Reviewer James Broderick, Ph.D: James is an associate professor of English and journalism at New Jersey City University. A former newspaper reporter and editor, he is the author of six non-fiction books, and the novel Stalked. His latest book is Greatness Thrust Upon Them, a collection of interviews with Shakespearean actors across America. Follow Here To Listen To An Interview With James Broderick.
Author: David Schmahmann
Publisher: The Permanent Press
ISBN-10: 1579622186 : ISBN-13: 978-1579622183
Author: David Schmahmann
Publisher: The Permanent Press
ISBN-10: 1579622186 : ISBN-13: 978-1579622183
Click Here To Purchase The Double Life of Alfred Buber
Ever since Vladimir Nabokov made it safe for middle-aged reprobates to prowl through the pages of literary fiction, authors have set themselves the challenge of creating characters whose personal stories were as propulsive as repulsive. And there is something undeniably appealing about eavesdropping on the depraved thoughts of a well-mannered protagonist whose double life teeters between the stolid and the sordid.
The very act of reading fiction depends on a kind of doubling on the part of the reader, a willingness to live for a while in a fantasy world while retaining a foothold in reality. When a writer creates a character whose own life meanders between reality and fantasy, the results can be both disorienting and (if the writer pulls it off) dazzling.
The latter is closer to the case in David Schmahmann’s wonderful second novel, The Double Life of Alfred Buber. The plot is exceedingly simple, but the prose journey taken by Buber, a middle-aged portly Jewish lawyer of mixed background and mixed-up morality reveals unsuspected depths of depravity and poignancy.
In the midst of re-telling the tale of his own considerable angst, torn between the ennui of life as a respected attorney for a white shoe New England law firm and his longing for an under-aged muse in a Bangkok bar/brothel, Buber reveals some painful truths about his life, and ours – especially about the modern torment of always doubting whether one has chosen the right path. As Buber agonizes, “I know how it is to stand at a fork in the path and to sense that either course holds its own whiff of shame.”
Indeed he does. But like
Nabokov, Schmahmann never descends into cheap or titillating prose.
In a novel of sexual shame and depredation, the writing is
unexpectedly luminous. Fans of Saul Bellow’s Henderson the Rain
King will detect echoes of that work’s deadpan assertions of
inanity (the scenes of the well-groomed Buber riding on an oxcart to reclaim his baffled Asian Lover are nightmarishly funny).
There are a number of serious themes that wend their way throughout the novel, such as the double-edged sword of colonialism, and whether our public personalities are a reflection of our true selves, or simply a fragile social construction. But these somewhat heady considerations never threaten to derail an entertaining narrative of an increasingly desperate and confused man, grasping a final chance to move from an understudy to the starring role of his own life.