The paper depicts how female explorers, beginning in the Victorian era, discover previously overlooked or ignored intricacies in historical understanding. It explores and advocates for a historicist viewpoint on culture, politics, history, and social realities in both the time periods in which "A Guide for the Perplexed" is set. It also draws on themes of history and technology therefore the structuralist approach is used. All of Horn's characters, whether heroic and wicked, are all too realistic in this investigation of Jewish culture while discovering how their identities evolve, so do their prospects.
Abstract
The paper depicts how female explorers, beginning in the Victorian era, discover previously overlooked or ignored intricacies in historical understanding. It explores and advocates for a historicist viewpoint on culture, politics, history, and social realities in both the time periods in which A Guide for the Perplexed is set. It also draws on themes of history and technology therefore structuralist approach is used. All of Horn's characters, whether heroic and wicked, are all too realistic in this investigation of Jewish culture while discovering how their identities evolve, so do their prospects.
Keywords: History, Technology, Structuralist.
A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn is a worldwide thriller, a meditation on privacy and history, a retelling of the Biblical Joseph story, and an investigation of Jewish culture from middle ages to the Victorian times. Unlike other novels in which a macho cipher fights against faceless alien foes against the clock, Ms. Horn makes all of her characters, both heroic and villainous, all too human and all too real. On one level, this tale is a retelling of Joseph's Biblical story, in which he was sold into slavery in Egypt by his envious brothers. It's also a narrative about memory and perception's gates. What do we remember most about ourselves and others, and how does that judgment or occurrence affect our lives? The combination of intellectual understanding, physical experience, and the importance of perception is a good starting point when talking about Dara Horn's new novel, A Guide for The Perplexed, which is clearly inspired by Maimonides' work.
Horn delves into not only Maimonides' theory, but also his life and that of another famous Jewish historical figure, Solomon Schechter. She blends these two personas with Josie Ashkenazi, a computer whiz and businesswoman whose life is changed dramatically as a result of a journey to Egypt. Josie Ashkenazi is the inventor and programmer of Genizah, a fascinating computer application. Genizah integrates all of a person's information and data, and is termed after the Jewish custom of conserving written papers rather than discarding them. Genizah records it all in a virtualized storage area, from passwords to photographs, recorded memories to scanned papers, and categories them in such a way that it can recognize patterns and predict consequences. This context of the novel calls for the perspective of historicism in connection with culture, politics, history and social realities of both the time periods the story travel through. According to George. G. Iggers, “The purpose of historical study was therefore not exhausted by the narrative reconstruction of a factual past but consisted in grasping the overarching coherence into which this past fit” (Iggers 131). Josie is also the sister of Judith, Itamar's wife and mother to Tali, who is six years old. Her personal connections, on the other hand, are not as fruitful as the commercial enterprise that made her wealthy.
The title of a significant scriptural document inscribed by the Rambam, Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, in the 12th century is A Guide for the Perplexed. The Rambam's conflict with destiny vs. free will, as well as Solomon Schechter's rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza, are themes in this historical novel. Horn explores a wide range of topics, including sibling connections, social media, divine wisdom, asthma, conceit, and more. There are other biblical indications as well, depicting that the artistic works are not detached from the social and cultural practices of the time. The novel alternates between presenting the story of the Rambam and his brother David, Schechter's interactions with the Victorian explorers Margaret Lewis and Agnes Smith , and Judith and Josie, two main characters sisters who have a contentious bond. It's interesting to understand about the Rambam's function as the Sultan Saladin's top physician. The Ram bam sends his vendor brother on a perilous voyage to purchase a unique herb in order to heal his royal patient's asthma. Horn paints a vivid picture of Schechter's journey from Cambridge to Cairo in order to gain access to the Geniza across clandestine negotiations with the Grand Rabbi of Cairo. Josie is a tech guru whose Genizah software is a front-line wonder and the reason for her call to Egypt to assist at the latest library of Alexandria. Dara Horn’s work is an intelligent new design that shelters so many interesting subjects and links 3 distinct eras in Egypt's history, the 12th century, the late 19th centuries, and contemporary day. According to New Historicism, this literary entity reflects social and cultural context in which it was created “New historicism is a critical approach which disrupts the extremity of purely formal and linguistic critical canon and dogmatism of close textual analysis of a work at the expense of extrinsic value embedded implicitly in its intrinsic part. These purely formal approaches lay emphasis on the fact that since text is the ultimate reality with the reader, he needs not go beyond that and should try to find out finer meaning by locating the free play of signs and signified or the process of signification to ascertain aesthetic value (Sharma 2)
Horn's female protagonists find that while their identities shift, they also unveil fluid opportunities. Many cultures' languages can be learnt and so regulated; poverty and money, whether hereditary, acquired, or gifted, transform experiences into issues of significance; and attitudes and voices lead to both personal and social breakthroughs demonstrating that a book is influenced by external factors like economic, social forces, and material surroundings and that there is no definitive barrier between fiction and history. Through a story structure of then and now, situations mirror back on personality. The plot also refers to the technologies of the time in one of the basic movements of Neo-Victorian literature, works produced in part as if originated from that former era.
