| Realism, Caricature and Bias: Fiction of Mendele Mocher Sefarim Subjects: Mendele Mokher Sefarim 1835–1917 -- Criticism and interpretation; Mendele Mokher Sefarim 1835–1917 -- Biography -- Psychology; Self-hate (Psychology); Antisemitism -- psychological aspects; Jews -- Russia -- Psychology; Jews in literature; Mendele Mocher Sefarim's seven novels constitute the most important and influential body of work in modern Jewish prose fiction written prior to the First World War. These novels-five of which he wrote twice, once in Yiddish and once in Hebrew-are devastating satiric portraits of Jewish life in nineteenth-century Russia. They are permeated by Mendele's passion for social change, and an often equally passionate contempt for his own people for failing to achieve it. David Aberbach, exploring these passions in terms of the psychology of prejudice and self-hate, provides the first full-length analysis of the tension between realism and caricature in Mendele's descriptions of his fellow-Jew. At the same time, his analysis conveys Mendele's fascinating social and psychological insights into the forces which led to the mass emigration of Jews from Russia before the First World War, to the rise of Zionism, and to Jewish involvement in the socialist and revolutionary movements in Russia at the turn of the century. The picture is broadened through references to contemporary Russian literature so as to portray these forces in the context of Russian society at the time. David Aberbach is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Comparative Literature, McGill University, Montreal, and is the author of At the Handles of the Lock: Themes in the Fiction of S. J. Agnon (1984, now out of print), also published by the Littman Library. |