The Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel

So here's the thing about Matthue Roth. (I have written previously about this author, and his book, "Never Mind the Goldbergs," here.) I have several issues with his writing, and they bother me for a very good reason; and that reason is, I think he might be the guy to write The Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel. This is something my friend and I have been discussing for quite some time - that someone needs to write the Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel - a novel about the American Orthodox culture that is honest without speaking loshon hora; that is all inclusive and brings in tiny little corners and basement groups of the community that people ignore; that is creative and truthful and beautiful without being sappy and moral-driven. Something that is truly a work of art, and can therefore accomplish things the way only only real art can. We've been talking about which one of us should attempt it and from what angle, and if the world is truly ready for something like it, since high-school.

And then I discovered Matthue Roth and became supremely jealous because I think he'll get there first.

I have two main issues with Roth's work as a novelist:
1)Inconsistencies and inaccuracies; generally details about the frum community that are mis-portrayed or insufficiently described.
2) A sometimes sloppy writing style, which has the tendency to drop in little details or concepts that are muddled and confused to begin with, and which are then never picked up again or explained in any way.

And it's a shame, because if not for these two things, Matthue Roth's work could be that tremendous testimony to Jewish Orthodox life, with all it's nit-picky faults and glorious sub-culture detail, that we've been waiting for.

As a BT, Roth hasn't grown up in the Orthodox community. Which is fine when, for example, in his autobiographical "Yom Kippur A Go-Go," he's describing his experiences in the orthodox community as a BT. It's a little less fine when, as in his novel "Never Mind the Goldbergs," he's trying to describe life inside the OJ community as a teenager. There are a million little inaccuracies in "Goldbergs" that frustrated me, speaking as a girl who did grow up inside the OJ community and can relate to Hava and the struggles she experiences.
And the funny thing was, I related to Hava's struggles as a Jew in a non-Jewish world much more than I did with her struggles as a slightly different Jew within the OJ community. I already ranted about my frustrations with this novel in the post I linked to above, so I won't re-hash that. But.

Roth is very very good at depicting the periphery personalities of the Jewish community. A lot of his characters remind me of people I know. Which, first of all, is exactly what good art is supposed to do; and secondly, makes sense, because that's what he knows. What he's not as strong at is portraying the OJ community from the inside. This would prevent him from being able to write a full-length feature on the OJ community, complete with the wide angle shots and all the tiny little shades, crevices, and details.

There are also the little stylistic issues in his writing; tiny things he sort of drops and then never picks up again, artistic allusions that are never really explained or understood. But that's an editing thing, a matter of cleaning up the prose a little.

But I am a huge fan of his writing. Similar to other authors that I am a fan of (Zoe Trope, Dave Eggers,) Roth's lyrical, honest, rythmic descriptions manage to hit home no matter how much of his work you may or may not identify with. His writing, like Trope's and Eggers', makes me want to live more, write more, be more, as a person with a world at my fingertips to take advantage of. And, of course, makes me want to write the way they do. There are many reasons why I may not be able to write the Great Orthodox-Jewish Novel, and why it should be Roth. And this is why the little things that bother me about his work do bother me.

Because I don't expect that kind of thing from authors like Tova Mirvis, and Naomi Regan, and Libby Lazewnik, or any other author who writes about the OJ community. While they are all, to greater and lesser degrees, talented authors, they're still not going to get it, because they focus on pieces and not on the whole. Or because they don't know the bits of the Jewish community that need writing about. They're too cynical, or not cynical enough. Roth strikes that balance, and he does know that world. And because he has the potential to write that novel, I really wish he would. But he has to bone up a bit on his facts and clean up his inconsistencies. If he would, I truly believe he has that potential the way no Orthodox author of our day does.