Subject: Review of THE GOD-FEARER by Dan Jacobson

From: "Evelyn C Leeper" <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 1 Nov 1995 16:05:40 GMT

THE GOD-FEARER by Dan Jacobson
    Charles Scribner's Sons, ISBN 0-684-19660-3, 1992, 159pp, US$18
                   A book review by Evelyn C. Leeper
		    Copyright 1995 Evelyn C. Leeper

     This is an alternate history, though not in the usual mold.  And I am
reviewing it as such, not as the (basically) mainstream literary novel that
Jacobson was writing.

     Kobus the Bookbinder lives in the town of Niedering in the land of
Ashkenaz, in a Europe with a culture comparable to our Middle Ages (a nice
broad swath, that).  But it's not our Europe, as the name Ashkenaz should
tell you.  In this Europe, the God-Fearers, descendents of the ancient
Yehudim, rule, and the Christer are blamed for all the misfortunes that
befall the world.  ("Christer" is both singular and plural, by the way.)

     Now that Kobus's wife Rahella has died, his primary human contact is
his housekeeper Elisabet.  But Kobus is starting to have visions: two
Christer children who keep appearing to him.  Who they are and what their
appearance means is what this book is about.

     The alternate history aspect is emphasized in many places, talking
about how "the Muselmi tried to put an army into the land of Pannonia,"
"Buddh in the land of Sinn," and so on.  Jacobson has done his homework: the
Egyptians are "Mitzrim," a Hebraicized derivation of Egypt's name for
itself.  And, true to alternate history tradition, Jacobson has his
protagonist thinking about how his (different) world came about--in this
case, by the God-Fearers winning over the Romaim instead of, say, staging a
rebellion in the Holy Land.  (In actual history, by the way, there were
Romans who were considered "honorary Jews" and were called "God-Fearers.")

     But it is in the very emphasis on the alternate history that Jacobson
fails to convince.  Kobus also thinks about what things might be like if
drinking blood, devouring children, worshipping asses, scheming to seize
power, and killing God were aimed, not at the Christer, but at the God-
Fearers.  God-Fearer children think it very funny to run up behind a
Christer man, pull down his pants, and laugh at his uncircumcized penis.
The Christer claim to be the elect, the chosen ones.  The Christer are
accused of witchcraft, poisoning wells, etc.  And so on.

     Now, in fairness, Jacobson is not trying to write an alternate history
novel.  He's trying to write a literary novel with emphasizes on each
individual's responsibility to protect society from the evils within it.  He
is doing this by the sort of "walk a mile in my moccasins" approach that
many trainers seem to like.  In Jaconson's case, he turns around the
situation in our world to one in which the Christians are subjected to
precisely the same persecutions that the Jews were subjected to in our
world.  Now maybe it's my familiarity with alternate histories that makes me
find this unimaginative and unconvincing, but I didn't think this aspect
worked either.  However, perhaps outside the science fiction field this
technique will work better.

     In summary, while this book has been lauded by mainstream critics, it
has little to offer the alternate history fan.

%T      The God-Fearer
%A      Dan Jacobson
%C      New York
%D      1992
%I      Charles Scribner's Sons
%O      hardback, US$18
%G      ISBN 0-684-19660-3
%P      159pp

-- 
Evelyn C. Leeper | +1 908 957 2070 | [email-masked]
Sometimes I have intermittent problems, and sometimes I don't.