The Hidden Isaac Bashevis Singer

11. Folk and Folklore in the Work of Bashevis

11 Folk and Folklore in the Work of Bashevis Itzik Gottesman Recent Yiddish literary criticism has focused on the issue of how modern Yiddish literature has incorporated Jewish folklore, sometimes romanticizing it, at other times parodying it, and at still other times using it with a modernist sensibility.1 It seems that as consensus for a canon of Yiddish fiction emerges, many of the established works’ entry into literary immortality is owing in large measure to their connection with Jewish life through folkloric material. Yitskhok Bashevis, considered one of the great fiction writers in Yiddish, has certainly exemplified the Yiddish author who successfully wrote ‘‘folklorically,’’ going beyond the genres of folklore to create something fresh and modern. The fact that Bashevis is often called a ‘‘storyteller’’ rather than a ‘‘writer’’ in the mass media attests to the folk image that has attached to him internationally as a consequence of his style and portraiture. Yet the history of folklore has demonstrated that underlying the collection, the printing, and the use of folklore there is often an ambivalence toward the subject of study. In other words, the folklore of the nation is praised and greatly valued, but the ‘‘folk’’ itself is often denigrated and held in low esteem. It becomes evident that while the collectors greatly admire the ‘‘folk treasure’’ or ‘‘folk creation,’’ their feelings for the ‘‘folk’’ are less than positive. This has been true at least as far back as the Grimm brothers in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century, who sought out and recorded folktales and legends from the peasants and working class to manifest the greatness of the German folk. At the same time, however, they often edited the texts they collected, essentially silencing the voice of the folk, so that the Grimms’ vision of the tales and the nation would predominate.2 No one can accuse Bashevis of silencing the voice of the folk. First, he is a master of the Yiddish language and revels in recording the rich spoken Yiddish of the poorer Jews of Poland. Second, he is a fiction writer and not a folklorist and is consequently under no obligation to transcribe folk texts. What could be  claimed, however, is that Bashevis manifests an ambivalence in his attitude toward the folk and its folklore. This argument finds firmer ground in his various memoirs , where, it can be argued, the writer often celebrates the Jewishness of his youth while simultaneously underlining the weaknesses of the Jews. This essay explores the Jewishness/Jew dichotomy running through much of Bashevis’s work, fiction and nonfiction alike. Bashevis’s use of Jewish folklore has become one of the identifying features of his fiction. Demons and devils are integral components of Bashevis’s novels and short stories, and in his own words, ‘‘[using them] helps me to express myself’’ because they represent ‘‘the ways of the world.’’3 They are symbolic, bearing a considerable interpretative burden, and cannot be dismissed as simply a gratuitous display of Jewish superstition or belief, whether the interpretation of the work in which they appear leans toward parable, politics, psychology, or anything else. The difference between this deployment of folklore in Bashevis’s fiction and its deployment in his memoirs is striking. This analysis particularly relies on a recently published Yiddish collection entitled Mayn tatns bezdn-shtub [hemshekhimzamlung ] (My Father’s Court [Sequel-Collection]),4 containing items selected from various autobiographical series that Bashevis published in the Yiddish newspaper Forverts. They include some episodes not published in the original Yiddish Mayn tatns bezdn-shtub (),5 some episodes from a series entitled Der shrayberklub (The Writers’ Club) published in Forverts in , and several episodes from the series Mentshn oyf mayn veg (People along My Way), published in the same newspaper from January  to October . Khone Shmeruk, the editor of this new collection published five years after Bashevis’s death, assembled the pieces chronologically according to the known facts of Bashevis’s biography. The young Bashevis lived in Warsaw until World War I and then moved with his mother and brother to his maternal grandfather’s small town of Bilgoray for a few years before returning to Warsaw. Hence this collection is divided into three parts, respectively entitled ‘‘Warsaw,’’ ‘‘Bilgoray,’’ and ‘‘Back to Warsaw.’’ In terms of Bashevis’s interest in folklore, the first two parts are of most interest . ‘‘Warsaw’’ describes his father’s bezdn, the rabbinical court which operated from the Singers’ apartment and where Bashevis’s father, the...