Review of the Novel "Justice My Brother" by Roberta Kalechofsky
Copyright 1976 by Roberta Kalechofsky
The full text of Justice My Brother is available online at www.samizdat.com/micah/justice.html
You can reach Roberta at micah@micahbooks.com,
or at Micah Publications, 255 Humphrey St., Marblehead, MA 01945, www.micahbooks.com
This review first appeared in Aspect #64, March 1976. (A few minor edits
were made in 2002, including the reference to Cormac McCarthy.)
"He was riding to kill his brother," we learn in the second paragraph
of this amazing novel. Ricardo, seeking to avenge a multitude of injustices
and to assert himself as a human being, fires at his callous and relatively
wealthy brother, Julio, form close range with a rifle. The bullet misses,
but marks Julio with the fear of death and Ricardo with the guilt of Cain.
Their paths cross and recross through the years as Julio descends the
ladder of humanity form landowner to beggar to cripple to a form of living
death; and Ricardo, guided by an ironic, Sophisticated, somewhat godless
priest, struggles toward a thankless sainthood in service to the sick and
dying. The characters emerge vivid, desperate, impulsive, passionate, against
the background of a pitiless, intricately patterned universe, where holiness
seems "no more than constancy of design."
The priest, Father Ferenza, adds an extra dimension to this well-told
tale of simple people living out a complex fate. He makes explicit the
issues of good and evil and destiny posed by the life of Ricardo, and reflects
on the human condition with sharp cold thrusts, worthy of a character from
Cormac McCarthy or Dostoyevsky.
"What is the use of life?" [asks Ricardo] "if there is no better
life after this one?"
"If you do not know the use of this life, what is the use of another
one?" [replies Ferenza]
"Si, but," Ricardo said, feeling driven back on vague memorizations
of answers, "is it not true that in the next world all things will be made
clear?"
Father Ferenza regarded him for a moment with irritable interest. Then
he said in a firm voice as if he were giving a direction in the road, "All
things have already been made clear, Senor."
There was a note of authoritative bombast in his voice, half playful,
half serious, and Ricardo could not decide whether he was a man of mystery
or of light.
The temptation is great to reread and to quote page after page:
-
the scene where Ricardo watches a man die and Ferenza remarks, "I was his
priest. I was not his wife nor his child. I could afford to like him."
-
the scene where Ferenza leads Ricardo to recognize his hatred as inverted
love, as proof of his capacity and need for love.
-
the death scene of Father Ferenza, as an old man, after the self-assurance
and the irony have faded; vulnerable, regretful that he hadn't treated
Ricardo more warmly and openly; not conquering death, but conquered by
it, "his head drawn to his body in a convolution of pain and lonely self-comfort."
-
And above all, the final fatal meeting of Julio and Ricardo.
Originally published by the Montreal Writers' Cooperative and available
directly from the author (who has started her own publishing company --
Micah Publications), this gem comes in a format unlikely to catch the wandering
eye in a bookstore; but it deserves an honored place on everyone's bookshelf,
in everyone's memory.
Discuss books at Blogging about Books http://www.samizdat.com/blog/
Other books by Roberta
Kalechofsky.
This site is published by B&R Samizdat Express, 33 Gould St., West Roxbury, MA 02132-002. 617-469-2269 seltzer@samizdat.com
Works
of Roberta Kalechofsky in Context contains five novels, a book
of short stories, and a book of essays by Roberta, together with 270 related
classic books that provide a context for better appreciating and enjoying
her work. The "context" books deal with Jewish Religion, Christian Religion,
Medieval Europe (including works of Dante, Boccacio, and Chaucer), Greek
classics (including Homer, Aeschylus, Euripides, and Sophocles), Latin
American History, Animals, Women's Rights, Anti-Slavery, along with works
of novelists Conrad, Melville, and Hawthorne. Table
of Contents
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