"A deep journey into someone's mind"

WEEPING SUSANNAH is a stream of consciousness novel written in the first person from the narrator's point of view. The author goes into depth describing the thoughts and turmoil of the narrator, who is mentally ill. So are other characters in the novel. There is a story line to the novel, but not a plot in the usual sense. Girl meets boy; girl loves boy. However, the real story is within the narrator's mind. The main characters are Susannah Rabin, the narrator; her mother Ada; and her second cousin Neo. Other characters are Rivki Finkwasser, Susannah's social worker; Nehama Lieber and Armand, the mother's friends; and Katyusha, Neo's friend. Katyusha has a six-year old son, Arthur.

Susannah starts out timid, insecure, and willingly submissive to her mother, who means well, but Susannah is thirty-three, and her mother doesn't want to lose Susannah's companionship. Susannah is under the professional care of a social worker, Rivki Finkwasser. Early in the novel, Rivki arranges for Susannah to go to a communal center for mentally disturbed people who have artistic ability. The mother doesn't want it because that would mean losing Susannah.

When her cousin moves in, Susannah starts out referring to him as "the guest." She hates him because of his intrusion into her private life. Gradually, she gets to know him and love him. But Neo has mental problems of his own. When Neo's problems come out, the novel takes a sad turn. Neo's friend, Katyusha, has a six year old son named Arthur. His mental illness is very severe. He is hyperactive, sleeps one or two hours a night, and speaks only in rhyme using filthy language. For an ordinary reader, this would seem a case of demonic possession, especially speaking in rhyme. The six year old, through his rhymes, provides important information to Neo and Katyusha.

This is a slow moving novel that requires concentration not to miss the important elements. Although Susannah is mentally ill, a "nutcase" as Neo describes her, there is no mention of medication given Susannah to diminish her symptoms. Common opinion has mental illness a vicious cycle between chemical imbalance and mental attitude. Each augments the other. Correct one and you break the cycle. Correct both and you cure the patient.

The novel mentions no medication, but gives hints of what the mental attitude might be. Neo thinks Susannah got her name from the Apocryphal story in Daniel. Susannah is weeping because Daniel's Susannah is weeping. One could say the title is Scriptural. Neo deals in icons of the Madonna. The novel mentions Mary and Jesus. When Susannah asks Neo to define moral in the deepest sense of the word, he says, "OK, I'll give you a rather Christian answer, but it's the truth. Moral in the deepest sense of the word is the recognition of other people's dependence on you." Susannah mentions Satan, sin, angels, vampires, and sometimes thinks of herself as a vampire. She thinks she is being tempted, sometimes almost to the point of demonic possession. She recognizes sin. Susannah also mentions belief in evolution as well as religious beliefs. She says, "I'd like to live in the prehistoric swamp where human life came into being."

Contradictory views like this could, if unresolved, disturb the mental equilibrium of a person. Kimhi has Neo define Judaism to Nehama Lieber: "Do you think it's possible to isolate Jewish history from the Jewish religion, my dear Mrs. Lieber? Or the Jewish people from the Jewish religion? It's absurd! The Jewish religion is Jewish history itself." Here I think Kimhi is wrong! The Jewish people are purely human. Focusing on people focuses entirely on human nature with all its wounds and defects. Religion should focus on God, someone above human nature, someone unwounded and free of any defects. Kimhi's failure to point that out makes her psychological insight into Susannah difficult for her readers to comprehend.

I think a psychological novel requires much from a novelist. Besides showing the mental illness, the author needs to make clear to the reader some reasonable cause for the illness and some glimpse of what the heroine would be like were she healthy. If these elements are missing, the novel becomes confused, fatalistic, depressing.

Overall, this book is well written and well organized. It gives the reader deep insight into the thinking and motives of the characters. The setting is in Israel, with much conversation about Israeli politics. If you like in-depth, psychological novels, you will like WEEPING SUSANNAH.

Reviewed by Maurice A. Williams
Posted April 30, 2003

Summary

Susannah Rabin can't stand people, or is that they can't stand her? Either way, she'd rather cocoon herself in the tiny apartment she shares with her devoted, overbearing mother than face the excruciating torment of human contact." So when Susannah's mother tells her that their American cousin Neo is coming to stay, Susannah is apprehensive, or more precisely, she is horrified. And rightly so. Straight away the guest - as she likes to call him - begins to worm his way into her mother's affections, and - worse - to destroy Susannah's carefully constructed solitude. And then one day, the guest offers to teach her how to draw. Susannah can't help but be captivated by the fascinating world of her enigmatic, beautiful cousin. But because people are contrary and life is like that, Susannah's mother - responsible after all for the guest's presence - becomes anxious at their growing friendship, and asks the obvious question: what exactly is Neo doing in Israel?