On Marriage

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With Josh Appignanesi she is co-director, producer and performer of the films The New Man and Husband, which investigate the intimate dynamics of the filmmakers' own marriage. The feeling of being European has arisen, I think, in particular amongst Jews in this country, partly because some of them, since the Referendum, have discovered that they can go and get passports – from Germany, Poland. And also because, for Jews in particular, the idea of the EU often has less to do with a free-trade organisation than with keeping the peace in Europe, and the desire to just be able to move elsewhere if you ever need to.

Often you find they’re very funny, and then the moment they’re not being funny, you find that they’re awfully serious – a little bit too serious. It was left to me, therefore, to point out that Shakespeare’s Jew was an anti-Semitic stereotype and that Shylock was in fact not an accurate depiction of how I generally acted, nor how my family acted and nor how my ancestors acted, even when faced with persecution and prejudice. DB: That’s very interesting… The notion that satire has somehow become the only plausible way of getting your news. They monitor themselves; it has probably a lot to do with Freudian introspection and the idea that it’s a definition of what you do as a university person – particularly in Germany. AH: It’s so funny, because what you just said, I was thinking about my generation, and it seems to be quite the opposite, they see all these stand-up comedians – Bill Burr, Louis C.I had approached the book with a measure of doubt, wondering whether – being of an age with the author but never married – I would find myself excluded from its thesis. So, that would be a question: Have you ever experienced antisemitism in London, either blatant, or low-level?

But the way I’m diagnosing resentment is as a more or less unavoidable aspect of globalisation and its discontents.This is not so much a cop-out as a recognition of the fact that marriage, for all its legal and social connotations, remains the ultimate subjective experience.

And both my books regard that situation as becoming increasingly common to all people who feel themselves the subjects of a globalised world. Some of our correspondents have described this as ‘feeling European’ – because the dominant backgrounds are Ashkenazi. There are all kinds of closed spaces that I respect, but I also recognize that tribalism, in the way we’re seeing it at the moment, is so… toxic. So, everyone thought he was such a loser… you know, the one good thing that ever happened to the family…. From Freud to Ferrante, and One Thousand and One Nights to Fleabag , she looks at marriage in all of its forms – from act of love to leap of faith, and asks: what are we really doing when we say ‘I do’?

I'm an Associate Professor in English Literature and Critical Theory at the University of Southampton. For anyone who has experienced, contemplated or rejected it, On Marriage offers a fascinating exploration of an institution that, for better or worse, “continues to shape and carry our human story”. DB: Feelings are contagious – you can be a winner in a society, and still be caught up in envious feelings.

JA: But again, not as much as in America – the cool, young, sort of ‘hipster Judaism’ that is huge in America. And, actually, during a period in British politics – when the word ‘Jew’ is trending on Twitter and people are googling the word ‘Jew’ and looking probably in all sorts of insalubrious places to find out what Jews are up to –, you have a very strong wish and desire to speak to other people going through the same thing, in a somewhat contained and close setting.

At this seminar we welcome authors Lisa Appignanesi and Devorah Baum to talk about loss and grief, love and laughter, and being Jewish. DB: In the introduction to my book I’m interested in whether there’s much of a difference, really, between a word that you whisper – which tends to be the British way – and one that you’re required to shout out – in a declamatory, American way. EV: I think it’s really interesting, this idea of feeling different, but also belonging, in a way, this double-bind. If somebody tells you a joke well and fresh, and you get a laugh out of it, that’s a real relief – and it’s a strengthening moment, as well. Just because if you read, for example, Nina Raine’s Tribes, there are the most hilarious jokes in there.