The clever gadgets of the modernizing Victorian era, such as the railway, telegram, and already there the Turing machine, now the computers, but not quite yet the vehicle and plane, raise the dilemma of how to recapture the past, which is always drifting away, for Dara Horn. According to Fredric Jameson, “What teleological thought reads as a narrative progression from a fallen present to a fully constituted future, genetic thought now displaces onto the past, constructing an imaginary past term as the evolutionary precursor of a fuller term which has historical existence” (Jameson 47) Horn's tale starts with the inquiry, “What happens to days that disappear?” “The light fades, the gates begin to close, and all that a day once held — a glance, a fight, a taste of bread, a handful of braided hair, thousands of worries and triumphs and regrets — all of it slips between those closing gates, vanishing into a dark and silent room” (Horn 1). Genizah was a large platform that stored not only material which its users deliberately made, but virtually almost everything they performed too, operating recording elements to organize worlds of information in this computing world start-ups. Digitalization will unlock the mysteries of transitory experiences for Josephine, and reply to the novel's opening contemplation on time accumulated since her adolescence.
In the modern scenario, Josie, the major character, has tackled the big data challenge of technology and technological advances. Josie names her software Genizah and creates a conduit for Dara Horn to transport us back to Victorian times and the uncovering of the Genizah's ancient "large volume of data" in the Fustat Synagogue. The raw material for current historians to re-create the subjective experience of a long-ago community is ancient Jewish customs of preserving papers engraved with God ’s presence. The storyline is interwoven with the narrative's immensely complex themes; the novel illustrates the manner in which female explorers, beginning with the Victorian times, find previously dismissed or neglected nuances in historical understanding. As a result, a Guide for the Perplexed is best understood via history, and fiction is better understood through history. New Historicism also asserts that fiction and reality are not mutually incompatible. Their travels lead them to consider both ancient and current questions regarding time, and their experiences bring new perspectives. Their journey is both a re-enactment of Biblical narratives and a study of recent perspective.
Josie's Genizah software guarantees to "recover the past which is always slipping away" (Horn 34), a history with three dimensions: it is relatively new, it is over, and it is also permanently gone. The dilemma of restoration and significance, which the Fustat Genizah and Josie's Genizah programs address, also becomes an apparent structural problem for the book, one that we realize is fundamental in the reading experience. These difficulties constitute the novel's fundamental concepts: addressing one leads to fixing the others. Because duplicated themes are given twofold individuals to represent them, understanding Josie's circumstance also entails tracking Maimonides' household status and important components of his Guide for the Perplexed approach. The Genizah is likewise duplicated in this story of doubling, as does Josie by her sister, Judith. In the Victorian narrative, two adventurous Victorian explorers, Agnes Gibson and Margaret Lewis, duplicate Josie's idea. They travel extensively together as widowed twin sisters.
