Witz (novel)
LC Class | PS3553.O42434W58 2010 |
Witz is a novel by Joshua Cohen.
Plot summary
In Witz, Joshua Cohen calls all religious Jews "Affiliated". After the sabbath meal a week before Christmas, Benjamin is born to Israel and Hanna Israelien in Joysey, the first son after 12 girls. This winter is particularly hard and in fact persists year round. Benjamin is born full grown (by a method explored by
Then the first-borns start dying, and by Passover Benjamin is the only one remaining. It is arranged that he marry the President's daughter in Las Vegas, but Benjamin escapes again, to wander the country in his mother's robe. Back in New York City, his "sisters" catch up with him, and during cunnilingus with "Hanna", his tongue gets stuck and is torn off when the sisters try to separate them. The scandal destroys The Garden, and Benjamin is shunned by all (he and the operators of The Garden are Disaffiliated).
Without real Jews around to complicate things, America, and soon, the world, has become Affiliated. The President becomes chief of the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem. Those who refuse to Affiliate are sent to their "homeland", Polandland, where they are kept in ghettos, experimented upon, worked and starved to death, killed. Benjamin finds his way there, too, visiting the towns of his mother's and his father's ancestors. In his wanderings, he sprouts the horns of a cow and ultimately he turns into a woman. The Affiliated, however, revive the cult of his tongue, now displayed as a relic. And Wanda, now Affiliated, with a son of her own, remembers the visitor who came down the chimney to sit with Benjamin every night for the week after his birth: Isaiah? dressed as Santa Claus.
Twenty-five years later, we hear from a 108-year-old Jewish man who was in
Critical reception
The
References
- New York Observer. Archived from the originalon 2 April 2010. Retrieved 3 July 2010.