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Piercing the Shimmering Bubble: David Shahar's The Palace of Shattered Vessels

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 October 2009

Gilead Morahg
Gilead Morahg
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison, Wis.
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Extract

Within the steadily growing body of fiction written by David Shahar over the past three decades, his trilogy of novels, The Palace of Shattered Vessels, stands out as his most remarkable achievement to date. It is a complex, often puzzling work, steeped in the spirit of Jerusalem, in which it is set, bold in the narrative techniques it employs, and ambitious in its thematic aspirations a meandering stream of fragmented memories flowing through the mind of its unnamed narrator. As the flow continues, these fragments gradually cohere into broad arcs of interlocking narrative circles that effect a vivid evocation of Jerusalem and its inhabitants as they were in the early decades of this century. But The Palace of Shattered Vessels aims at being much more than a memorial tribute to a nearly forgotten era in a rapidly changing city.

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Articles
Information
AJS Review , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 1985 , pp. 211 - 234
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Jewish Studies 1985

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References

1. Shahar, David, Heikhal ha-Kelim ha-Shevuhm: Kayiz be-Derekh ha-Nevi'im(Tel Aviv: 1969); Ha-Massa le-Ur Kasdim(Tel Aviv, 1971); Yom ha-Rozenet(Tel Aviv, 1976). At the time of their writing Shahar regarded these three novels as integrated components of a completed work and described Yom ha-Rozenetas “the novel that concludes my trilogy” (interview with Moshe Dor, Ma'ariv, June 26, 1979). He has since changed his original conception and is planning to add three more novels to the series. The first of these has already been published: Ningal(1983). This novel is so loosely and tangentially related to its three predecessors that it does not impinge upon the structural and thematic integrity of the original trilogy. This essay will address itself only to the first three novels, which continue to constitute a self-contained narrative whole.Google Scholar

2. See Blatt, David, Tehumim ve-Hotam(Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 130–131Google Scholar; Katz, Sarah, “Al Heikhal ha-Kelim ha-Shevurim,” Moznayim 29 (1969): 145–147Google Scholar; Zvi Luz, Meziut ve-Adam ba- Sipporet ha-Erelz Yisraelit(Tel Aviv, 1970), p. 135; Gila Ramras-Rauch, “Mixing Memory and Desire; The Visionary World of David Shahar,” World Literature Today, Winter 1982, pp. 5–6; Yael Sagiv-Feldman, “Ha-Fantazyot ha-Mizrahyot shel David Shahar,” Bitzaron4, no. 16 (September 1982): 19. Naomi B. Sokoloff s “Metaphysics and Metanarrative in the Stories of Shahar, David,” Hebrew Annual Review 6 (1982): 179–197, recognizes the general outlines of Shahar's metaphysical concerns and effectively relates them to the narrative techniques in some of his short stories. Although she does not discuss The Palace of Shattered Vessels, many of her observations are relevant to it.Google Scholar

3. For an overview of opinions to the contrary, see Lodge, David, The Modes of Modern Writing(Ithaca, N.Y., 1977), pp. 57–71.Google Scholar

4. Bezalel, Yitshak, Ha-Kol Katuv ba-Sefer(Tel Aviv, 1974), pp. 95–96.Google Scholar

5. Shahar, Yom ha-Rozenet, p. 74. All subsequent references to the third volume of the trilogy, hereafter cited as III, are in the text. The translations are mine.

6. The matter of the fictional authorship of the trilogy is complicated by the narrator's early and obscure reference to Gabriel Luria, one of the work's major characters, as “the author of The Palace of Shattered Vessels”(I, 19). This assertion is contradicted by the subsequent development of the narrative, and I was interested to note that it had been omitted from both the English and French translations of the first volume. Upon discovering this omission, I wrote to Shahar suggesting that “this was not an inadvertent omission but rather a correction made necessary by the manner in which the narrative developed in the course of writing the second and third volumes.” Could it be, i asked, that “the continuation and conclusion of your literary journey turned out to be different from what you had anticipated at its outset? I have a feeling that your writing of The Palace of Shattered Vesselsinvolved as many discoveries, illuminations and changes of direction as those experienced by its readers.” To which Shahar responded rather laconically in a letter dated July 2, 1982: “Your assumption is correct: 1 myself erased the sentence attributing the authorship to Gabriel Luria from the English and French translations, and this-among other reasons-in order to prevent, as much as possible, unnecessary and confusing difficulties.”

7. Shahar, Heikhal ha-Kelim ha-Shevurim, p. 10. All subsequent references to the first volume of the trilogy, hereafter cited as I, will appear in the text followed by an italicized reference to the English translation of the book: The Palace of Shattered Vessels(Boston, 1975). In quoting from the first volume I have, for the most part, relied on its English translation. But the reader will find occasional discrepancies between the quoted translation and the translation that is referred to. These are my modifications that were made in those instances where I found the original translation to be deficient.

