Guests in the Body by Michelene Wandor c1986

Description

Is not the soul a guest in the body?’ In this intriguing and original collection, Michelene Wandor weaves together a sequence of stories around the Dybbuk, the restless, invading soul of Jewish mythology. This welcome-unwelcome alien comes to trouble the soul: the mother who is renowned for her chicken soup and her clever children reflects – murderously? – in ‘Whose Greenham?’; in ‘Meet My Mother’ the traditional Jewish mother steps out of line; Isaac Bashevis Singer’s

‘Yentl the Yeshiva Boy’ is given an intriguing alternative telling; and in Vivaldi’s Venice, notes of triumph and anguish haunt the air.

Here are parables about motherhood, riddles about creativity and the persistent echo of music as the Dybbuk unseats, undermines, exposes, chills, ruffles surfaces and shifts identities. In these seventeen tales, Michelene Wandor employs a marvellous range of voices – the ironic, the matter-of-fact, a sly and exuberant wit, and the quiet dignity of loss – to create an unusual and pleasurable book.