• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About
  • Donate

The Arts Fuse

Boston's Online Arts Magazine: Dance, Film, Literature, Music, Theater, and more

  • Podcasts
  • Coming Attractions
  • Reviews
  • Interviews
  • Commentary
  • The Arts
    • Performing Arts
      • Dance
      • Music
      • Theater
    • Other
      • Books
      • Film
      • Food
      • Television
      • Visual Arts
You are here: Home / Books / World Books Interview: Daddy Colossus

World Books Interview: Daddy Colossus

May 28, 2009 Leave a Comment

By Bill Marx

Sigmund Freud sets out a weirdly Brobdingnagian survival scenario for kids. Young children rely on their parents, dependent on the intimidating bounty and emotional whims of “adult” giants who could easily dish out too much smothering love or unconscious hostility.

Novelist Peter Stephan Jungk weaves a playfully tragicomic variation on this primal generational dilemma in his fantastical “road trip” novel “Crossing the Hudson” (translated from the German by David Dollenmeyer, Other Press, 232 pages).

<strong>Author Peter Stephan Jungk</strong>” title=”psj-19408″ width=”300″ height=”200″ class=”size-medium wp-image-871″ /><figcaption id=Author Peter Stephan Jungk

The melancholic Gustav Rubin, with his virago of a mother, Rosa, in the car, becomes mired in an epic traffic jam on the Tappan Zee Bridge. The astonished pair spy the giant body of the deceased Rubin patriarch — the famed scientific genius Ludwig — stretched out on the Hudson River below.

Gustav’s confrontation with a corpse the size of a Macy’s Day Parade balloon (at one point, like a surreal mountain climber, he climbs up on the body) not only raises issues about the deep but haunting bond between a charismatic father and his bedeviled son, but explores the intricacies of mourning and the ambiguities of a Jewish family’s thorny past.

Jungk has written eight books in German, including the critically acclaimed biography “Franz Werfel: A Life in Prague.” Handsel Books has published English translations of two of his novels, “Tiger” and “Perfect American,” the latter, a fictionalized biography of the last years of Walt Disney, is being adapted into an opera by Philip Glass.

Via email I sent Jungk some questions about “Crossing the Hudson.” An admiring reviewer in the Times Literary Supplement suggested that the works of Franz Kafka and Philip Roth influenced Jungk’s tale of a giant Jewish father who won’t stay small or buried. I tossed in, for good measure, Donald Bartheleme’s study of bewildered sons confronting a bossy and undying dad, “The Dead Father.” As you can read below, Jungk sees this dadaesque dream as very much his own.

World Books: In what ways does the novel’s exploration of the complexities of the father/son bond build on ideas in your previous books?

Peter Stephan Jungk: It doesn’t

World Books: The novel’s surreal central image — the father’s giant body — suggests parable and parody. Is it one or the other?

Peter Stephan Jungk: It is always difficult for a writer to explore the reasons for his or her choice of images, ideas, situations. But I did feel – strongly even – that the image of the giant Father is a metaphor, a parable. Definitely not a parody! A clear metaphor for an overbearing, a powerful, famous, all-consuming father-figure. A father whose pride to be who he is surmounts that of his son by miles, by light years. He is “larger than life,” his intensity and his intelligence go far beyond his son’s capacities.

The image came to my mind one morning, 10 years after my own father’s death, lying awake one morning at 5 am … I saw the bridge, I saw the golem-like giant lying under it … and I knew I had to find out more about this strange image. And then one step lead to the next …

World Books: Donald Barthelme’s black comic novel “The Dead Father” features a grieving son who is left with “an inner voice commanding, haranguing, yes-ing and no-ing – yes no yes no yes no yes no, governing your every, your slightest movement, mental or physical. At what point do you become yourself?” Is this also the crux of Gustav’s predicament?

Peter Stephan Jungk: No

World Books: Did you set out to reexamine the images of Oedipal conflict presented by Jewish fathers and sons in Franz Kafka and Philip Roth?

Peter Stephan Jungk: No

World Books: What does the charged relationship between Gustav and his famous physicist father say about the gulf between those whose lives were directly touched by the Holocaust and their children?

crossingthehudson

Peter Stephan Jungk: I think many parents who lived through those terrible times preferred to spare their children the hardship(s) of being Jewish. They often downplayed or outright denied their Judaism, especially in Germany, Austria, and Poland. In the case of religious Jews it may be different, but the “free” ones tend to try to keep their children as untouched, as unfazed as possible.

