The evolution of fiction into myth Thursday, October 22, 2009 When artists began to submit proposals for the construction of a Holocaust memorial in Berlin, there were many thoughtful objectors who contended that no such monument should ever be built. Among their arguments was that no monument could truly capture the horror created in a state-mandated, systematic attempt at the extermination of a people. I suspect that this contention is true. But, given the fact that there will soon be no survivors left to serve as living testaments, the fate of the Holocaust's legacy now falls to our generation. How are we remembering it? Interestingly, but not altogether counter-intuitively, since, ever more, today's artists don't have visceral memories of the Holocaust, our generation's lasting mark on this legacy may be the mainstreaming of Holocaust fiction as a literary genre. What does this portend? I don't mean to discount the great body of literary work that was created in reaction to the Holocaust, but stories taking place afore the background of the Holocaust have, heretofore, never been so mainstream. Defiance, Inglourious Basterds, The Reader, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, The Valkyrie – each of these works bears at least one of the following characteristics: It was written/directed by a non-Jew. It is historically fantastical. It starred bonafide box-office mega-stars; and/or it was created and distributed by a major studio. The Holocaust genre has emerged as a viable fictional genre for creative people of all stripes. Why? … and is this a good thing? In writing Intelligence-Slave, my contribution to the genre of Holocaust fiction, I did extensive research and worked in residence at The Nassau County Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center. I befriended survivors and my eyes opened in very important ways. But, as I wrote the play, I struggled mightily with notions of producing historical verisimilitude, thinking that such efforts would best serve to honor people who suffered so mightily. Then I read articles that preceded the release of Quentin Tarrantino's Inglourious Basterds and I started to see phrases like "Jewish revenge fantasy" and "Kosher porn." In an article in The Atlantic, the horror director Eli Roth, one of the stars of Inglourious Basterds stated, "It's almost a deep sexual satisfaction of wanting to beat Nazis to death, an orgasmic feeling ..." Another film-maker described the film as "... a Jewish wet dream." I wasn't sure what to make of this. Was the rise of Holocaust literature as a genre preserving the memory of the Holocaust, or was it turning the memory into fantasy? I began to consider whether any singular work of literature has truly altered the course of human behavior, serving, in perpetuity, as a bloody-head-on-a-spike at the gates of history, effectively warning us of bad deeds from the past. I struggled to make a list. Though Upton Sinclair elicited great change in his day, is his muckraking having an impact on the power-brokers on Wall Street? Is Uncle Tom's Cabin still guiding the on-going debate about race, labor and human-trafficking in America? No. I came to see that every work of fiction belongs to the time it was written in and thus, its impact is largely contemporary. Fiction's job is not to chronicle. We have history for that. Fiction's ambition should be to evolve into myth, thereby attaining a means to speak to our collective souls. As the Holocaust begins to fade from visceral memory, we should prepare for the fact that the work made about it (and there is no indication that the volume of work is slowing) is becoming less about a reaction to actual events, but more a meditation about how knowledge of these events has changed our souls. In short, it is becoming more mythic, more deeply in line with the universal stories that journey with us from birth until death. As we enter the wake of one of the most terrible genocides in the history of mankind, what stories will we tell about a demon that was born when human nature was manipulated and shaped by circumstances and the hands of a powerful madman? Will we tell heroic and violent stories about how the demon was vanquished? Will we revel too much in the violence? The results remain to be seen. If you are interested in reading an interesting (and perhaps over-stated) historical account of the roots of anti-Semitism and out-group persecution, I would suggest that you check out R. I. Moore's The Formation of a Persecuting Society. "Heretics and Jews," Moore argues, "owed their persecution in the first place not to the hatred of the people but to the decisions of princes and prelates." His thesis (supported with documents) supposes that in the Middle-Ages, huge disparities in wealth and the threat of revolution caused enough concern that land owners and corrupt Church officials made a concerted effort to divide society into out-groups. Then they turned these out-groups against each other, distracting the populace and beginning a cycle of violence that continues today. In light of the fact that the top 1% of the United States is currently wealthier than the bottom 95% combined, and the timbre of the debate over important issues like health-care and human rights has become cartoonishly dogmatic, it is, at the very least, an interesting thesis to consider. If you are interested in actively keeping a historical account of the Holocaust alive, I would suggest that you contact my friend Irving Roth at The Holocaust Research Center Temple Judea Manhasset. He coordinates an "Adopt a Survivor" program in which you can adopt a survivor and share his or her story, keeping a vital historical and oral memory of the Holocaust alive. Incidentally, American Theater, people of all stripes have adopted survivors. The idea is to be called upon to tell these stories one day. A little meta-theater anyone? end of scene