Customer Reviews

Disobedience

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

As a person who is interested in the role of faith in the modern world, I found Disobedience to be a captivating and thought provoking story. In chronicling the clash between these two worlds - Ronit's modern one full of unlimited choices and Esti's constrained world of tradition and rules - Alderman refuses to present an easy solution. Instead she uses each women's experiences and perspectives to highlight the tensions involved. She is not afraid to point out the flaws and repercussions of orthodox Judaism but she also paints a loving - to me - portrait of its wisdom. In the same way, she doesn't simply celebrate modernity as a perfect world of choice and freedom.

As a result Disobedience is not just a thought provoking look inside a devout and closed world, it is also a timeless story about living with the consequences of our choices.

Alderman is clearly a talented writer and her portrait of the London Orthodox Community reflects this, but her characterization is a little thin in places. Ronit can come off as simply a caricature at times (busy, successful women whose love life is a mess, etc.) and her rebellion can seem a bit cliche as well. But it is in the contrast between her and Esti that the book gets its impact. It is also worth noting that the perspective you bring to the book is likely to have an impact on how you view the characters. Those sympathetic to orthodoxy or tradition will react differently to those with a more libertarian or libertine perspective. This is another reason I found it so interesting.

There were many elements to Naomi Alderman's debut novel that I very much enjoyed. Her prose was great, she writes like a veteran whose been doing it for years. I loved how she switched view points throughout the novel so that the reader got a glimpse into the minds of each character. Lastly, I enjoyed how she began each chapter with a thought provoking biblical reference and explanation that was either very relevant to people of all religions or gave the reader insight into the Jewish religion. All of these ingredients came together to make Naomi Alderman an author that I will look out for in the future. However, amongst all this praise there is a downside. 'Disobedience' failed to catch me right away and, in my opinion, in a short novel the story should hook you in the beginning. Also, again, in my opinion, Alderman didn't give the characters enough depth for the reader to really understand what motivated them. I am sure that as a new author Alderman will suss out these flaws and grow with time and I look forward to watching her progress.

This novel is the story of Ronit Krushka, the rebellious 32-year-old daughter of an Orthodox rabbi in Hendon, an insular Jewish neighborhood in London. The death of Ronit's father forces her to come home for a short time from New York and from her nonobservant life style, and it forces her to confront her past and decide exactly who she is and who she wants to be.

Alderman, who grew up in Hendon, succeeds in portraying both the fervently religious lifestyle and the secular lifestyle without exaggerating or caricaturing either. Hendon can be stifling, but it can also enfold its inhabitants in a warm embrace, and for Ronit it is home. New York City is exciting, free, and tolerant, but city dwellers lack roots and lack a firm basis in ethics and morality. (Ronit is the only one of her circle of friends who knows what's in the Ten Commandments!) At the end of the novel, all the main characters seem to be moving away from either extreme and making their peace with a life replete with contradictions.

Another theme is silence and speech. British Jews are doubly silent -- both because they are far more insecure in their place in society than American Jews, and because they are, after all, British and keep a stiff upper lip. Ronit's father was a master of silence, yet in an important lecture, he points out that God created the world with speech. Yet speech, in the form of lashon ha-ra (the Jewish concept of slander or gossip) can be terribly harmful.

Ronit's New York world is a noisy, speech-filled world, yet much of the speech is meaningless or harmful. Esti, Ronit's former lover, is always quiet, so much so that she is considered odd even in the Hendon synagogue. The denouement of the book is a reconciliation of the ideals of speech and of speechlessness.

I enjoyed this book and read it in one sitting. It discusses lesbianism and Orthodox judaism. How can one be true to oneself and to ones faith? Is it possible to do both? How can we live with our choices? What about parents with different beliefs? How can an Orthodox father relate to a non-Orthodox lesbian child?

It is an interesting book about the choices we make and religious faith. I was once a very devout catholic and I find books and novels about fervent believers interesting, especially when they consider GLBT issues. Speaking as a non-jew I believe this book is fairly respectful of Orthodox judaism.

I think even those less interested in GLBT issues will find this interesting as a novel whose main subject is the relationship between a father and child. They will also learn more about Orthodox jews and their beliefs and day to day life.

I'm making this sound like a dry textbook or treatise but it isn't. It is an interesting, well-written novel whose subjects are those I've mentioned above.

Two childhood friends/lovers: one comes to terms with an Orthodox Jewish community which is rigid in its views, one rebels against it. The novel has its limitations, but ultimately succeeds in being moving and insightful. While Alderman does not paint a very nice or balanced picture of the community at large, she clearly appreciates the positives in the Orthodox Jewish tradition. She is also able to make meaningful a marriage in which the physical aspect is lacking. The rebel is a flawed character who still retains our sympathy and interest, although we need to dismiss as the author's error one incident: where the rebel is almost ready to "rat" on her friend just to get back at her chief antagonist in the community, and never seems to acknowledge the evil of such a deed. I found the rebel's vindictive streak refreshing, not normally found in a work of this type.

