I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: THE KLEZMER CONSERVATORY BAND-Oy Chanukah! (1987).

For the first day of Hanukkah, it’s time for a Chanukah album.

This is a collection of traditional Chanukah songs interspersed with brief stories and a history of the holiday.

It works as a musical collection, although the dialogue does obviously stop the flow every couple of minutes.

Klezmer music is fun (provided you like the clarinet), but it really can’t be dissociated from the stories behind it.

The first narrator talks about the Maccabees and the Festival of Lights.  There’s the tales of Judith and Hannah and memories of klezmorim coming to the shtetl.  There’s even a recipe for latkes and the story of the dreydl.

Some of the songs have words (sung in Yiddish) but just as many are instrumentalist.  The majority of the songs are traditional, of course, but my favorite is “Klezzified,” which is written by one of the band.

This disc is a good introduction to Chanukah music.

[READ: December 12, 2017] “Souterrain”

Once again, I have ordered The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This year, there are brief interviews with each author posted on the date of their story.

Hello. Welcome. It’s finally here: Short Story Advent Calendar time.

If you’re reading along at home, now’s the time to start cracking those seals, one by one, and discover some truly brilliant writing inside. Then check back here each morning for an exclusive interview with the author of that day’s story.

(Want to join in? It’s not too late. Order your copy here.)

This year I’m pairing each story with a holiday disc from our personal collection

This story was really powerful and it revealed all of the details and connections in a slow and excruciating way–once you realized what was happening.

There are several characters in the story which takes place primarily in France.  

There’s Pierre Maillard an old man who was born blind.  Shortly after the story opens, he dies, but much of the story is told in flashback and he is central to the story.

There’s Iris.  Iris is Pierre’s granddaughter.  She inherited Pierre’s house and, since she needed a change, decided to pack up her failing life in New York and made no plans to return.

Iris’s mother, Hélène ran away from Pierre when she was nineteen.  But when Iris was born, she made sure that Iris had contact with her grandfather (even if Hélène didn’t want any).  She was not in the will.

The will left some money aside for Madame Harmou who more or less looked after Pierre–as well as Iris when she came to visit.  Madame Harmou was not a warm person, but she was kind.

And there’s There’s Lili Harmou, Madame Harmou’s son. He grew up with Pierre on the periphery of his life.  He was kind of a bad boy growing up but he was now a successful night club owner.

The story bounces around with these characters.  We see Pierre as a young boy, listening to his mother play piano.  We also jump to the time when he was older and at a party when he heard a song she often played and he was overcome with memories.

We see Lili as a young boy coming to Pierre’s house to wait for his mother.  He was mesmerized by Iris.  She was bratty and incorrigible as  child, but when she was older, she developed and was quite sexy.  He once saw her making out with someone in the park.

But he never did anything about his desires because he was convinced that he was related to her.  He never knew his father and he grew certain of this assumption about Pierre because he looked an awful lot like him.  And when he confronted his mother about it, she more or less admitted it.  Although she did so primarily because she wanted to keep him away from Iris–she felt Iris was a loose woman.

This inter-family drama is interesting in itself, but there’s more.  And it involves Nazis.

The Gliks were a Jewish family.  Pierre’s parents sheltered them during the war–the parents and their four daughters. The man had been Pierre’s mother’s piano teacher.  And when things got bad, Pierre’s parents hid them and his mother played piano all day so they could make noise.  They were later betrayed by a neighbor for a stick of butter.  Pierre’s parents were also taken in by the Nazis–Pierre was never spotted during the raid.  He never met them again.

Pierre was raised by his cousin Rosalie’s family. He really had no idea what had happened or many years.  After Madame Harmou was hired, Rosalie told the story of the Gliks to her in order to explain her brother’s kindness.

Those are some of the pieces.  The way they interweave in the present is really something.  I couldn’t believe how affecting this story was.  And how each new revelation was more impactful than the last.