156
the children, and the children have
never been taught anything that
would enable or encourage them to
get along without it.
Let's take a look at Mrs. Patim–
kin, whom Mr. Lamer considers so
implausible a character. She strikes
me as a kind of displaced p erson,
entirely lacking in the certitude
which Neil wishfully attributes to
the Patimkin family. Evidently she
made a career out of youth, and
having outgrown it she can find no
meaning in her middle age. Her
country-club world seems still to be
unfamiliar to her. Her idea of social
propriety is to refrain from talking
about animals at the dinner table.
She is jealous of her daughters for
their youth and beauty- and also,
perhaps, because of the ease with
which they take for granted the
wealth she cannot grow used to.
Under such circumstances, of course
she clings to her Jewishness. It's the
only usable possession she brought
with her from Newark, the only part
of herself she still recognizes.
The same is true in part of the
Patimkin athleticism. (Here again,
though, we have to realize that
Neil's frequently-reiterated doubts
about his own masculinity largely
determine his emphasis on the Pa–
timkin brawn.) Having played stick–
ball on the streets of Newark, Mr.
Patimkin plays golf on the lawns of
Short Hills: he is quite transparent–
ly a man whose only form of self–
expression is physical. I don't see
why Mr. Lamer makes so much of
what a social-climbing Jew would or
wouldn't do. Mr. Patimkin isn't a
social climber. He hasn't bothered
to learn any manners, or, for that
matter, even the English language.
All he wants is comfort and plenty,
and the opportunity to provide the
same for his children. Why on earth
should he think about the Newark
Symphony? I can remember as a
child, balking at having to practice
the piano, demanding of my father
whether he would rather go to a
concert or a ball game. He chose
the ball game, of course, with only
the briefest apologetic glance at my
mother.
With regard to Brenda, Mr. Lar–
ner doesn't seem to see that her
athleticism, in so far as it is deliber–
ate, is much more an attempt to
win p arental approbation, both for
herself and for Neil, than any
"as·
piration toward All-American Girl·
hood." I don't find her either un–
intelligent or unsophisticated, or any
different in kind from many girl!
I knew at Radcliffe who were
try–
ing to understand and evaluate their
families without paying the price
or
total alienation from them. Brenda's
dilemma is different from her
mother's or brother's. She is en·
meshed in the difficulties of money·
equals-love, the very common prob–
lem of third-generation J ews whose
parents have "made good." When
her mother rejects her, her most
potent notion of retaliation is to tear
into b its the three hundred dollan
that had once been given to her
in
love and throw them in her mother's
face. She can't see any sense in de–
priving herself of material luxuries:
the money is obviously there to
be
spent. Yet, taking so much, she feels
obliged to give something
in
return.
But what has she to give except con–
currence
in
her parents' values, sub–
mission to their expectations: in a
word herself. She feels the exchanse
