Levi Koenig: A Contemporary King Lear by Dorothea Shefer-Vanson © 2015, ISBN-14: 978-1511909761; 215 pages.
By Donald H. Harrison
SAN DIEGO – As their father weakens in body, if not in mind, three daughters do what they can to aid him; all the while resenting each other for not taking up enough of the burden. Further, they are dismissive of Flora, the Filipina caretaker, who, in fact, is more devoted to their father, Levi Koenig, than any of them.
I’ve watched many elderly people who formerly were vital and independent gradually decline. The author’s description of this process is so keen that I often had the feeling that she had been observing and reporting what I myself have witnessed, or that perhaps Shefer-Vanson and I reside in parallel universes.
If I find a fault with this novel, it is that one mystery within it remains unresolved, leaving me as a reader feeling unfulfilled. No doubt Shefer-Vanson had her own good reason for doing so, but its effect nevertheless was unsettling.
In this novel, Shefer-Vanson is the omniscient author, knowing and revealing what all the characters are thinking. The three daughters have the same initials as the three daughters in William Shakespeare’s play King Lear: For Shakespeare’s Goneril, there is a Gloria; for his Regan, there is a Renata; and for Cordelia, there is Corinna. It should be noted as well that Levi Koenig’s initials reverse those of King Lear.
I’ll leave it to the Shakespeare scholars among our readers to decide what parallels exist between the characters of King Lear, and those of Levi Koenig. I prefer to examine Levi Koenig in its own right, as a work that either will rise or fall on its own merits.
Gloria, the oldest daughter, is a divorcee who is distracted from her concern for her ailing father by a brief fling with a taxicab driver, with whom she obviously is mismatched.
Renata, who is dissatisfied in her marriage, has become an alcoholic. Whenever the pressure of daily living becomes too much for her – which is almost always – she removes a little flask from her purse and takes a nip.
Finally there is Corinna who copes with her dissatisfying marriage by overeating.
As different as these three Israeli sisters may seem, Shefer-Vanson’s exploration of their inner thoughts shows them to be very much alike.
They all feel victimized by the pressures of motherhood and homemaking. They are each critical of their husbands or ex-husband. Every one of them believes, in regard to their father, that their sisters should be doing more, while they should be doing less to help him.
Nevertheless, they are all driven to do the right thing—whether through some inborn Jewish sense of guilt, or because their parents taught them the importance of being menschen.
So in the final analysis this book offers us three perspectives on the struggle between selfishness and selflessness, as well as that between doing one’s duty or neglecting it.
Readers of Shefer’Vanson’s previous novels The Balancing Game and Time Out of Joint will recognize some autobiographical elements such as the Koenig family having migrated from Nazi Germany to England and thence to Israel, and the story of an uncle who was sent as a young man to America to learn the tobacco trade.
Without reservation, I wholeheartedly and favorably recommend this novel. It provides wonderful insights into the strains on families that an aging parent can cause, and how decent families can rise to the challenges.
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Harrison is editor and Shefer-Vanson is a frequent contributor to San Diego Jewish World. You may comment to them respectively at donald.harrison@sdjewishworld.com, and dorothea.shefer@sdjewishworld.com