Alderman fails, in my view, in her introductory chapters on the rebel's life in New York. Even the prose in those chapters is frequently not up to par, and the emphasis on the relationship with her married lover is there for lack of something better .

Naomi Alderman's "Disobedience" is the story of thirty-two year old Ronit Krushka, who moved from London to Manhattan partly to escape from her strict father, a traditional Orthodox rabbi, and partly to live an emancipated life far away from the prying eyes and wagging tongues of officious neighborhood gossips. Ronit's estranged father, Rav Krushka, is ailing, and his assistant, Dovid Kuperman, is his probable successor. Esti, Dovid's wife, is an outcast in Hendon, their insular and close-knit Jewish neighborhood. She is standoffish and too quiet; the other wives do not accept her as one of them.

Ronit takes pride in the fact that she threw off the shackles of her religious background, which was "more like a prison than a safe harbor." Not only has Ronit rejected the practices that her father valued so highly, but she is also having an on-again, off-again affair with Scott, a married man and a colleague at work. When Ronit returns to Hendon after a long absence, Esti is beside herself with anticipation. She longs to rekindle the romantic relationship that she had with Ronit when they were both adolescents. In spite of the fact that she is a married woman, Esti's feelings for Ronit impel her to act recklessly.

Alderman writes authoritatively about a culture that she knows and understands intimately. The author fills her narrative with telling details about the customs and rituals of traditional Jews who live sheltered lives and reject what they consider to be "aberrant" behavior. Ronit throws the residents of Hendon into a tizzy with her brash and aggressive manner. Moreover, her relationship with Esti creates a scandal and threatens the Kupermans' marriage.

The concept of "Disobedience" is an original one, since few authors tackle the subject of lesbianism within Orthodox Judaism. However, it is a flawed work of fiction that suffers from a contrived plot, artificial and awkward dialogue, and poorly delineated characters who do not act believably. Ronit is shrill and irritating, Esti is flighty and immature, Dovid is a milksop, and the residents of Hendon are, for the most part, portrayed as narrow-minded bigots who are too provincial to embrace alternative lifestyles.

This novel is an oversimplification of a complicated subject, and the author does a disservice to the beliefs of traditional Jews. Since Alderman includes many passages about Torah teachings in her book, she is knowledgeable enough to know that observant Jews do not make up their own rules. They live according to the dictates of the Torah and seek the spiritual guidance of their rabbis. This is not bigotry, but an adherence to an unbreakable code that is fundamental to their very existence.

Naomi Alderman expresses it best in the following passage: "We should not rush to throw open doors, to allow light to shine on quiet places. For those who have seen the secret mysteries tell us not only of the beauty, but also of the pain. And certain things are better left unseen, and certain words unspoken." Although she is courageous to tackle such a controversial subject in her debut novel, Alderman's handling of this admittedly sensitive topic does not do it justice, either religiously or artistically.

Despite a few oversimplistic characterizations of the inhabitants of the provincial world of Hendon Orthodoxy, this book is brilliant. Few authors have captured the struggles of those of us who straddle these contradictory realities. Naomi Alderman has.

Ronit Krushka was born into an Orthodox Jewish home in Hendon, North London; her father was a revered Rav; her mother had died when she was four years old. Her nature makes her rebel against the Orthodox way of life. There is a painful and irreparable breach with her father; she leaves London for New York - the exact circumstances under which she leaves emerge at the end of the book - and, there, with the help of a therapist, she made a new life for herself. Eight years later she hears of the death of her father, and feels she has to return to London, if only, as her father's only child, to clear his house (and in the process, hopefully, to find a pair of her late mother's candlesticks to which she was symbolically attached).

Obviously she will meet Orthodox people from her past. Should she then behave like the person she now was, or should she try to avoid offence and accommodate herself to their way of life? Can she trust herself not to be deliberately provocative?

And how will she react when she meets Esti, with whom she had had an intense lesbian relationship during their teenage years and who is now married to Ronit's cousin Dovid? And how will Esti react to her?

We have descriptions of some of the rules and rituals of Orthodoxy, and of the obsessional way in which they are observed. At one point Ronit's father reproved her for having eaten in a bakery which, though it had a kosher certificate signed by a rabbi, had not been approved by a rabbi whom her father's community trusted.

On the other hand, each chapter begins with a meditation on a religious text, its symbolism unfolded for us: while Alderman is clearly critical of the cramped nature of Orthodox life, these allegories and metaphors are deeply meaningful to her. They show that she/Ronit still has a spiritual relationship with God and recognizes "that there is a tiny, tenuous area where good sense intersects with fundamentalist religion".

Although there is a degree of overlap between the two themes - Ronit's revolt against Orthodoxy and her relationship with Esti - I found the latter slightly less interesting than the former, in part because Esti is such a strange person - though she will be at the centre of the stirring denouement near the end.

An impressive first novel, and winner of the Orange Award in 2006.

This was a book that deserves to be read and reread. The protagonist is a complicated woman who has been on a spiritual journey across years and continents. I learned a lot about the Orthodox Jewish community in London.

I don't usually read novels like this (I'm not sure what genre to assign it) but I loved it.