Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex

By Alex Brown and Melvin Jules Bukiet

Book Overview

A collection of fiction by some of America's Jewish writers, reflecting the abundant varieties of people's sexual experience in all its manifestations - glorious, erotic and neurotic.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 039304808X
• ISBN13: 9780393048087
• Release Date: October 1999
• Publisher: W W Norton & Co Inc
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.66 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.3" x 1.3" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The people of the book, in bed

"Witness the people of the book, in bed." Thus editor Melvin Jules Bukiet invites the reader into the intimacies of Neurotica: Jewish Writers on Sex. In this collection, everyone from Saul Bellow, Bernard Malamud, Philip Roth, and Isaac Bashevis Singer to Woody Allen and Erica Jong gets into the act of exploring sex in its many varieties-heterosexual, homosexual, incestuous, paid, humorous, poignant, intellectual, sadistic, masochistic, costumed-always from a distinctive, wry Jewish perspective. Note, though, that you don't have to be interested in erotica to appreciate Neurotica-just in good stories. The anthology begins with a memorable story by Woody Allen, "The Whores of Mensa," an over-the-top private eye tale that cleverly and humorously reveals what many of us know but some have yet to discover-that sex is less a function of the nether regions and more one of the mind. This theme is continued and expanded in "The Courtship" from The Mind-Body Problem" by Rebecca Goldstein, in which the narrator says, "And I remember too the intensity of my pleasure, which wasn't at all physical . . . my head sang the triumphant thought: I am making love to this man . . . to Noam Himmel, the genius." Unfortunately, "The Courtship" is marred somewhat by this ending and the tone throughout, which makes it resemble less of a literary work and more of the author's personal fantasy, or what is known in fan fiction as a "Mary Sue" story. Philip Roth adds imagination to the mix in an excerpt from The Counterlife in which a dentist suggest to his new assistant that they play dentist and assistant. She says, "Why is it so exciting when all we're pretending to be is what we are?" When his physical deficiencies win over his imagination, he plummets to the world that is, no what could be, which he cannot long survive. No matter the theme, any anthology focused on Jewish writers is bound to include references to Germans, World War II, and the Holocaust. In "Jews Have No Business Being Enamored of Germans," Binnie Kirshenbaum's narrator confronts the Jewish self-hatred that could make a Jewish man with a "short and convenient view of history" prefer and seek out Germans and "Aryan intellectualism." Even the narrator's parents have succumbed to postmodern sense of tolerance or denial. "'Oh, none of that concerned us,' my mother waved off the Holocaust and a world war." Michael Lowenthal takes a psychologically richer approach in "Infinity of Angles," in which a Jewish homosexual connects with a German, only to find his would-be lover identifies too closely with the persecuted and demands an unusual punishment. While there's some humour in Neurotica, there is also mental illness. The two are combined in "Elvis, Axl, and Me" by Janice Eidus, who proves that Elvis isn't dead; he lives in The Bronx disguised as a Hasidic Jew. Mental illness appears again in "The Quality of Being a Ruby" by Cheryl Pearl Sucher, a thoroughly modern tale of a bipolar girl experiencing anxi

A very good friendship between sex and mind

I knew it before receiving this book from my boyfriend: almost every story would deal not only with sex, but also with books and other intelectual issues. Could we expect anything different from Woody Allen? Besides of oral sex, homosexual sex and this sort of things, Neurotica contains philosophy, psiconalisis, art, literature etc. It couldn't be different. Jews are totally connected with studies and culture, and they show it always, because this aspect of their personality is much stronger than almost everything else on them. The most interesting story was written by Thane Rosenbaum, about the Yortzeit of the main character's mother. (I don't know the original name, because I read it in portuguese.) The story is very well written and complete, revealing the talent and facility that the author has with words. About Woody Allen's narrative, I just can say that it is SO Woody Allen, you understand? It's very easy to feel his personality on it, specially for those who have seen Deconstructing Harry.I haven't read the whole book yet, but I'm almost finishing it. I recommend Neurotica to everyone who likes to conciliate sex and mind. The last observation: the book should be called Jewish AMERICAN writers on sex. Everyone is american or lives in the USA; however, there are many other jewish writers around the world that could have given their rich contribution.