Mother for Dinner

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This was weird, delightful, intellectually engaging book, and I ripped through it with the inevitability and speed of the rites performed within. To make matters worse, even if he can wrangle his brothers together for a feast, the Can-Am people have assimilated, and the only living Cannibal who knows how to perform the ancient ritual is their Uncle Ishmael, whose erratic understanding of their traditions leads to conflict. His memoir, Foreskin's Lament, about his apostacy against Orthodox Judaism, is outrageously offensive. And yet, and yet: the end of the novel is a wistful, regretful, even sentimental paean to the importance of heritage, of the right to decide, of the right to change. He works in publishing, where he struggles with being tasked with finding The Not-So-Great Something American Novel, and quietly seethes about the politics of identity.

Cada uno de los hermanos representa a una minoría y la madre es, para cada uno de sus hijos, el yugo que durante la historia de la humanidad ha castigado a esas minorías, impidiéndole ser ellos mismos y realizarse como individuos. Irony is used heavily in the narrative - a simple example being the American flags that are made in Chine and how that is developed. Auslander’s last novel, Hope: A Tragedy, had its protagonist discover a foul-mouthed and geriatric Anne Frank hiding in his attic in New England. Having disposed of a mother and walked away from a family - and possibly a lucrative future - there was much in here I could relate to, and a massive amount that I could not.They are however pretty inept, and need the assistance of the patriarch Unclish, who founded the Can-Am University (where nothing but Cannibal thought is taught, even though it never really opened), to perform the Victuals. Little Zero (girl after my own heart) --felt that if somebody read this story 100 years from now and believed a word of it they would be idiots just like all the siblings. He never loved her, but the sense of guilt and responsibility he feels--to her and to his people and to his "unique cultural heritage"--is overwhelming. But you’re not reading As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, but Mother For Dinner, the new work by the dizzyingly acerbic Shalom Auslander. I think my hatred towards Mudd should just be seen as a testament to how well written this book is, and how superb the characterisation.

uma história diferente, uma sátira um pouco negra à obsessão moderna com a identidade e uma dura crítica à intolerância entre povos. The tale is, of course, a parody with each sibling’s (and therefore society's) traits in receipt of satire. Shalom Auslander hadn't then come to my attention since so I was delighted when I stumbled across this book. I love Seventh, like First, dislike Tenth, want Twelfth to develop a mind of her own, and just want to hug Zero.

I re-read Faulkner after reading Auslander, and it’s a far funnier, sadder and more profound novel than my younger self’s memory of it. As in the brilliant Hope: A Tragedy, Auslander uses an outrageous premise to illustrate what he sees as the dangers of relying for one’s identity on a sense of both current and historic oppression and injustice. Una obra fantásticamente loca que, entre filete y filete, muestra el pesar de las tradiciones y cómo el estilo de crianza marca la vida de cada hija o hijo. Seventh Seltzer works in Manhattan publishing and has to vet identity stories vying to be the next Great American Novel: “The Heroin-Addicted-Autistic-Christian-American-Diabetic one” and “the Gender-Neutral-Albino-Lebanese-Eritrean-American” one are two examples.