Skip to main content

David Golder


This is certainly an odd little book.  The story seems to come more from the pages of Balzac than Dostoevsky as the cynical old Jewish banker tries desperately to reconcile his life but finds himself unable to do so without scoring one last deal in Soviet Russia.  Throughout the short account he is plagued by his wife and daughter who seem to have no other interest in him except his money.  At least that is the way he sees it, and Nemirovsky gives us little reason to think otherwise.  A few pages reveal a lighter tone when the author follows young Joy and her boyfriend in the Pyrennes as they escape into a romantic idyll.  But, alas, it is all too brief as they soon find themselves short of cash and have to return.  By this point, Gloria, her nasty mother, has assumed control of much of the Golder estate, while her embattled husband, having suffered a heart attack, retreats inside himself, unwilling to extend anymore credit to anyone, and letting the once powerful financial empire that surrounded him crumble into ruin.

There is something oddly Ayn Randish about the way we find David Golder holed up in Paris, bitter and extremely cynical, unwilling to move a muscle until his daughter comes to him one last time asking him for money in order to avoid having to marry one of his arch rivals.  Golder at first rejects and then accepts his daughter, seemingly more as a means to get back at his wife than anything else.  So, he follows through on one last score that will keep young Joy flush for the rest of her life so that she could enjoy herself to the fullest.  Something he was never able to do.

It seems more a sketch than a novel, but it definitely grips you.  The book caused quite a stir in its day.  It was Nemirovsky's first heralded work, written at age 26, and was quickly made into a movie.  For Jews, it represented all the wrong stereotypes that were prevalent then.  Seemed to me that Nemirovsky was somehow trying to come to grips with her own situation.  There was a sardonic note in her telling which indicated to me that maybe she was examining her own life in a parable directed at her parents.

Here is a review by Coetzee on Golder and the other books in the Everyman's Library edition.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ward No. 6

Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892.  It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921.  In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town.  He  introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster.  It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin.  Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.

The Morning of Our Motherland

I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery .  The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right.  To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union.  Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence.  It is also known as  Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years.  The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance.  He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide.  Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin for an earlier "Mother"

Light and Dark

I'm still trying to sort out the ending.  The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double .  He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul.  Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul.  This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage.  Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage.  I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece.  In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating events, and may even