He loves Gogol and Tolstoi. Faust is one of his favorite dramas. He loves the old masters Greco and Rembrandt; among the moderns, Cézanne, Puvis de Chavannes, Manet. In opera he does not care for Wagner, but he is very fond of The Magic Flute, of Madame Butterfly, of Pagliacci. He loves music and the theatre. Asch reads in many languages, German, French, Russian, Polish, Hebrew, and a little English. But to everybody he talks in Yiddish. He has no ear for other languages except English, which he says is like his mother tongue!
In the spring Asch goes out to the country and works, in the summer he loafs, in the winter he lives among his friends. He writes all the time, being chock full of energy—for work, for love, for friendship, for happiness. As he says, "I am thankful to God for three things: first that he gave me life, second that he gave me my talent, third for my love for you" (this to whomever the lady happens to be).
Like all the artists he is erratic, original, attractive, all-seeing. But unlike most he has much strength of character and a brilliant logical faculty that makes him check up his personal relations. He has much affection in him and a great honesty and integrity which wins him admiration and respect, and he has many friends among many kinds of people in many parts of the world.
Sholom Asch is a philosopher, a novelist, a poet, and a dramatist. He loves the clouds and the sea, he truly loves mankind. Always through all he writes one feels a deep and elemental strength, an elemental belief in nature and truth. He is not ahead of his time; he is rather an interpreter and inspirer of his own day. This makes him the happy person that he is. He is greatly honored in Russia and in Germany, and by all writers in Europe.
II
Asch as a Novelist and Short-Story Writer
WITH this brief sketch of Sholom Asch the man, I shall turn to a consideration of a few of his most important works. As Sir Walter Raleigh, the eminent English critic, has said, the best way to form a judgment of an author is to quote his good passages. Accordingly I have been as liberal as space would allow in my insertion of translated passages. The most recent works, mentioned in the early part of this essay, I shall not treat, as it was impossible for me to procure them at the time of writing. I shall take up each work individually before making generalizations.
DIE Jüngsten is a novel by Asch in which he tries to portray the character and the influences at work on the younger generation of Jews in Russia. The plot can be simply set forth. The younger generation is represented by five characters of three social classes. Mery Lipskaja is the daughter of a well-to-do Jewish manufacturer—in other words, she is of the middle or bourgeois class. She has completed her gymnasium (high-school) education and has absorbed the prevalent ideas about women and emancipation, and a desire for higher education, for a broader life, for St. Petersburg. Kowalski is an artist. He, like Mery, is not interested in the class struggle; all that vitally concerns him is his art and "living." David and Rahel Lazarus are the children of a physician who is giving his life to the people of the "Grube" or ghetto. They have grown up among the suppressed and impoverished Jews and they are filled with the spirit of the revolution; David actively and Rahel passively. Mischa, the cousin of Mery, is a member of the middle class. He has become aware of the conditions in the Grube and his struggle lies between his middle class environmental influence, which includes his love for Mery, and his desire to join the revolution.
At the beginning of the novel Mery has just returned from the gymnasium. She is oppressed and dissatisfied with her provincial surroundings and longs to go to the university at St. Petersburg. Mischa, in love with Mery, has also just completed work at the gymnasium, and they plan to go to St. Petersburg together. The artist Kowalski now comes to the little south Russian village and soon Mery is in love with him. Mischa is much distressed and suffers greatly. Kowalski leaves, promising to meet Mery at St. Petersburg.