Word: shtetl
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Dickens updated in Harlem, Singer in a magic shtetl...
...girl of the title role (Laura Esterman) is a shtetl beauty, eyed from afar by the local shlemiel, Alchonon (F. Murray Abraham). Teibele loathes her admirer - until he appears in her bed room in the guise of a demon. Under the stars they become lovers, while under the sun they remain strangers, until the night creature persuades his lady to marry Alchonon. But with the public union come private agonies: the alchemic force disperses, leaving two ordinary people who plunge into insanity and sorrow...
...microchaos, it is neither micro nor chaotic. It is as large and mysteriously ordered as the universe he ponders or the Polish village and villagers he knows by heart. No one familiar with Singer could fail to recognize his songs. Here again are the doomed Jews of the shtetl and the voluble retirees of Miami's gelt coast, the pious simpletons and the demons who can possess even the innocent spirit...
...great grandfather probably answered in Yiddish. "A tailor. Alright, Morris. Stitch is your new American name." Henceforth the man would be known by his product. The confusions and contradictions of the arrival, the harrowing journey from the homeland, and the family still trapped on the Russian shtetl, anxiously waiting for word to come join him, were glibly ignored by this new alien world...
...facts in this concluding section is certainly not right either. Describing today's disapora is too much for Howe to handle. In its reliance on generalizations rather than anecdotes, this section lacks the immediacy which grips the rest of the book. Like the initial chapter describing life on the shtetl, the last seems short on life because it stands aloof, like experience twice removed...