-------- Original Message --------
from Carolyn to the List,
By coincidence a few things in my Jewish reading have made me think
either of VN or the List.
There is a new edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia and a review I was
reading mentioned that
the original edition that was left incomplete due to the disasters in
Europe left off at the
letter "L". I don't suggest that VN knew that, but it did make me think
of "Ada".
I also happen to be reading a novel by A M Klein, a Jewish Canadian
author,"The Second Scroll",
(1952) which has an interesting structure, combining different genres
by different authors.
The main narration follows the five books of the Chumash (Genesis,
Exodus, etc) and is followed
by five "glosses"(aleph, bet, etc.) which include not only poetry, but
a play and an analysis
of Michelangelo's ceiling in the Sistine Chapel. There are, I believe,
two authors at work, and
of course the novel predates PF by decades.
This extraordinary novel was originally published in 1952 by Knopf in
N.Y. and a new edition
has been put out recently by the University of Toronto Press with
biographical notes about the
author A M Klein (1909, the Ukraine, - 1972, Canada) and "explanatory
notes" to help the
Judaically challenged.