Babel' in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity by Efraim Sicher (English) Hardc

Publisher Description

Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was-an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It looks at Babel''s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that touch on the reception of Babel' and other Jewish intellectuals in Russian literature, as well as the "Jewishness" of their work.

Review

"Writing about Isaak Babel' is no easy matter. The subtlety and complexity of his prose style, his tendency to mythologize his own biography and his slippery relationship with Soviet power all require the deftest and most delicate of treatments, despite - or perhaps because of - the often shocking frankness of his subject matter. Few scholars have done as much to illuminate Babel"s life and works as Efraim Sicher. The introduction and seven chapters ... that make up Babel' in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity examine him from a variety of distinct, yet complementary perspectives, producing something more akin to a fragmented modernist portrait than a full psychological study in the realist mode." - The Slavonic and East European Review

Long Description

Isaak Babel' (1894-1940) is arguably one of the greatest modern short story writers of the early twentieth century. Yet his life and work are shrouded in the mystery of who Babel' was-an Odessa Jew who wrote in Russian, who came from one of the most vibrant centers of east European Jewish culture, and who all his life loved Yiddish and the stories of Sholom Aleichem. This is the first book in English to study the intertextuality of Babel''s work. It looks at Babel''s cultural identity as a case study in the contradictions and tensions of literary influence, personal loyalties, and ideological constraint. The complex and often ambivalent relations between the two cultures inevitably raise controversial issues that touch on the reception of Babel' and other Jewish intellectuals in Russian literature, as well as the "Jewishness" of their work.

Review Text

"Writing about Isaak Babel is no easy matter. The subtlety and complexity of his prose style, his tendency to mythologize his own biography and his slippery relationship with Soviet power all require the deftest and most delicate of treatments, despite -- or perhaps because of -- the often shocking frankness of his subject matter. Few scholars have done as much to illuminate Babel's life and works as Efraim Sicher. The introduction and seven chapters . . . that make up Babel in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity examine him from a variety of distinct, yet complementary perspectives, producing something more akin to a fragmented modernist portrait than a full psychological study in the realist mode." - The Slavonic and East European Review

Review Quote

"The essays in this volume offer a comprehensive view of Isaac Babel's literary legacy, shaped by Russia, but deeply rooted in Jewish culture, Jewish history, and Jewish identity. Sicher reads Babel like a palimpsest, revealing layer after layer of cultural and literary allusion. Babel in Context: A Study in Cultural Identity is an indispensable contribution to Babel scholarship by one of its most distinguished pioneers."-Grisha Freidin, Stanford University

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