Thane Rosenbaum, in the third short story of his book Elijah Visited, writes in The Pants in the Family of going to the carnival with his father. He wants to get his father to open up about his experiences in the concentration camps; but his father refuses and he must be content with just spending time at a carnival with him. Thane [Adam, his name in the short story] grows frustrated because his father is getting more feeble and in poor health. Thane does notice that when they are at the carnival his father stops at every shooting gallery, and always amazes everyone watching at how he never misses a target - is he shooting at those who brought such unspeakable evil into his life?
One day the son gets a call at college that his father's body has been found on the boardwalk - a heart attack they say. "Morning joggers found him face down against the boards, hands raised up, surrendering to the sea."[p.52] He hurries home and returned to the shoreline. The first thing he sees when he enters his old bedroom is a pair of his pants that his father had asked to wear to a wedding - they are still pressed, as though not worn .. had his father gone to the wedding? He puts on the pants and walks along the same boardwalk they had hiked to the carnival, to the place where they had found his father. Gazing at the spot and slipping his hands into his back pockets, in one of the soft velvet pockets a full bottle of nitroglycerin tables, yet to be opened falls into his hand. Why is it still unopened? Why hadn't his father transferred the bottle to the pants he was wearing on that final walk? Had his father traded going to the wedding to walk to the sea? Was he headed back to the shooting galleries again? As thought the already unanswered questions weren't enough is seems his departed father has left him more. If he hadn't been so insistent on his father answering his questions would he still be alive ... or was this a coded answer? Did his father accept this the final battle he could not win? What legacy had he passed to his son? Was his father's leaving the pants on his bed a way of passing on the family torch, 'now you get to wear the pants in the family, what answers to life will you give?
I recently read an article about the remunerations won from Swiss banks that Nazi had deposited, stolen from their Jewish victims. A Jewish leader, although thankful for the gesture, criticized those who spent more time on worrying about what people thought of the holocaust than they did in helping the survivors. It's documented that the large majority of survivors live in poverty, and that even this money [almost 2 billion dollars] will only help a small minority.
I wonder if the author, in this short story, is not dealing with the same issue, only on a more personal level?
Thane Rosenbaum. Elijah Visible . Chptr. 3:Pants in the Family. pg.35-54
One day the son gets a call at college that his father's body has been found on the boardwalk - a heart attack they say. "Morning joggers found him face down against the boards, hands raised up, surrendering to the sea."[p.52] He hurries home and returned to the shoreline. The first thing he sees when he enters his old bedroom is a pair of his pants that his father had asked to wear to a wedding - they are still pressed, as though not worn .. had his father gone to the wedding? He puts on the pants and walks along the same boardwalk they had hiked to the carnival, to the place where they had found his father. Gazing at the spot and slipping his hands into his back pockets, in one of the soft velvet pockets a full bottle of nitroglycerin tables, yet to be opened falls into his hand. Why is it still unopened? Why hadn't his father transferred the bottle to the pants he was wearing on that final walk? Had his father traded going to the wedding to walk to the sea? Was he headed back to the shooting galleries again? As thought the already unanswered questions weren't enough is seems his departed father has left him more. If he hadn't been so insistent on his father answering his questions would he still be alive ... or was this a coded answer? Did his father accept this the final battle he could not win? What legacy had he passed to his son? Was his father's leaving the pants on his bed a way of passing on the family torch, 'now you get to wear the pants in the family, what answers to life will you give?
I recently read an article about the remunerations won from Swiss banks that Nazi had deposited, stolen from their Jewish victims. A Jewish leader, although thankful for the gesture, criticized those who spent more time on worrying about what people thought of the holocaust than they did in helping the survivors. It's documented that the large majority of survivors live in poverty, and that even this money [almost 2 billion dollars] will only help a small minority.
I wonder if the author, in this short story, is not dealing with the same issue, only on a more personal level?
Thane Rosenbaum. Elijah Visible . Chptr. 3:Pants in the Family. pg.35-54
Next Chapter: #4 An Act of Defiance
A German Jewish professor I know, a young survivor of the camps, once bemoaned this country's almost pornographic interest in the Holocaust. What bothers him is the prurient interest in the specifics all cloaked in the moral mantle of "never forgetting." As he put it, "We've suffered enough; we don't need to be reminded of it constantly." I thought of him when reading this review, in the reaction of the father to the questioning of his son.
ReplyDeleteCheers.