Title: Magical realism and allegory in Joseph Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon
Source document: Brno studies in English. 2017, vol. 43, iss. 2, pp. [95]-110
Extent
[95]-110
-
ISSN0524-6881 (print)1805-0867 (online)
Persistent identifier (DOI): https://doi.org/10.5817/BSE2017-2-5
Stable URL (handle): https://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/137609
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.
Abstract(s)
This paper analyzes Skibell's novel A Blessing on the Moon (1997), focusing on elements of the book's magical realism and allegory. It sets out to interpret Skibell's transposition of the Holocaust to his own experience as a representative of the post-Holocaust generation. Finally, the paper explores the ethical problems of this approach to the Holocaust – an approach that relies heavily on imagination. The interpretation of Skibell's novel demonstrates that the imaginative enactment of the tragic traumatic events cannot be dismissed as a mere appropriation of the Holocaust or as a form of "identity theft"; instead it must be seen as the author's genuine attempt to come to terms with the original trauma of his ancestors. In Skibell's case it is his great-grandfather Chaim Skibelski whose voice was silenced in the war and who becomes the protagonist of the novel.
Note
This article is part of the research project SGS11/FF/2015, University of Ostrava, "America as the Promised Land? Representation of Immigration in Selected Works of American Literature." It is also the result of my co-operation with the Hadassah-Brandeis Institute.
References
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[19] Sokoloff, Naomi B. (1992) Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[20] Spindler, William (1993) 'Magic Realism: Typology.' Forum for Modern Language Studies 29: 75–85. | DOI 10.1093/fmls/XXIX.1.75
[21] Stadden, Pamela (2005) 'Narrative Techniques and Holocaust Literature: Joseph Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon.' Studies in American Jewish Literature 24: 153–157.
[22] Todorov, Tzvetan (1975) The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. by Richard Howard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[23] Volpi, Jorge (2014) 'Děti bez prasečích ocásků.' A 2 (25): 18–19.
[2] Adams, Jenni (2011) Magic Realism in Holocaust Literature: Troping the Traumatic Real. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
[3] Arva, Eugene L. (2008) 'Writing the Vanishing Real: Hyperreality and Magical Realism.' Journal of Narrative Theory 38 (1): 60–85. | DOI 10.1353/jnt.0.0002
[4] Bellow, Saul (1973) Mr. Sammler's Planet (1970). London: Penguin Books.
[5] Berger, Alan L. (2010) 'Unclaimed Experience: Trauma and Identity in Third Generation Writing about the Holocaust.' Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 28 (3): 149–158.
[6] Bukiet, Jules Melvin, ed. (2002) Nothing Makes You Free. Writings by Descendants of Jewish Holocaust Survivors. New York and London: W. W. Norton.
[7] Caruth, Cathy (1996) Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
[8] Danow, K. David (1995) The Spirit of Carnival: Magical Realism and the Grotesque. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
[9] Faris, Wendy B. (2005) 'Scheherezade's Children: Magical Realism and Postmodern Fiction.' In: Lois Parkinson Zamora and Wendy B. Faris (eds.) Magical Realism: Theory, History, Community. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 163–190.
[10] Felman, Shoshana (1995) 'Education and Crisis.' Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Ed. Cathy Caruth. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 13–60.
[11] Franklin, Ruth. (2011) A Thousand Darknesses: Lies and Truth in Holocaust Fiction. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
[12] Giles, Patrick (1997) 'Review of A Blessing on the Moon.' New York Times Book Review 28 December: 12.
[13] Grimwood, Marita (2007) Holocaust Literature of the Second Generation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
[14] Gunther, Stephen (2000) From Remembering Accurately towards a Hermeneutics of Memory: Representation of the Holocaust in Contemporary Fiction. Dissertation. Waltham: Brandeis University.
[15] Hirsch Marianne (2008) 'The Generation of Postmemory.' Poetics Today 29 (1): 103–128. | DOI 10.1215/03335372-2007-019
[16] Rosenfeld, Alvin (1997) 'Two Mystical First Novels Haunted by Visions of Evil.' Forward 31 October: 15–16.
[17] Sicher, Efraim (2005) The Holocaust Novel. New York: Routledge.
[18] Skibell, Joseph (1998) A Blessing on the Moon (1997). London: Little, Brown and Company.
[19] Sokoloff, Naomi B. (1992) Imagining the Child in Modern Jewish Fiction. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
[20] Spindler, William (1993) 'Magic Realism: Typology.' Forum for Modern Language Studies 29: 75–85. | DOI 10.1093/fmls/XXIX.1.75
[21] Stadden, Pamela (2005) 'Narrative Techniques and Holocaust Literature: Joseph Skibell's A Blessing on the Moon.' Studies in American Jewish Literature 24: 153–157.
[22] Todorov, Tzvetan (1975) The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, trans. by Richard Howard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
[23] Volpi, Jorge (2014) 'Děti bez prasečích ocásků.' A 2 (25): 18–19.