Roots in the Sky
by
[Macmillan, $3.00]
THIS is a first novel in which, for once, the mature ease of command dominates, without perverting, the lyric strain. There is nothing erratic in Roots in the Sky. It is an honest, tenacious piece of work.
The story is simple, but one woven at least fifty-four picks to the inch. Rabbi Drobnen and his Rebitzen, Chana, come to America with their only child, Miriam. They land in New York and drift out to the West Coast, where the Rabbi lands a post of sorts. In this country are born David, who was abruptly fathered by a Russian officer shortly before their departure from the old country, Estelle, Leon, Irving, and Aba. The very names indicate the enormous change which America brings into the lives of the older people, forever widening the gap between the intimate life at home and that of the outer world.
David, when he grows up to be a second father to the family, earns money fighting in the ring. Leo, during Prohibition days, supplements the negligible income of the Rabbi, who is indifferent to worldly goods, by securing for him the office of distributing the ritualistic wine at some profit. Miriam, the unfavored oldest child, doomed to a protracted virginity, is driven by loneliness to such strange compensations as the practice of Yoga. Dave marries a Zionist intellectual, divorces her, and remarries successfully. Estelle marries a Gentile, and moves out of the family life. Aba, the youngest, his never satisfied rabbinical intellect straying deeper and deeper into doubt, graduates from the university into the labor movement, and finally is nearly killed for his pains — which is symbolical, whether so intended or not.
And all this time, in fair weather and foul, the Rabbi bends over his books, which tell what man might be and is most assuredly not. It is the mother, the Rebitzen, nearly torn in two by her unavailing attempt to preserve her children from the swiftly changing derelictions into which they wander, who stands out above the rest. In Chana the author has conceived a character equal in strength to the Mother of Sholom Asch.
Especially in its first half is Roots in the Sky remarkable for the quality of its irony, which is a peculiar blend of derision and tolerance. This bitter, quizzical tone is far stronger in effect than any deliberate propaganda. The self-mockery, which brings to light the common humanity of the Jew, is rooted in an unerring sense of justice.
The book is not without its deficiencies. Like another novel dealing with a related theme, Levin’s The Old Bunch, it is virtually without profile. The essential and the non-essential unfortunately receive equal attention. There is almost too great a reticence in judgment, on the one hand, and a plethora of factual detail on the other. It may be that the author, who is clearly full of pride in his people, has preferred to err on the side of humility. The goyim are rather vaguely portrayed, and the ‘feel’ of the Gentile world is at the best no more than intimated. This weakens the polarity which it is the whole point of the book to express.
But these last criticisms are really in the nature of regrets. As it is, Roots in the Sky is a most impressive apologetic. To the critical non-Jew once again it drives home the fact that the Jew, when seen eye to eye, is gifted with what may be called a superior and innate moral delicacy and intellectual fervor — considered ceteris paribus. This is a truth which non-Jews cannot ever afford to overlook. Here the Jew is represented without pretense as the apotheosis of man’s seeking to rise above himself. ‘Israel has but one home,’ Rabbi Drobnen tells his uneasy congregation, ‘and that home is “mizrach" . . . eastward, whence the sun arises. That is our home.’
E. GARSIDE