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Sep. 16th, 2015 09:02 amA few flisters have been posting lately about short story reading in anticipation of Hugo nominations next year. I don't really believe in making this deliberate kind of effort- I kind of firmly feel that the 'right way' to do the Hugos is to read whatever you read over the course of a year and then nominate whatever you thought was the best. Not that I think that a deliberate effort to read potentially Hugo worthy stuff poisons the process- I just think it's a waste of time and effort.
Nonetheless, I wanted to mention that the best new SF short story I've read this year was Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Tractate Metim 28A", published in Tidhar and Levene's amazing anthology Jews vs. Zombies.
Rosenbaum writes deliberately in the style of the Soncino translation of the Talmud- an antiquated, academic translation that's generally out of favor these days. In its place stand the relatively recent Artscroll and Koren translations, both more readable and more religiously oriented. Nonetheless, for many years Soncino was the only translation available, and it remains the most internet-accessible, so it has been for many people, myself included, the gateway to Talmud. Then, too, the Soncino is more pluralastically oriented, less likely to shape the translation away from theologically problematic ideas, more likely to present the stranger of the Talmud's stories without trying to interpret them.
Linguistic choices matter in storytelling, and Rosenbaum's choice, at least for me, shades the story away from the straight comic tone that a Artscroll parody zombie story would have, to something with truer impressions of secret history: this is the Talmud your Rabbis wouldn't teach you, were afraid to teach you.
The meat of the story is quite lovely. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the more important Tannaim, the Rabbis whose knowledge and wisdom inspired the Mishnah. He was beloved and respected, however eventually he was excommunicated for some combination of heretical ideas that appear to us to be relatively minor, and he spent the end of his days a man apart- a separation that many of the other Rabbis of his generation clearly felt was a great loss to the community.
And so Rosenbaum asks, does death end excommunication? What if Rabbi Eliezer came back as a Zombie, what gifts could he bring back to the Jewish community, and what would the costs be? It is a lovely and bizarre question that Rosenbaum takes dead seriously- which is why he has pages of footnotes full of obscure and cryptic jokes taking the piss out of the Talmud. And yet Rosenbaum doesn't go fully elegiac or fully comic- he never forgets that zombie stories are horror stories, and fills his narrative with understated horror.
For those who need further context, look no further than Rosenbaum's amazing and fully accurate post about magical cucumbers.
Nonetheless, I wanted to mention that the best new SF short story I've read this year was Benjamin Rosenbaum's "Tractate Metim 28A", published in Tidhar and Levene's amazing anthology Jews vs. Zombies.
Rosenbaum writes deliberately in the style of the Soncino translation of the Talmud- an antiquated, academic translation that's generally out of favor these days. In its place stand the relatively recent Artscroll and Koren translations, both more readable and more religiously oriented. Nonetheless, for many years Soncino was the only translation available, and it remains the most internet-accessible, so it has been for many people, myself included, the gateway to Talmud. Then, too, the Soncino is more pluralastically oriented, less likely to shape the translation away from theologically problematic ideas, more likely to present the stranger of the Talmud's stories without trying to interpret them.
Linguistic choices matter in storytelling, and Rosenbaum's choice, at least for me, shades the story away from the straight comic tone that a Artscroll parody zombie story would have, to something with truer impressions of secret history: this is the Talmud your Rabbis wouldn't teach you, were afraid to teach you.
The meat of the story is quite lovely. Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus was one of the more important Tannaim, the Rabbis whose knowledge and wisdom inspired the Mishnah. He was beloved and respected, however eventually he was excommunicated for some combination of heretical ideas that appear to us to be relatively minor, and he spent the end of his days a man apart- a separation that many of the other Rabbis of his generation clearly felt was a great loss to the community.
And so Rosenbaum asks, does death end excommunication? What if Rabbi Eliezer came back as a Zombie, what gifts could he bring back to the Jewish community, and what would the costs be? It is a lovely and bizarre question that Rosenbaum takes dead seriously- which is why he has pages of footnotes full of obscure and cryptic jokes taking the piss out of the Talmud. And yet Rosenbaum doesn't go fully elegiac or fully comic- he never forgets that zombie stories are horror stories, and fills his narrative with understated horror.
For those who need further context, look no further than Rosenbaum's amazing and fully accurate post about magical cucumbers.