"All this is pretty exhausting"

Autism in Isaac Bashevis Singer's The Magician of Lublin

10/10

The main ingredients of the puzzling cocktail that is Singer's writing are: the way he assumes the role of a folklorist of a vanished world, and the Dickensian liveliness of his characters. I have read Satan in Goray and some assorted short stories by him before. In her essay on David Copperfield, Virginia Woolf says about Dicken's characters that they: "exist not in detail, not accurately or exactly, but abundantly in a cluster of wild and yet extraordinarily revealing remarks, bubble climbing on the top of bubble as the breath of the creator fills them." The fact that the anxiety-drenched shenanigans of a 19th-century Jewish travelling magician can captivate readers from such a cultural, geographical and temporal distance, speaks for Singer's incredible craft as an author. But The Magician of Lublin is not the timeless fairytale of one's Grandfather; it is a novel about modernity, the variety of Jewish identities and quite possibly neurodiversity. Let me explain.

The titular character, Yasha Mazur is an enterprising magician and escape artist who tours the theatres of rural Poland in search of his breakthrough success towards Western Europe. His image of the mystical, wandering Jewish man brings to mind Eastern Europe's famous rabbis and mystics, as depicted as Asher Lev's Mythic Ancestor, in Chaim Potok's My Name is Asher Lev. Yasha is no holy man, however. Not yet, anyway. His ideation is interesting in itself; from the eastern part of the continent, proximity to Western Europe always meant safety, success, and material abundance. On his way to achieving this goal, Yasha meets a criminal gang and three lovers, he has a religious awakening, he commits a crime, has a panic attack and witnesses a suicide. Yasha periodically returns to his estate and wife of twenty years, Esther, a religious, giving and grounded woman, who's great sorrow is that she never conceived. Yasha's relationship with women would worth a dissertation, but here I'd like to focus on Yasha's possible Autism.

The story begins at Pentecost. Everbody knows Yasha is unusal. Esther confesses that her husban "did things differently from the usual run of people." Later on Yasha provides an insight: If the world had ever been informed of what went on inside of him, he Yasha, would have long ago been committed to a madhouse. Yasha spends most of his time home occupied with his equipment: locks, chains, ropes and books or to Esther's concern staying up long into the night. He has drawers full of plans and diagrams, and a large collection of newspaper clippings. He has to focus to nod, blink and show interest sometimes when talking to someone. Sometimes he faints and has some kind of a seizure. When he loses his craving for a trick or book, he becomes overly insecure, appears lost. He is also said to be "stupid in practical matters". She hears him clicking his tongue and snapping his toes in his sleep and he has a startlingly strong awareness of his surroundings. He is called a sick person multiple times and is said to be abnormal and flawed. "His mind was crammed with facts, dates, information. He remembered everything, forgot nothing." It is also revealed that Yasha loves being alone, paces in his room and speaks at least four languages.

He possessed his powers; he had more secrets than the blessed Rosh Hashanah pomegranate has seeds.

Alcohol seems to make him less nervous and more easygoing. Otherwise "Yasha was forever at the point of depression." Hence the title, "All this is pretty exhausting". It's a quote from Tom Cutler's asperger's autobiography, from a paragraph where he describes the fatigue that sensory issues and a lack of theory of mind cause over decades. Likewise Yasha Mazur is a middle aged man on the Autism Spectrum and their experiences overlap from time to time. I recommend reading both.

Upon leaving for Warsaw, Yasha asks Esther, whether she would be faithful to him, had he became an ascetic to repent. Esther responds that it is not necessary to brick one's self in a cell to repent to which Yasha says: "It all depends on what sort of passion one is tying to control." Yasha's moral framework is dominated by stark contrasts and binaries. Throughout the novel, it is illustrated how Yasha cannot control his "passion" and indeed has to brick himself in to repent and learn. He knew of course, that he would thrive in a silent and safe environment alone, studying the Torah. This is later proved by his prolonged stay in his cell. On the way to Warsaw Yasha meets two of his lovers. One of them is Magda Zbarski, daughter of a late rural blacksmith and the other is Zeftel, a deserted wife from Piask. Magda is a "surly, introspective" Polish girl who works as an assistant to Yasha. Zeftel is already an alien in her late husband's town, a local criminal brotherhood is paying her a pension when she directs even more attention to herself by wearing jewellery on weekdays and keeping her hair uncovered. Both women are so three-dimensional it is a delight! Zeftel stays behind to tie loose ends and vows to meet Yasha in Warsaw.

old Lublin

Warsaw was going through seismic changes at the end of the 19-the century. Wooden pavements were being ripped up, electricity and railways installed. The city flourished between 1875 and 1892 under Mayor Sokrates Starynkiewicz, a Russian general who had previously participated in the Crimean War and assissted the Habsburgs in the military destruction of the Hungarian War of Independence. Yasha's third and his only romantic lover is Emilia. Emilia is Warsaw herself, an upper middle class widow of an old professor, mother of a teenage girl, Halina clinging religiously to her precarious social standing. Yasha imagines the three of them becoming a family and emigrating to Italy. Plans are being made, and Emilia wants him to convert to Catholicism. To make the journey, Yasha also needs a small fortune. The rest of the novel is made up of Yasha's intense vacillation between piety, repentance and Esther and refinement, bourgeois striving and Emilia. In a frightening downward spiral Yasha commits an unsuccessful burglary, has a panic attack and injures his foot. His binary thinking is illustrated by the fact that after fleeing the crime scene, he seeks refuge in a synagogue and joins the morning prayers he has forgotten by that point. The kindness of the Jewish community revives him and he confesses to Emilia that he had been the burglar. They break up. Yasha learns of Zeftel's leaving and later that same day after and argument about Yasha's affairs, at the bottom of the downward spiral, Magda commits suicide.

At the end, Yasha ends up in what is virtually a 19th-century Sensory Deprivation Tank. He lives in a modest, poorly lit hut and spends his day in prayer, study and repentance. Esther brings him food and talks to him for about half an our each day. That is until his story doesn't spread, bringing visitors and pilgrims to his door. Yasha had become a Holy Rabbi and a Holy Saint by the time Emilia's letter reached him.

Sources

Cutler, Tom (2019) Keep Clear, My Adventures with Asperger's. Scribe UK.

Bashevis Singer, Isaac (2012) The Magician of Lublin. Penguin.

Potok, Chaim (1973) My Name Is Asher Lev. Penguin.

Woolf, Virginia (1986). McNeillie, Andrew (ed.). The Essays of Virginia Woolf: 1925–1928 (2 ed.). Hogarth Press.