In the case of Gustav and his father Ludwig, I guess that the son feels a longing for the roots of his forefathers. He even turns religious, keeping Shabbat, marrying a religious wife. His parents are quite shocked about this … their son going in the opposite direction they had chosen for him …

World Books: Please talk about the challenge of arriving at the novel’s tone, which combines the comic and the fearful.

Peter Stephan Jungk: Combining the comic and the fearful wasn’t something I planned or tried to achieve consciously. As so often in writing, an unidentifiable force takes over and decides what happens … decides what happens to the characters and decides what happens to the style. And to the writer himself …! I was rather surprised how funny the novel actually read in the end. This fascinates me most about the “art” of writing fiction: how the writer becomes a listener, a vessel for inspiration …

World Books: Why did you decide to set most of the novel during a traffic jam on the Tappan Zee Bridge? Why that bridge?

Peter Stephan Jungk: I feel bridges are close to our dreams. Especially bridges in the United States…they are so enormous, yet so appealing at the same time. The Tappan Zee seemed the right location for my novel since it’s the longest bridge spanning the Hudson…and because I know it so well, spending my summers not far away at a lake house, just like Gustav Rubin. But it’s not the lake mentioned in the book!

World Books: Jewish motherhood, in the form of Gustav’s hectoring mother and hysterical wife, doesn’t come off particularly well in the novel. Why?

Peter Stephan Jungk: Rosa, Gustav’s mother, just speaks the way she must. And so does Gustav’s slightly hysterical wife. I didn’t intentionally plan to denounce Jewish womanhood. But yes, I have personally suffered from the amazing powers and frightening manipulations of a Jewish mother …

Share
Tweet
Pin
Share

By: Bill Marx Filed Under: Books, Featured, World Books Tagged: book-reviews, Crossing the Hudson, Featured, Other Press, Peter Stephan Jungk, World Books

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search

Popular Posts

  • Television Review: “Surviving Death” — Probing Death and the Great Beyond Surviving Death's balance between personal experiences... posted on January 11, 2021
  • Jazz Album Review: “El Arte del Bolero” — Passionate Homage to the Era of the Bolero So Miguel Zenón, who on saxophone has the facility of a... posted on January 5, 2021
  • Arts Feature: Best Movies (With Some Disappointments) of 2020 Our demanding critics choose the best films (along with... posted on December 21, 2020
  • Arts Feature: Best Classical Recordings of 2020 The pandemic may have largely shut down live musical pe... posted on December 22, 2020
  • Film/Music Review: The Best Music Documentaries of 2020 — With Some Disppointments Some of the best music documentaries of 2020 - and some... posted on December 29, 2020

Social

Follow us:

Follow the Conversation

  • beverly schwartz January 17, 2021 at 3:23 pm on Book Review: A.B. Yehoshua’s “The Tunnel” — A Serious Romp about an Aging BrainDid not understand the end of "The Tunnel" By A.B. Yeshoshua
  • Tom Augaitis January 15, 2021 at 10:23 pm on Blues Album Review: John Hurlbut and Jorma Kaukonen’s “The River Flows”What a great recording from two masterful artists. Hoping for a sequel.
  • Anthony January 15, 2021 at 7:08 pm on Classical CD Reviews: A Banquet of Beethoven from Daniel Lozakovich, Midori, and Gidon Kremer & FriendsI went ahead and listened to both but I could not finish listening to Midori's, had to stop. Lozakovich's was...
  • Bill Marx, Editor of The Arts Fuse January 15, 2021 at 11:44 am on Film Review: “Pieces of a Woman” — “They give birth astride of a grave…”The quotation in the review's headline is part of a line in Samuel Beckett's play Waiting for Godot: "They give...
  • erica abeel January 14, 2021 at 3:31 pm on Film Review: “Let Them All Talk” — Angst of Many FlavorsI'm most grateful to be read by such responsive readers as you guys!

Footer

  • About Us
  • Advertising/Underwriting
  • Syndication
  • Media Resources
  • Editors and Contributors

We Are

Boston’s online arts magazine since 2007. Powered by 70+ experts and writers.

Follow Us

Monthly Archives

Categories

"Use the point of your pen, not the feather." -- Jonathan Swift

Copyright © 2021 · The Arts Fuse - All Rights Reserved · Website by Stephanie Franz