“God, Absence, And The Autograph: Kabbalistic Echoes In Smith’s Fiction”

Abstract

In this article, "God, Absence, Age, and the Autograph: Kabbalistic Echoes in Smith's Fiction, the Jewish Mystical Perspective, researcher analyzes the novel The Autograph Man, by Zadie Smith, in light of Jewish mysticism, or Kabbalah. It examines how themes such as the absence of God, the quest for meaning and the concept of a divided self-shape the characters’ emotional and spiritual existence... It is Alex-Li Tandem, the protagonist, for whom this is particularly the case. Smith, the study says, uses Jewish mystical motifs such as the breaking of vessels (shevirat ha-kelim), divine absence (tzimtzum) and the longing for repair (tikkun) to investigate contemporary challenges including faith, loss, identity and the worship of celebrity. In the book, God’s silence is terrible and deep, but it’s also where people fill in with their own meaning. In tracing Kabbalah to semiotics and trauma theory, Homolka shows us how Smith merges spiritual and postmodern inquiries—particularly those surrounding language, symbols and what is real. We are pleased to have this reading across professions as part of a series on The Autograph Man. It shows how Smith's one­-of-­a-­kind manner of negotiating metaphysical absence and emotional longing in a world of many cultures and mass media. The article extends this method to offer concepts from theorists like Gershom Scholem, Jacques Derrida, and Cathy Caruth.