kinda boring, and it's the horrors of the camps that are really so wrenchingly painful (for me at least) as opposed to the more distanced abstract terror of the possibility of discovery and the crumminess of such confinement and so on. I've heard very good things about Night, but i don't think i'll be reading it.

[oyceter]

Makes sense -- I have a limited amount of Jane Yolen works in my head, but when I see the listed bibliography... wow. I am quite impressed.

I don't know if I can say I like BR better or worse than DA, but it hit me much harder for some reason. I think the YA narrative for DA helped a little to distance myself from what was happening. Huh. It doesn't really make sense, considering the level of reader involvement in Chaya's and Becky's grandma's stories.

I've always felt sort of intrusive venturing in on other cultural histories for some reason -- I think I have read too many EAS papers or talked to too many people who sort of fetishize Asian culture (esp. in the anime circles). And I sort of did as well with Japanese culture, so it feels odd, and I'm never quite sure where the line is. But you are right -- history and stories are there to be heard. I've been reading a book on the Rwandan genocide, and the most frightening thing is that it wasn't in the public's consciousness that much, despite the scale and the frightening inhumanity of it.

Night was a kick in the gut to me -- I read it for school in ninth grade (once or twice) and I've never picked it up again. I'm not sure if I really want to...

[veejane.livejournal.com]

FWIW, there tends to be a substantial difference between how children's novels portray the Holocaust and how adult novels do same. The Devil's Arithmetic freaks my shit out so much because I know it's aimed at 5th graders, and I don't know as how 5th graders can necessarily handle it.

Number the Stars is a much less freak-out-y story, wherein all deaths happen off the page and the plot is about escape. A lot of children's books are about the ones who live: When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit is a good example, and Malka Drucker wrote a fact-based story about a couple of brothers who were hidden with a Polish family.

Whereas, Mila 18 or Escape from Sobibor or even Maus is a different kettle of fish, and really not for kids or preteens at all.

[oyceter]

I think that explains why I was so okay with DA for a good deal of the book -- it was for children, and I figured I knew how it ended. But the moment when Hannah links arms with her two friends and walks off, I started crying. I probably would have had nightmares about it if I read it in fifth grade.

[buffyannotater.livejournal.com]

I'm finding this conversation very interesting, because I am Jewish and cannot read Holocaust novels, with the exception of Maus, which affected me profoundly and which I can never read again, and The Diary of Anne Frank, which I know technically isn't a novel. I have never seen Schindler's List, and I have no intention of ever seeing Schindler's List, or Life is Beautiful, or Jakob the Liar. Because I know myself, and I know that I cannot handle being so immersed in the Holocaust. As a child, going to a Hebrew day school, we were taught so much about the Holocaust, and went to the museum in DC on a class trip, I would have nightmares about it. I am torn about the proper thing for the school to have done though: on the one hand, it's obviously a major part of the Jewish heritage, is a relatively recent occurrence, and Jewish children must learn about it, and on the other hand, I almost think at times what they taught us was too much for young people to handle. Some people have told me that it is wrong for me to not read books or watch movies on the Holocaust, but I am not disrespecting it by doing so. I have the utmost respect for my relatives who died horrible deaths in the forties. Over 3/4ths of my family were wiped out by the Nazis, and later, the Polish. It is a fact that not everyone knows that thousands of Jews were killed after the Holocaust was officially over, because the Poles had taken over their homes and properties and killed them when they tried to reclaim their property. The fact is, though, I just cannot deal with the emotional weight of the situation. I was horrified by the Holocaust Museum. After I saw an actual boxcar, and how extremely small it was, and realized how many people were put in there for days, with no room to move, I averted my eyes for the rest of the day there, closing them when I could, very hard to do when you're in a room surrounded by things you don't want to see. I was 13 years old and completely traumatized. I believe that is important to know what happened, and yes, to feel what happened. But after having allowed myself to feel what happened, I know I can't do it again. In fact, the only films with Holocaust content I can watch are Cabaret, because it is only indirectly dealt with, and X-Men, the prologue scene of which I thought was done beautifully. That, though, is in a small dose and followed up by almost 2 hours that don't deal with it, again. But sitting through a full movie on the subject or even worse reading a book on it, which takes up days of your life...my stomach is literally going into knots right now, thinking about it. In particular, I find the concept of The Devil's Arithmetic, of a modern girl opening a door and finding herself in the time period of the Holocaust, possibly the scariest idea I have ever heard. It was always on the recommendation lists when I was in middle school, but I never bought it. Although I don't have nightmares about it anymore, the fact that just the description of the plot of that story continues to scare me says a great deal.

[oyceter]

*hugs* I don't think it's any sort of disrespect to find that you almost physically can't watch or read things that deal with the Holocaust in such length.

I suppose going into too much detail is better than ignoring the subject all together, much like the official Japanese textbooks refuse to publish anything on the comfort women or things like the Rape of Nanking. But I can't imagine learning about it in such detail so young -- I think my first exposure to it was probably Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself, then Number the Stars.

Thanks for posting. I've been turning this over in my head all day.