Reading as Research for Mythical Thinking
This Book, My Hands
Yesterday I went on a quest to find the old classic, Exodus, by Leon Uris. It felt funny to look for a book that tells Israel’s creation story with such romantic regard in a time when the country’s actions are vehemently condemned. These days, even using the word “Israel” is a political act that can get one accused of being anti-Palestine, anti Palestinian.
Which I absolutely am not. And the responses I got when scouring second-hand bookstores looking for a romantic story about Palesrael (how about I call it that?) amused me and made me somewhat uncomfortable. When asked if they had Exodus, booksellers let their heads fell to the side like they were remembering an old lover or Woodstock, someone or something sentimental and seeped with significance that has since receded.
“We always used to carry that book,” they said, or, “We stopped buying it because it seemed like everyone had it already.” They all knew the book, the author, and the story. In wanting it, I felt cast in their eyes as a young, idealistic, Jew-girl, someone who wanted to learn about her story, to have an ancestral history to believe in.
This does not describe me very well, but it does describe a character in a story I’m currently writing. This character wants to believe that there is significance in being Jewish, in being tied to a specific country outside of the United States. I think she’ll affirm these sentiments by reading Exodus. In order to let the book inform this character, I have to re-read it.
What I do remember, though, is that after reading Exodus in my late teens I got the idea that Palesrael was a country made of strong, tough women. I wanted to go there and work the fields like the women in Exodus did—the land they transformed from deserts into crop-yielding fields. Though I didn’t want to serve in the military, I wanted to experience a country that promoted equality with such vigor that it required the same service of its male and female citizens (which it actually doesn’t). I had such an extreme vision of Palesrael that I cut my hair short just before I flew there in a desperate attempt to seem less soft, less feminine.
I was wrong about Palesrael. And my character will be, too, though not necessarily in the same ways. I hope that in re-reading Exodus I’ll figure out more about my character and what she wants and expects from Palesrael.
What I’ve been wondering in thinking about you, however, is which books you have read that created or perpetuated certain mythical ways of seeing? And what sorts of “research” have your characters prompted you to do in order to better understand them?
I too was seduced by Exodus as a teenager and thought of Israel/Palestine with romantic notions and always regarded the women there as some of the strongest in the world. Here’s the weird thing though, I’m not Jewish, I’m not even American. I also got strange notions about this country from the movie A Woman Called Golda which has Ingrid Bergman in the lead as Golda Meir in a stellar performance. After watching that I planned to go work on a Kibbutz as soon as I was old enough, and my mother would let me.
I’d love to read your story when you’re done with it Shira.
I’m sure your grandparents have the book, if you haven’t found it yet. I can’t wait to read your story, Shira. Even a more (?) interesting premise for Jews of my generation. Complex layers on layers. When I talk about the issue (and we’ve been involved in a couple of Reconcilliation Conferences on the topic), I have to remind people what it was like to be born 4 years after the concentration camps were opened. What did that reality mean to my parents and those who lived through this? Even Grandma is mad at Israel right now. What did it take to get past the black and white, right and wrong issues?
Great topic.