David Hopen: Fiction [Summer Unwind 2/3]

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Yussie Zakutinsky’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

David Bashevkin: Hello and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast, where each month we explore a different topic, balancing modern sensibilities with traditional sensitivities to give you new approaches to timeless, Jewish ideas. I’m your host, David Bashevkin, and this month we’re continuing our summer unwind series. And today we’re talking about fiction writing, religious depictions, with these books. I still remember in fifth grade, when you have to make those diorama’s, and you make this scene from a book and you would cut it out in a shoe box. I don’t know if people still make diorama’s. I love diorama day, when they’d all be displayed, it was just the coolest day in class. And I remember my fifth grade diorama was based on John Grisham’s The Client, and I literally buried a little lego man underneath a lego boat, which is where the mafia had buried somebody. I think my teacher thought I was incredibly disturbed. But The Client was one of my earliest books that I remember absolutely falling in love with. But after I think eighth or ninth grade, I really stopped reading much fiction. I think I had maybe continued a little bit reading comic books, which has always been an absolute love of mine. The first place that I was ever published was in Wizard Magazine. Twice, in fact. No big deal. And I absolutely loved that imaginative world. I think I shifted out of it because I found so much fascination in the actual world, so to speak, in nonfiction writing, and things that described the narrative arc of events and people that actually lived and existed, and I slowly moved away from fiction. And really in the past 10, 20 years, I don’t remember reading a ton of fiction. I think it’s a handful of books that I’ve read. But I still have an enduring appreciation

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1. 0:00David Bashevkin: Hello and welcome to the 18Forty Podcast, where each month we explore a different…
2. 5:25I don’t think the word “myth” means “not true”. I think myth describes the genre of…
3. 10:55And I think what his book is doing, and what resonated so much for me, is…
4. 15:53a book with universal themes. And that goes with the religious lens too. So I think…
5. 21:22people sometimes, particularly within the community, they don’t like the word “myth” – I love the…
6. 26:18or to see where the kinds of things that you want to bring in to enhance…
7. 31:43religious commitment in all of the complexities of the modern world? And what do you think…
8. 36:35In addition, of course, to your own. David Hopen: Sure. First of all, no fright, no…
9. 42:40I’m very grateful for that. But lately, if I go to bed by 2:00 AM, I…
10. 47:31close friend of mine, and it has a lovely title and it is Bad Jews by…

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