I posted this comment on the New Republic website and wanted to repost it here:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070521&s=franklin052107

An imperfect but still excellent work

I agree with some of the points Ruth made in her articles yet I found myself violently disagreeing with the thrust of her condescending comments.

Firstly she says that she had a problem with the tone of the novel, a point echoed by the New Yorker reviewer and while I understand what they meant by it, it seemed obvious to me that the problem in the novel was more one of point of view than tone.

The author/narrator could not decide if he wanted to tell the story from an omniscient point of view or from that of the main character, Kaddish. What we got instead was a mixture of limited omniscience as well as a completely omniscient view point. This was obvious for example when the narrative breaks in to tell us that one of the characters a girl who will be thrown out of a plane got a message which the ate telling her that KaddishÂ’s son was murdered by the junta.

The novelÂ’s problems, however, were not limited to point of view. There was problem of translation both literally, as when Kaddish is said to bring home a baguette. Now Argentines do not eat baguettes, they eat Portenos which is like a Baguette but different enough to merit its own name. In any case, no self respecting Argentine, Jew or not, would refer to a Porteno as a baguette.

There some other small lapses which make it clear that Englander is not an Argentine. In itself wouldnÂ’t matter since Joseph Conrad in Nostromo made an even larger number of small mistakes yet his novel is considered, even by South American writers to be a masterpiece.

I should also mention here that Ruth Franklin in her haste to condemn the novel made her own mistakes. She said, for example, that KaddishÂ’s son Pato rebelled against his father by smoking pot and getting involved in politics. In fact, the novel makes cleat that Pato and his son didnÂ’t get along since the time Pato first started to talk. Besides, being at a University in Argentina and elsewhere in South America is in itself a political act and people are expected to take sides in the political give and take of the day. (This is not unlike the case in Russia as Joseph Conrad described it in Under Western Eyes a novel that might also have influenced Englander.)

What is troubling about EnglanderÂ’s novel is that he didnÂ’t sufficiently differentiate the Argentine Jews from those of any other country.

I disagree with Ruth Franklin, though, that Englander borrowed a number of major motifs from both Gogol and Kafka making his novel too derivative.

This is unfair criticism since Englander did for the most part stick to socio historical events and totalitarianism and nose operations are real life facts in our world. The fact that one canÂ’t write about these issues without thinking of Kafka and Gogol is a testament of their greatness and not a sign that every writer who approaches these issues borrowed these motifs from them.

Yet, in spite of these and other short comings in the novel I did think the novel was very good.

In fact the shortcomings I found in it made me impatient with the work precisely because I thought it so good.

What I liked about the novel is the clarity with which he describes how people in totalitarian regimes cooperate with the system in the way the fight against it.

Lillian and Kaddish the parents of the disappeared Pato, in their hopeful attitude that he was alive, an attitude that Kaddish comes to abandon at the end of the work, mirror the lies that the regime would like people to believe. This attitude of self deception is actually a cultural trait which is present in the Tango the countryÂ’s national song style and had Englander taken some time out to go to Argentina he would not have failed to register that fact.

In any case, the novel, while not perfect is much better than the review would lead us to believe.

jacksondyer

I should add that I also missed any references to soccer in the novel which in Argentina is not just a game it's above all a ritual in which every citizen participates.