The Singing Fire [Hardcover]

This is a fantastic novel in many senses of the word. Powerfully written and in the tradition of both Jewish fabulist fiction and contemporary magic realism. Centered on women's lives of about 100 years ago but relevant to both our practical and spiritual lives today. And you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy and treasure it!

Lilian Nattel is a good story teller, and she brings to life Jewish London in the 19th century. Why didn't I like this novel more? In "Singing Fire", I never could get involved because I felt the characters and their stories were there to illustrate the times, and to make an appealing novel, while never taking on a life of their own. As a better written novel, I would point out "Women of the Silk" by Gail Tsukiyama, also about women working under very poor conditions, in pre-WWII China.

After enjoying the original style of Nattel's first book, "The River Midnight," I was eager to read this follow-up novel. Like another reviewer, I was disappointed. I found this novel poorly constructed, with a rather contrived story line and cardboard characters to match. Characters like the Squire (Nehama's pimp in the first part of the book) and Emilia's father were one-dimensional, simply evil people with absolutely no complexity. I even found the main characters, Nehama and Emilia very difficult to identify or empathize with.

Many aspects of the book ranged from stretching it to highly unrealistic. Emilia, who wears a cross and passes for a Christian in order to get a job, then gets engaged to a Jewish man who loves her lack of annoying "Jewish" traits. Both her assimilated mother-in-law and her highly religious grandfather-in-law embrace her with fervor and affection, while insisting that she maintain various random aspects of Jewish observance (as a religious Jew, it was obvious to me that Nattel failed to research this aspect of the book; she should have had an Orthodox reader review it for inconsistencies and mistakes, of which there were many. I also found many of the Jewish characters highly stereotyped, like Vaudeville caricatures of what Jews act and sound like, complete with inverted sentences). Later, when the grandfather accidentally discovers Emilia's true origins, his reaction is one of -- anger. Anger? Wouldn't this devoutly religious man be joyful, or at least relieved, that his grandson had actually NOT married outside his faith? This was even inconsistent with the book itself -- when Emilia first entered the family, she was instructed to bend over backward so as not to offend him with her gentile ways. Additionally, when Emilia's husband requests that she convert to Judaism because they are expecting a baby, she resists the idea and is terrified to tell her husband that she already is Jewish, choosing instead to give him the impression that she dislikes Jews. Why would the latter be preferable to the former?

The symbolism and irony in this book are completely unsubtle and hit you over the head, and are part of what makes the plot so contrived. Nehama, a former prostitute, is anxious to hide that part of her life; Emilia, a Jew passing as a Christian, also engages in deception in order to make a favorable impression on those around her. I know, I know, I got it -- this is an ironic parallel. Nehama's adopted daughter (Emilia's by birth) assumes that it his her birth mother who was the prostitute (although she is not clear on what that entails) and even visits the cafe where her adoptive mother once propositioned men, performing a song for Nehama's former pimp, in search of her birth mother. While these plot twists may sound like perfect irony in theory, in practice they are executed in a way which renders the plot highly contrived and artificial. It's as if Nattel thought of these great ironies and then structured the plot so as to make them happen, as opposed to allowing the plot to develop and take a life of its own. In addition to the plot's artificiality, it was also incredibly slow and boring at times. Finally, a major cliffhanger of the story is left unresolved -- will Emilia seek out her daughter, and what will happen (between Emilia and her daughter; between Emilia and Nehama) if she finds her? Spoiler warning -- no.

Additionally, I found the ghosts in the book very annoying. Perhaps it's not fair for me to criticize this since I'm not a fan of magic realism in general; however, I've definitely seen it done better. Here, the ghosts appear in odd places and interact with various characters to no apparent end. They do not add interest to the story, and remind me of the intermittent scenes on the old television show "Sisters" where ghosts and alternate selves engage the characters in dialogue.

Basically, there is no reason to read this book. Neither the plot nor the characters were compelling, and its many flaws were not compensated for.

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