necessities, toilet paper, toothpaste). These women made desire look efficient. There was nothing in this street they wanted enough to induce any loss of poise. They were amazing.
But I am too late already! thought Alex, looking at his watch. His sweater was mohair; his neck was sweating. Still, how could this be resisted? In preparation, he paused in the middle of the street, took off his trench coat, tied it round his waist. He took a tiny pad out of his pocket and pressed it into his palm, ready to take notes. And then Alex began to walk, slowly, amongst them, splitting them down the center as they went, as he always did, for his hobby, his research, his book. Goyish.
Jewish.
Goyish. Jewish. Goyish.
Goyish.
Jewish.
Goyish!
NOT THEM, NOT as people—there was no fun to be had out of that. Only wars. No, other things. A movement of an arm. A type of shoe. A yawn. A dress. A whistled tune. It gave him a simple pleasure. Other people wondered why. He chose not to wonder why. All possible psychological, physiological and neurological hypotheses (including the
Mixed-race people see things double
theory and the
fatherless children seek out restored symmetry,
and
especially
the
Chinese brains are hard-wired for yin-and-yang dualistic thought
) made him want to staple his eyeballs to a wall. He did it because he did it. He had an unfinished manuscript that maybe someone would publish one day, called
Jewishness and Goyishness,
the culmination of his work on the subject.
Jewishness and Goyishness
had once been a fairly academic text by any standard. It had an introduction, it had essays and explanations, footnotes, marginalia. (He had imagined it as an appendix, a sequel, if you like, to Max Brod’s effort of 1921,
Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum.
He was also indebted to the popular comedian Lenny Bruce.) It was split into many different categories, things like:
Foods
Clothes
The nineteenth century
Cars
Body parts
The lyrics of John Lennon
Books
Countries
Journeys
Medicines
Each category was then split into Jewish and goyish things relating to it. In a spasm of superstition early on, he had made the decision to mark the sections of the book with the Tetragrammaton, God’s fourletter name:
YHWH
Occasionally, when the section was particularly contentious, he used its more potent Hebrew incarnation:
As if the invocation of the Holy Name would protect his heresy.
He had been young, naive, when he began it. It was a different book now. It was still about Jewishness and Goyishness, but now that was
all
it was about. No essay was more than a page in length. There were no captions to the many illustrations. All stripped away. Just a few footnotes here and there. No commentary. Now he was left with the beautiful core of the thing itself: three hundred pages and counting of what amounted to a two-sided list. Jewish books (often not written by Jews), Goyish books (often not written by Goys); Jewish office items (the stapler, the pen holder), Goyish office items (the paper clip, the mouse pad); Jewish trees (sycamore, poplar, beech), Goyish trees (oak, Sitka, horse chestnut); Jewish smells of the seventeenth century (rose oil, sesame, orange zest), Goyish smells of the seventeenth century (sandalwood, walnuts, wet forest floor). And God’s unsayable name on every page. Over and over. The book was a thing of beauty. He did not let people read it. If ever it came up in conversation, he found himself spoken to as if he were a character in a film. Rubinfine told him he was
wasting his life.
Adam
worried for his sanity.
It was Joseph’s opinion that to discuss the book at all was to
indulge the dangerous idea
that the thing actually existed. Esther
found the whole thing utterly offensive.
Well, maybe
Jewishness and Goyishness
wasn’t for everyone. But didn’t everyone get
everything
? Hadn’t they had enough yet? Everything on earth is tailored for this
everyone.
Everyone gets all the TV programs, as near as dammit all of
But I am too late already! thought Alex, looking at his watch. His sweater was mohair; his neck was sweating. Still, how could this be resisted? In preparation, he paused in the middle of the street, took off his trench coat, tied it round his waist. He took a tiny pad out of his pocket and pressed it into his palm, ready to take notes. And then Alex began to walk, slowly, amongst them, splitting them down the center as they went, as he always did, for his hobby, his research, his book. Goyish.
Jewish.
Goyish. Jewish. Goyish.
Goyish.
Jewish.
Goyish!
NOT THEM, NOT as people—there was no fun to be had out of that. Only wars. No, other things. A movement of an arm. A type of shoe. A yawn. A dress. A whistled tune. It gave him a simple pleasure. Other people wondered why. He chose not to wonder why. All possible psychological, physiological and neurological hypotheses (including the
Mixed-race people see things double
theory and the
fatherless children seek out restored symmetry,
and
especially
the
Chinese brains are hard-wired for yin-and-yang dualistic thought
) made him want to staple his eyeballs to a wall. He did it because he did it. He had an unfinished manuscript that maybe someone would publish one day, called
Jewishness and Goyishness,
the culmination of his work on the subject.
Jewishness and Goyishness
had once been a fairly academic text by any standard. It had an introduction, it had essays and explanations, footnotes, marginalia. (He had imagined it as an appendix, a sequel, if you like, to Max Brod’s effort of 1921,
Heidentum, Christentum, Judentum.
He was also indebted to the popular comedian Lenny Bruce.) It was split into many different categories, things like:
Foods
Clothes
The nineteenth century
Cars
Body parts
The lyrics of John Lennon
Books
Countries
Journeys
Medicines
Each category was then split into Jewish and goyish things relating to it. In a spasm of superstition early on, he had made the decision to mark the sections of the book with the Tetragrammaton, God’s fourletter name:
YHWH
Occasionally, when the section was particularly contentious, he used its more potent Hebrew incarnation:
As if the invocation of the Holy Name would protect his heresy.
He had been young, naive, when he began it. It was a different book now. It was still about Jewishness and Goyishness, but now that was
all
it was about. No essay was more than a page in length. There were no captions to the many illustrations. All stripped away. Just a few footnotes here and there. No commentary. Now he was left with the beautiful core of the thing itself: three hundred pages and counting of what amounted to a two-sided list. Jewish books (often not written by Jews), Goyish books (often not written by Goys); Jewish office items (the stapler, the pen holder), Goyish office items (the paper clip, the mouse pad); Jewish trees (sycamore, poplar, beech), Goyish trees (oak, Sitka, horse chestnut); Jewish smells of the seventeenth century (rose oil, sesame, orange zest), Goyish smells of the seventeenth century (sandalwood, walnuts, wet forest floor). And God’s unsayable name on every page. Over and over. The book was a thing of beauty. He did not let people read it. If ever it came up in conversation, he found himself spoken to as if he were a character in a film. Rubinfine told him he was
wasting his life.
Adam
worried for his sanity.
It was Joseph’s opinion that to discuss the book at all was to
indulge the dangerous idea
that the thing actually existed. Esther
found the whole thing utterly offensive.
Well, maybe
Jewishness and Goyishness
wasn’t for everyone. But didn’t everyone get
everything
? Hadn’t they had enough yet? Everything on earth is tailored for this
everyone.
Everyone gets all the TV programs, as near as dammit all of
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