Stafford, Anika

English

Journals @ The Mount

BOOK REVIEWAt Odds in the World: Essays on Jewish Canadian Women Writers.  Ruth Panofsky.Toronto, Ontario: Inanna Press, 2008; iv +117 pages; ISBN 978-098088224-7; 25.95(paper).What does it mean when an author states that she was unable to write in the first personfor ten years because the “'I' didn't exist” (35)? Exploring works by Jewish Canadianwomen writers, Ruth Panofsky investigates the ways diaspora, gender, and languageinform narratives of embodiment - recounting tales of dislocation and fractured identities(18). Her criticism offers eloquent insights into dominant Canadian culture andcontestations of oppression within sub-cultures.  Panofsky's literary criticism examines social isolation as fought through the restructuringof language to allow room for female embodiment. The authors she examines create a“home” through language by changing narrative structure and writing lives formallyostracized. Panofsky notes, for example, that Helen Weinzeig's use of structure challengesthe erasure of female subject positions through the use of form to reflect new embodiedpossibilities. She writes: “ structurally the work operates as small cyclical narratives framedby a large cyclical action of flight. The form suggests the cycle of the female body, by whichwomen are defined in the text” (53). Panofsky further argues that many Jewish Canadianauthors find it “necessary to dismantle linear narrative practices that aim to contain anddelimit fictional opportunities for women”(5). In contexts of misogyny and anti-semitism, AtOdds in the World explores Jewish women writing a sense of self: the “I,” formerlyunfathomable. Using issues of sexuality as a through-line for her discussions, Panofsky exploreschallenges faced by writers navigating often-hostile dominant cultural climates andmisogynist legacies threatening further marginalization. However, her work is startlinglyheterosexist. For example, she quotes a story by Miriam Waddington in which a characterstates she has an “inability to love another Jew… Sometimes I have even thought we Jewsare all the same sex” (22). Panofsky frames this in terms of conflicted relationships withJewish identity without mentioning the erasure of Jewish lesbians embedded in such astatement. Throughout the book she positions heterosexual relationships as encompassingthe range of women's intimacy. Fortunately, she does provide a more nuancedengagement with perceptions of women in the sex trade.Panofsky advocates for representations of Jewish sex workers as capable of acting withintelligence and agency. She applauds Wiseman's character, Hoda, a sex worker who34.2, 2009www.msvu.ca/atlantis“responds to verbal or sexual provocation with characteristic humour, a limited means ofself-protection adopted by Jews throughout history” (79). Panofsky's argument that sexworkers should be a recognized as part of their Jewish communities provides a much-needed counter to the moralism that ostracizes women for engaging in behaviour deemed“deviant.” The strength of At Odds in the World lies in this type of engagement with complications inseeking ends to alienation. Many characters engage with their heritage(s) while reclaimingfemale subject positions. For example, Nora Gold's female character's “Resolution oftrauma that 'engenders a splitting off of physical and emotional selves'” (68) happensthrough prayer that has been denied to women in Orthodox contexts. At Odds in the Worldsamples ways that Jewish Canadian women writers contest cultural factors that limit fullparticipation in their lives and faiths without a sense of disembodiment and fragmentation.As those with marginalized identities often struggle to balance these challenges,Panofsky's book creates an important legacy. Anika Stafford University of British Columbia

At Odds in the World: Essays on Jewish Canadian Women Writers

https://journals.msvu.ca/index.php/atlantis/article/download/5669/4787

At Odds in the World: Essays on Jewish Canadian Women Writers

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Journals @ The Mount