(no subject)

[skygiants]

While I was on last week's Yiddish literature binge, I was hugely delighted to discover that besides the Tevye stories, which I knew about, Sholem Aleichem had ALSO written a novel about ACTING TROUPES IN THE YIDDISH THEATER called Wandering Stars.

Wandering Stars begins in the tiny village of Holoneshti, where Reizel the fifteen-year-old cantor's daughter and Leibel the fourteen-year-old rich man's son get their first taste of theater when a wandering troupe comes through, and are IMMEDIATELY STARSTRUCK.

Sadly for Reizel and Leibel, both of them pretty soon end up grounded, which leads to a lot of extremely adolescent woe. There's one hilarious sequence in which Leibel imagines his own funeral in great detail. THEY'LL ALL BE SORRY THEN.

Anyway, these infants devise a genius plan to run away with the theater company! They're talented! They're in love! They're TOTALLY GROWN UPS! It'll be fine!

...and it sort of is, except for the part where the troupe accidentally gets separated because the director is running away from alimony issues with his three ex-wives, so Reizel and Leibel end up in completely different parts of the country.

So basically this is one of those books where the romantic leads get separated a third of the way through and spend the rest of the book wandering around various locations to find each other, helped and hindered along the way by various larger-than-life theater personalities, who are all attempting to make their own fortunes around these two talented kids.

The book follows Leibel more than Reizel, which is actually my biggest complaint because what we do see of Reizel's story is FASCINATING. She starts out as a cross-dressing vaudeville performer! She meets a famous opera singer who becomes her best friend and surrogate mother! IMPORTANT RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WOMEN that alas we barely get to see. Then she has to deal with rising fame and increasing alienation from her roots and Jewish identity and a struggle to figure out whether her feelings for her violinist partner are actually love or just professional respect coupled with a violin fetish, all of which is also really interesting and barely on the page.

Meanwhile, Leibel grows up to be enormously talented as an actor, buuut also slowly becomes more and more of a self-centered dick. My sympathy for him took a huge hit when we hit the scene where he's confessing his woes to his director's naive sixteen-year-old sister, who has a giant crush on him. It's so great that he can tell her all about his long-lost love! She's just like a little sister to him! TOO BAD THAT LEIBEL GOT HIS DEFINITION OF 'SISTER' FROM JAIME LANNISTER.

However, I forgave Sholem Aleichem everything when we finally got to the end and Reizel and Leibel found each other at last after years of pining, and IT TURNS OUT THEY'VE GROWN INTO HUGELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE AND DON'T END UP TOGETHER AT ALL.

Reizel meets the poor pregnant sixteen-year-old kid that Leibel dumped to go pursue his Rosa Quest and is like "omg Leibel she's adorable! Her baby is adorable! MARRY HER IMMEDIATELY."

Meanwhile, Reizel's violinist fiance -- who seems like a pretty chill dude -- meets Leibel and they become best friends, and then Reizel ditches BOTH of them, and the last thing we see in the book is Reizel writing a mother to her opera singer fake mother all "welp I guess romance is just not for me, so I'm just going to have to continue my wandering life as an international music sensation!" I mean, it's bittersweet, because she still feels so disconnected, but as an ending for the female lead in a novel from 1910 it's actually ... pretty amazing ...

I'm going to conclude by saying my favorite write-up of this book that I've seen is from Goodreads: "as a former theatre kid, i can attest to the reality of the inevitability of incestuous romantic entanglements. this captures it perfectly, even made me a little nostalgic. im glad to know theatre people have been crazy for a while now." GREAT SUMMARY, ONE HUNDRED PERCENT ACCURATE.

Comments

[sovay]

Sholem Aleichem had ALSO written a novel about ACTING TROUPES IN THE YIDDISH THEATER called Wandering Stars.

I love this novel, actually. The Yiddish title is Blonzhende shtern, which could be equally translated as Stars Astray. It's the same root as farblondzhet—lost, off course, all mixed up; it works very well for the way all the characters go about their lives. I read half of it in a synagogue in Vancouver and finished the rest on a plane, which felt appropriate.

[skygiants]

Ha, that does feel very appropriate. I read it rather frustratingly in very small chunks on a very small cell phone screen, mostly on the Long Island Railroad, which I guess is also appropriate, in a way. Did you read it in Yiddish, or the 2009 translation?

[sovay]

mostly on the Long Island Railroad, which I guess is also appropriate, in a way.

I think it counts.

Did you read it in Yiddish, or the 2009 translation?

English translation! Same edition as you linked. I can read Yiddish, but not quickly or naturally enough to make a novel a comfortable exercise. I should probably try at some point; most of my experience is with songs and poems.

[skygiants]

It's great to have that option, though! What frustrates me beyond measure is that while there are a couple of great editions of Yiddish plays in translation (one of which I just read and should write up soon) the only things that are translated are serious classics; NOBODY TRANSLATES THE SHUND. I desperately want to be able to read cheesy Lateiner operettas!

[sovay]

NOBODY TRANSLATES THE SHUND. I desperately want to be able to read cheesy Lateiner operettas!

Seriously? None of it?

DAMN, ACADEMIA.

[skygiants]

None that I've been able to turn up! It's possible there are some buried in an academic library somewhere, but NONE THAT ARE ACCESSIBLE TO ME, which is obviously what's most important.

[amoama]

Oh yes, this sounds like a delightful must-read, even though I'm still going on Tevye! :D

[skygiants]

There are reasons it's not really considered as much of a masterwork as Tevye, but there are also ways in which I like it more!

[ladymondegreen]

Clearly we now need to write the musical. ;)

[skygiants]

It would actually make for an AMAZING musical. I mean, the heroine's a singer! All the music could be perfectly diegetic!

[ladymondegreen]

It would! Also, I love that someone else knows that concept who isn't me. :)

[sovay]

I mean, the heroine's a singer! All the music could be perfectly diegetic!

I AM ALL FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THIS THING.

[edit] Actually, the fact that Tony Kushner hasn't written one yet blows my mind.

[evewithanapple]

as a former theatre kid, i can attest to the reality of the inevitability of incestuous romantic entanglements

oh man back when I was doing high school theatre I could literally have drawn a diagram of who in our circle dated who else ("so I was with Angel for awhile because she was in an open relationship with Dan, but then she and Dan broke up and she got together with Liam while he was technically still dating Dawn . . .") IT'S GOOD TO KNOW WE WERE CONTINUING A FINE TRADITION.

[skygiants]

Haha man, everything I've read about the Yiddish theater makes it sound like a hotbed of incestuous affairs like you've NEVER SEEN. Yiddish Theater Founding Father Jacob Adler once got one actress pregnant, married another actress, then divorced her and married his producer's wife instead, all within the span of, like, A YEAR. Another Yiddish Theater Founding Father actually got his new girlfriend to star AS HIS WIFE in a play ABOUT HIM AND HIS WIFE, and at least two DIFFERENT members of that guy's family were ACTUALLY SHOT AND PARALYZED by jealous spouses. IN DIFFERENT INCIDENTS.

[sovay]

Another Yiddish Theater Founding Father actually got his new girlfriend to star AS HIS WIFE in a play ABOUT HIM AND HIS WIFE, and at least two DIFFERENT members of that guy's family were ACTUALLY SHOT AND PARALYZED by jealous spouses. IN DIFFERENT INCIDENTS.

. . . Is Frank Wildhorn looking for material for his next musical?