They actually bring the medieval Genizah, a massive collection of the past retained by Egypt's desert environment, out from attic of the Fustat Ben Ezra Synagogue to England for contemporary literary and cultural analyzation, thanks to their closeness with Solomon Schechter, the recently appointed Reader in Rabbinic at Cambridge. These intertwined histories of Jewish and Egyptian existence are all now made present, in combination with Josie Ashkenazi's futuristic "Genizah," technology that records every minute of a person's experience and make it accessible for replay indefinitely. Horn's work intrigues the readers with the potential of storytelling to allow us to dwell in the perpetual present of readings, which runs from antiquity to the present day. As a result, this creative fiction also serves as a vehicle for political speech. The act of reading and comprehending a text takes place outside the performance space. For example, a book's storytelling might reveal a lot about a character's historical background. The revolutionary individualist dogma of the realistic book is also called into doubt by the duplicated characters, each of whom is clearly defined.
The narrative of a newborn computing software and its creator immerses us in the world of digital realities. However, the principal setting of the narrative echoes and doubles this virtual reality: we travel to Egypt to witness the Victorian infatuation with the Pyramids. The people who built the Great Pyramids conceived and built an everlasting present for their ancient. We also notice that the gestures and subject remain a significant cultural and intellectual stance in modern Egyptian society. This demonstrates how New Historians use literature in conjunction with other cultural goods from a certain historical period to show how thoughts, attitudes, and philosophies were expressed out across wider cultural continuum that is not primarily textual. New Historians accept that their own critique includes prejudices that stem from their historical stance and ideology, in addition to evaluating the effects of historical background and philosophy. Josie is on a voluntary community expedition in Egypt. She's gone to Alexandria to contribute her expertise to the library Collection, whose glassy and steel construction indicates that it will compete with the historic Ptolemaic library of Alexandria, which bragged of possessing all of the ancient world's knowledge previous to its obliteration. Josie's host at the library, Nasreen, informs her about the goal of restoring Alexandria's history, the funders from Saudi Arabia and Dubai, the realization of unrealized potential, and the prospect of becoming the Arab world's largest intellectual repository.
Josie's program, which is in high competition, guarantees to gather and process large amounts of data. Her computers have algorithms that document every activity and occurrence in her life, no matter how trivial. When Josie's daughter can't find her shoe and a check of the household fails, she consults her Genizah, where she and her daughter learn that the girl's shoe have been forgotten in the car. The Genizah systems make the history virtually ever-present: it transforms existence into a documented narrative, with open-ended categorization opportunities, and it is constantly accessible in the present. What is gone will be documented, but this time on a circuit board instead of on manuscript or in the mind's packed brain matter. Something that is concealed will be recognized and addressed, just as it was in the Biblical account of Joseph's narrative. That was also the religious issue of free will vs predestination that Maimonides addresses in his philosophy. In today's technological era, accessing the past is as simple as pressing a button, as Josie's Genizah program demonstrates. She has created the ultimate memorization library, which will improve ordinary life by restraining history and change's strength because “New Historicists emphasize the notion that historical values change over time, whereas historicists prioritize the immutable and unchangeable notion of historical facts” (Hickling 56). Josie's computer software, she reveals to her host, Nasreen, has a “augmented reality feature that compiles older materials and syncs them to wherever you are right now.”. “Josie held up her phone, tapped the screen, and then turned it horizontally, facing the buildings behind them… lithographs and drawings, each labelled and dated with links to further information” (Horn 55) Lives in the present can be reached from the past and future, and people in this narrative can go back and forth through time with the easy comprehension.
From the Pyramids to the City of the Dead, that "city of tombs, southeast of Cairo," the story explores the obsession with the perpetual presence of virtual experience. Nasreen remarks at one point that all cities are cities of the dead. As the plot of the novel unfolds, she informs Josie's sister, Judith, that “Muslims in Cairo used to build tombs with bedrooms, places for mourners to sleep with their dead relatives. It is a custom left over from the days of the pharaohs… The neighbors even collect his garbage for him now. He is like a pharaoh there. The king of the city of the dead (Horn 285). Josie will learn that her confinement in the City of the Dead is part of her reenactment of the Joseph myth. She, like him, is pushed into a hole; like him, her talent at dream interpretation, a feature of her Genizah software, aids her transition from confinement to servitude; and, like him, she is saved and liberated as a consequence of her sister Judith's interference and self-sacrifice, which resonates Joseph's brother Judah's direct appeal.
