By
– August 31, 2011
The Bible’s Job, “a perfect and upright man,” suffers so much that he regrets the day he was born. Platitudinous friends tell him that there must be a reason he is being punished, yet he steadfastly rejects their pious rationalizations in a dialogue that occupies most of the Biblical narrative. Joseph Roth’s Job proposes a 20th century version of the Biblical parable of loss and restoration, and Ross Benjamin’s graceful new translation of this 80-year-old work makes an excellent reason to revisit it.
Roth’s protagonist, the Russian Jew Mendel Singer, also falls into despair as he gradually loses what is most precious to him, but he spends little time debating with friends. Instead Singer goes about his impoverished everyday life in the shtetl, which Roth describes with documentary scope and in vivid details that appeal to all the senses. When Singer, his wife, and daughter leave Russia for New York’s Lower East Side, their troubles worsen to the point that Singer loses the will to live.
In the end Job receives from God twice as much as he had before in sheep, oxen, and camels, as well as ten children. Mendel Singer, by contrast, finds contentment through an emotional fulfillment that he never could have imagined. Biblical parallels aside, Roth’s story stands on its own as an affecting tale of a humble man’s loss, displacement, and final contentment.
The novel’s final pages include one jarring incident. A pious man, Mendel Singer has kept his head covered all his life. Now that he finds himself unexpectedly at peace, he deliberately takes off his cap and stands bareheaded in the sun, an act that is entirely out of character. Perhaps Joseph Roth consciously or unconsciously was anticipating his own conversion to Catholicism, which took place not long after this book was first published.
Roth’s protagonist, the Russian Jew Mendel Singer, also falls into despair as he gradually loses what is most precious to him, but he spends little time debating with friends. Instead Singer goes about his impoverished everyday life in the shtetl, which Roth describes with documentary scope and in vivid details that appeal to all the senses. When Singer, his wife, and daughter leave Russia for New York’s Lower East Side, their troubles worsen to the point that Singer loses the will to live.
In the end Job receives from God twice as much as he had before in sheep, oxen, and camels, as well as ten children. Mendel Singer, by contrast, finds contentment through an emotional fulfillment that he never could have imagined. Biblical parallels aside, Roth’s story stands on its own as an affecting tale of a humble man’s loss, displacement, and final contentment.
The novel’s final pages include one jarring incident. A pious man, Mendel Singer has kept his head covered all his life. Now that he finds himself unexpectedly at peace, he deliberately takes off his cap and stands bareheaded in the sun, an act that is entirely out of character. Perhaps Joseph Roth consciously or unconsciously was anticipating his own conversion to Catholicism, which took place not long after this book was first published.
Bob Goldfarb is president of Jewish Creativity International.