8. Be'er, Hayim, “Shattered Vessels: An Interview with David Shahar,” Ariel 30 (1972): 15.Google Scholar

9. Ibid, p. 18.

10. For a discussion of the “Lurian” as a distinct genre, see Barzel, Hillel, Mesapprim be- Yihudam(Tel Aviv, 1981), pp. 168–171.Google Scholar

11. Shahar, Ha-Massa le-Ur Kasdim, p. 65. All subsequent references to the second volume of the trilogy, hereafter cited as II, are in the text. The translations are mine.

12. Scholem, Gershom, On the Kabbalah and Its Symbolism(London, 1965), p. 111Google Scholar. My discussion of Lurianic cosmology is based largely on this and other books by Scholem, : Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism(New York, 1961); Kabbalah(Jerusalem, 1974); Pirkei Yesod be- Havanat ha-Kabbalah u-Smaleiha(Jerusalem, 1976).Google Scholar

13. Bloom, Harold, Kabbalah and Criticism(New York, 1975), p. 77.Google Scholar

14. For a useful discussion of this aspect of Aristotle's Poetics, see Krieger, Murray, Theory of Criticism(Baltimore, 1976), pp. 98–103.Google Scholar

15. Scholem, Kabbalah, p. 116.

16. Scholem, Kabbalah and Its Symbolism, p. 100.

17. Ibid, p. 101.

18. For a discussion of the kabbalist concept of “abundance” (shefa), see Scholem, Pirkei Yesod, pp. 231–236.

19. Ha-Massa' le-Ur Kasdim, pp. 157–158.

20. Katz, Sarah, “Buot u-Vavuot be-Olamenu,” Moznayim 34 (1971–1972): 74.Google Scholar

21. Meyerhoff, Hans, Time in Literature(Berkeley, 1960), p. 42.Google Scholar

22. Ibid, pp. 42–54.

23. Woolf, Virginia, To the Lighthouse(London, 1932), p. 163.Google Scholar

24. For a discussion of some of the similarities between The Palace of Shattered Vesselsand Remembrance of Things Past, see Zemah, Ada, “Kirvah Yeteirah,” Molad 3 (1970).Google Scholar

25. Proust, Marcel, Remembrance of Things Past, rev. ed. (New York, 1981), vol. 1, p. 47.Google Scholar

26. Ibid, pp. 47–48.

27. Ibid, p. 51. For further discussion of the difference between the two types of memory, see Meyerhoff, Time in Literature, pp. 47–50; Shattuck, Roger, Marcel Proust(New York, 1974), pp. 139–147.Google Scholar

28. Zemah, “Kirvah Yeteirah,” p. 110.

29. Genette, Gerard, “Metonymie chez Proust,” Figures 3 (1972): 53.Google Scholar

30. This aspect of Shahar's narrative technique incorporates an interesting kabbalist trace. It corresponds closely to the method of mystical counterpoint developed by the thirteenthcentury Spanish kabbalist Abraham Abulafia as a means of enhancing the soul's ability to perceive transcendent forms. Scholem describes Abulafia's method of dillugand kefiza“skipping” and “jumping” as “a very remarkable method of using associations as a way of meditation.” It provides a system of broad rules within which the mind is encouraged to jump from one association to another. Every “jump opens a new sphere, defined by certain formal, notmaterial characteristics.” This “jumping… results in a 'widening of consciousness' and brings to light hidden processes of the mind; it liberates us from the prison of the natural sphere and leads us to the boundaries of the divine sphere”[emphasis added] (Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism, pp. 135–136).

31. Meyerhoff, Time in Literature, p. 49.

32. Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, pp. 48–51.Google Scholar

33. For a different perspective on the role of memory in Shahar's work, Barzel, Mesapprim be-Yihudam, pp. 161–183.Google Scholar

34. This important phrase is, unfortunately, lost in the English translation.

35. Shattuck, Marcel Proust, p. 145.

36. It should be noted that in Remembrance of Things Past, the experience of involuntary memory is also attended by a surge of “all-powerful joy” that transports the narrator above the malaise of his temporal existence: “An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses.... And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disaster innocuous, its brevity illusory.... I had ceased to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal” (Proust, p. 48).

37. Engaged in a quest similar to Shahar's, T. S. Eliot came to the same conclusion in “Burnt Norton”: The end and the beginning were always there Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now. Eliot, T S., Collected Poems 1909–1962(New York, 1963), p. 180.Google Scholar