Through the involvement of Maimonides in Josie's story, Dara Horn's novel also urges us to grapple with the limitations of this topic of the relationship between old and new. Horn's novels are dedicated to resurrecting the past; she plumbs the depths of Jewish history and transforms it into her own, disregarding the more well-known Central and Eastern European tales of her predecessors. Horn is embracing her own, more vibrant version of Jewish history, encapsulated in the joys of re-discovering, and re-creating the past. In the Egyptian Genizah scriptures, he is a key person, and his Guide for the Perplexed becomes her personal and devoted accomplice amid her captivity's difficulties. Her attention turns to Maimonides' progressive realization of the five ideas, and she worries which ones apply to her predicament as a captive.
Then she recalls his explanation about how to react in order to obey Jewish law, which is a matter of experience. These consist of a series of philosophic chants on which Josie ponders and finds solace. And the audience is aware of Maimonides' relationship with his sibling David, who died while searching for a curative medication in India, according to other documents in the Genizah. In this story, which is named after Maimonides' classic work of distinct discipline, circumstances develop to bewildering result. A Guide for the Perplexed, like a historic Victorian novel, provides guidance on how to spend your life.
Josie and other characters continually emphasize at the start of A Guide for the Perplexed that sequence can direct to profound meaning. As the narrative unfolds, one can begin to believe that patterns indicate a connection between occurrences. Horn incorporates Maimonides' opinions on unfettered freewill determinism, conclusively establishing the possibility that free will does not exist. Names, connections, and experiences are echoed throughout the story, emphasizing the premise there really is no such thing as truth so everything happens for a reason.
The story of Solomon Schechter, a late-nineteenth-century Jewish scholar, and his two twin sisters runs parallel to Josie's. Schechter and the twins are historic individuals who are brought to life in A Guide for the Perplexed in a creative, funny, and delicate way. These three are a counterbalance to Josie's Genizah, which catalogs a great quantity of information with ease. They are on the lookout for knowledge, ready to read, and willing to acquire a new language in order to investigate a new idea. Schechter's endeavors are fraught with difficulties, not the least of which being a lack of funds to purchase literature and material. Having to wait for the twins to serve drinks before diving into the details of a particular rule book almost drives him insane. “Every synagogue has a storeroom in it called a genizah—a hiding place,” Schechter says. “A place for keeping damaged books and papers that contain the name of God.” (Horn 29) Eventually Schechter discovers such a place. “The air in the room was alive, trembling with the thoughts of the thousands of people whose names were inscribed in the parchments below. He sifted the papers before him, lifting them like sand and letting them slide between his fingers.” (Horn 149) Horn dramatizes Schechter's finding and discovery of these hundreds and thousands of papers, which also included preliminary versions of the “Guide for the Perplexed” plus a handful of other documents that proved out to be worthless — more recollections which could have been thrown away. His old chamber with disintegrating documents, like Josie's Genizah, has the potential to bring its authors to life. The Cairo Geniza retained hundreds of years of writings, transcripts, letters, and poems, which include disappeared Hebrew original versions of ancient apocryphal texts, lost collected works of medieval Spain's literary titans, and, through financial and legal records, a socioeconomic document of medieval Jewish culture in the Mediterranean unprecedented in its abundance and detail. Historians are still sorting through the material more than a century after Schechter's heroic rescue. Showing how historical criticism aims to understand the social and cultural factors that surround literature. It was primarily focused on historical analysis of the texts, although this was not always possible, resulting in the acceptance of spiritual and theological interpretations of the book.
Dara Horn has a special talent for weaving together modern and ancient stories, weaving deep themes between them. Rather than the inhaled breath triggered by lapidary individual lines, Horn's literary energies are developed progressively through plot, moral significance, and beautiful theme constructions constructed from the stockpiles of Jewish tradition. Memory, our relationship to the past, as represented in the Cairo Geniza as well as its enormously larger, modern-day incarnation in the internet, is the most essential of these historical conceptual strands. Horn expresses significant suspicion in A Guide for the Perplexed that any of us, even the most meticulous historian, can be certain of our accessibility to an impartial history.
