{"product_id":"never-better-miriam-udel-9780472053056","title":"Never Better!: The Modern Jewish Picaresque","description":"It was only when Jewish writers gave up on the lofty Enlightenment ideals of progress and improvement that the Yiddish novel could decisively enter modernity. Animating their fictions were a set of unheroic heroes who struck a precarious balance between sanguinity and irony that author Miriam Udel captures through the phrase \"never better.\" With this rhetorical homage toward the double-voiced utterances of Sholem Aleichem, Udel gestures at these characters' insouciant proclamation that things had never been better, and their rueful, even despairing admission that things would probably \u003ci\u003enever\u003c\/i\u003e get better. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e The characters defined by this dual consciousness constitute a new kind of protagonist: a distinctively Jewish scapegrace whom Udel denominates the \u003ci\u003epolit\u003c\/i\u003e or refugee. Cousin to the Golden Age Spanish \u003ci\u003ep?aro\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003epolit\u003c\/i\u003e is a socially marginal figure who narrates his own story in discrete episodes, as if stringing beads on a narrative necklace. A deeply unsettled figure, the \u003ci\u003epolit\u003c\/i\u003e is allergic to sentimentality and even routine domesticity. His sequential misadventures point the way toward the heart of the picaresque, which Jewish authors refashion as a vehicle for modernism--not only in Yiddish, but also in German, Russian, English and Hebrew. Udel draws out the contours of the new Jewish picaresque by contrasting it against the nineteenth-century genre of progress epitomized by the \u003ci\u003eBildungsroman\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e While this book is grounded in modern Jewish literature, its implications stretch toward genre studies in connection with modernist fiction more generally. Udel lays out for a diverse readership concepts in the history and theory of the novel while also explicating the relevant particularities of Jewish literary culture. In addressing the literary stylistics of a \"minor\" modernism, this study illuminates how the adoption of a picaresque sensibility allowed minority authors to write simultaneously \u003ci\u003ewithin\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eagainst\u003c\/i\u003e the literary traditions of Europe. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Miriam Udel\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0472053051\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780472053056\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Michigan Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 04\/18\/2016\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 266\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.90lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.90h x 5.90w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 01\/01\/2017","brand":"Miriam Udel","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":43946675241215,"sku":"9780472053056","price":23.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/products\/img_e5bdcd15-2947-4a9b-9615-70b71d650a1b.jpg?v=1681514493","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/never-better-miriam-udel-9780472053056","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}