Oldal 466 [466]
BELA ZSOLT, THE HUNGARIAN “SOCIOLOGIST OF JEWRY”
depth, and are statedly not equal to them.” I strongly believe this duality is
the writer’s intention to contradict the reader, just as anti-Semitism divides
a society, but here with the aim of emancipating Jewish values. The author
uses irony’ as a literary technique to do so. In relation to other canonized
Jewish writers discussing the Jewish identity and traditions, we can see what
a vigorously different attitude some other narrators have. The positions of
Karoly Pap’s narrators and the convenience (not inconvenience) is already
articulated in the first sentence of his famous novel Azarel: “My paternal
grandfather was a Jewish wool trader.”
JEWISH INCONVENIENCE
Another noteworthy Jewish identification technique in Zsolt’s work is the
depiction of the Jewish identity as an inconvenient factor for a persona.
The inconvenience of being Jewish is implicitly discussed in Zsolt’s prose,
to which conclusion I have come by examining the first occurrences of the
word zsidö (Jew, Jewess, Jewish), in accordance to the conceptualization of the
main characters’self-identification. In my analysis, I aim to show the direct
connection between the protagonists’ Jewish self and the first instance of the
word “Jewish” that can be read regarding their story. In It Ends in Marriage the
plot of an interfaith marriage emphasizes the woman’s Jewish identification
through the man’s perspective and not through self-identification. The
woman, a wealthy aristocrat, does not care about her Jewish roots, this being
well illustrated by the first appearance of the word “Jewish” (zsidö). The first
time it is said out loud that Eszter is a Jewess is long after the beginning of the
story; we already know the characters and about their romance by the time an
argument arises between the two.
Besides that, he does have something to lose. For example, his traditions. I beg
your pardon, but she can’t sense this, women don’t have a sense of traditions;
moreover, she is... Just say it loud, she doesn’t have a sense of traditions because
she is “Jewish”? Is that right? That’s what you wanted to say. No, he did not even
think of this — he objects, because he saw it was best to retreat.’
An analysis of this narrative behavior can be found in my first Master’s thesis: Alexandra M.
Szab6: Represented “Jewish” Identity Forms in Zsolt Béla’s Novels, Budapest, ELTE, 2016.
Kierkegaardian irony, to be specific.
4 Karoly Pap: Azarel: A Novel, Vermont, Steerforth Press, 2001, 1.
"Azonkívül van vesztenivalója. Például a tradicidi. Ne haragudjék, de 6 eztnemérzi, a ndknek
nincs érzékük a hagyományok iránt, és azonkívül ő... / Csak mondja ki bátran, neki nincs
érzéke a tradíciók iránt, mert zsidó? Ugye? Ezt akarta mondani. / Nem, erre nem is gondolt
— tiltakozik, mert jobbnak látja, ha visszavonul." In Béla Zsolt: Házassággal végződik,
Budapest, Ulpius-häz Könyvkiadö, 2007, 44.
+ 465 *