Works Cited.
Hickling Matt, “New Historicism”, Brock University, Brock Education Journal, 27(2), 2018, pp 53-57
Horn Dara, A Guide for the Perplexed, W. W. Norton & Company, 2014
Iggers George G, “Historicism: The History and Meaning of the Term”, University of Pennsylvania Press, Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 56, No. 1 (Jan., 1995), pp. 129-152.
Jameson Fredric, “Marxism and Historicism”, The Johns Hopkins University Press, New Literary History , Autumn, 1979, Vol. 11, No. 1, Anniversary Issue: II (Autumn, 1979), pp. 41-73
Sharma Rajani, “New Historicism: An Intensive Analysis and Appraisal”, IRWLE VOL. 10 No. II (July 2014)
Frequently asked questions
What is the main topic of the paper?
The paper explores how female explorers, especially starting in the Victorian era, uncover previously overlooked aspects of historical understanding. It advocates for a historicist viewpoint on culture, politics, history, and social realities in the setting of A Guide for the Perplexed. It also touches upon history and technology using a structuralist approach.
What are the keywords associated with the paper?
The keywords include History, Technology, and Structuralist.
What is A Guide for the Perplexed by Dara Horn about?
The novel is described as a worldwide thriller, a meditation on privacy and history, a retelling of the Biblical Joseph story, and an investigation of Jewish culture from the Middle Ages to the Victorian times. It focuses on realistic characters and their evolving identities within Jewish culture.
Who are some of the key characters mentioned in the paper?
Key characters include Josie Ashkenazi, the inventor of Genizah (a computer application); Judith, Josie's sister; Itamar, Judith's husband; Tali, their daughter; Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam), Solomon Schechter, Margaret Lewis, and Agnes Smith.
What is Genizah in the context of the novel?
Genizah is a computer application invented by Josie Ashkenazi that integrates a person's information and data, recording and categorizing it to recognize patterns and predict consequences, inspired by the Jewish custom of conserving written papers.
What is the significance of the title A Guide for the Perplexed?
The title refers to a significant scriptural document by Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (the Rambam) in the 12th century. The novel explores themes from the Rambam's work, including the conflict between destiny and free will, as well as Solomon Schechter's rediscovery of the Cairo Geniza.
How does New Historicism relate to the analysis of the novel?
The paper uses New Historicism to understand the novel within its social and cultural context. It examines how the novel reflects the time periods it explores (12th century, late 19th century, and contemporary day) and considers external factors like economic and social forces that influence the work.
What is the role of technology in the novel?
Technology, particularly Josie's Genizah software, serves as a means to recapture the past and explore the relationship between memory, perception, and history. It also raises questions about the impact of digital realities on our understanding of time and experience.
How do female explorers contribute to the narrative?
The female protagonists discover nuances in historical understanding and reveal opportunities as their identities shift. Their journeys lead them to consider ancient and current questions regarding time and provide new perspectives.
What is the significance of the Cairo Geniza?
The Cairo Geniza represents a vast collection of historical documents that provide raw material for historians to recreate the subjective experience of past communities. Its discovery and analysis are intertwined with the modern-day Genizah software in the novel.
What is the city of the dead and how does it relate to the plot?
The city of the dead is a "city of tombs, southeast of Cairo" that explores the obsession with the perpetual presence of virtual experience. Nasreen remarks that all cities are cities of the dead and the story explores perpetual experience of virtual reality.
How are the themes of Maimonides' work integrated into the story?
The novel explores Maimonides' ideas about destiny vs. free will, as well as his approach to Jewish law. Josie reflects on Maimonides' philosophical chants during her captivity, finding solace and guidance in his teachings.
What is the role of Solomon Schechter in the story?
The story of Solomon Schechter, a late-nineteenth-century Jewish scholar, runs parallel to Josie's. Schechter and the twins are historic individuals who are brought to life in A Guide for the Perplexed in a creative, funny, and delicate way.
- Quote paper
- Oumaima El Kaouidi (Author), 2022, History and Technology in Dara Horn’s "A Guide for the Perplexed", Munich, GRIN Verlag, https://www.hausarbeiten.de/document/1313555
