“Call It Sleep”, by Henry Roth

 

599 pages, Robert O. Ballou, ISBN-13: 978-224405329206

Just when in the hell did I read Call It Sleep by Henry Roth? I know I didn’t read it for personal growth or knowledge or anything like that. So I must have done so for a class, somewhere. But what class? Would it have been in Junior High? High School? Some college course, lost to the mists of history? Hmmmmm…anyway, I dunno. But read it I did, and here is my penetrating, insightful review. Call It Sleep was all but ignored for thirty-odd years when originally published in 1934, but when literary critic Irving Howe reviewed it in The New York Times Book Review in 1964 it was reborn and hailed as a modern American classic. So there’s that. In a nutshell, it is about 6-year-old David Schearl, a “dangerously imaginative” Jewish boy growing up in the immigrant ghetto of New York’s Lower East Side in the early 20^th Century and his coming to terms with conflicting forces as he tries to forge his own identity.

In many ways, Call It Sleep is a typical coming-of-age story, albeit the character is much younger than is typical of this type of tale; indeed, there’s really nothing overly special about his life until he meets and befriends Leo, a Gentile – which is perhaps the point, for David’s experiences mirror those of his fellow Americans, Jew or Gentile. But I can see why, when this book was published, it was scandalous and shunned by the Respectable. One can find everything from suggestions of sex between children to foulmouthed Irish gashouse workers, and there’s quite a bit in between the two. But it’s a hard book to read because of all of the hardships, heartbreaks and disturbing incidents, one after another, that David and his family must endure. I’m sure all of these dark developments did nothing to boost the Golden Streets narrative favored by many an American then, and I can’t imagine immigrants wanting to read about the suffering they were experiencing.

Also, Roth was serious about capturing the dialect of his various urban characters, and I do mean the dialect, not just the flavor of their speech. Need examples? Okay: “My ticher calls id Xmas, bod de kids call id Chrizmas. I’ds a goyish holiday anyways. Wunst I hanged up a stockin’ in Brooklyn. Bod mine fodder pud in a eggshells wid terlit paper an’ a piece f'om an ol’ kendle. So he leffed w’en he seen me. Id ain’ no Sendy Klaws, didja know?” Or: “Beshnas mos hamelech Uziyahu vawere es adonoi yoshav al kesai rum venesaw, vshulav malaiim es hahahol. Serafim omdim memal lo shash kanowfayim, sash kanowfayim lawehhad, beshtayim yahase fanav uvishtayim yahase raglov uvishtayim yofaif”. And: “If I blyibm duh ywully ylyod, den he wonthye hilyt me so moyuch, myaytlybe”. Even reading those bits out loud – like I did with Margaret Mitchell’s similar attempt to recreate black speech in Gone With the Wind – didn’t help very much.

While at times a slog, Call It Sleep tells a tale that rings true for many an immigrant to the New World, whether they came over on the Mayflower or any number of steamships decades afterwards. Through the use of intricate analysis of David’s thoughts, Roth portrayed those innate emotions that we have all experienced and, from time to time, continue to experience, regardless of who we are or where we came from.