15.12.11

When the man dances, the piper pays him

I watched Fiddler on the Roof for the first time this evening (thank you, Sam!), and since this is Christmas break and I'm already feeling intensely reflective in a writing sort of way, I couldn't resist the urge to blog about it. Sorry. You can expect a lot from me in the coming weeks... I can't really restrain the impulse.

Reason to Love #1: The way that the music - not even the lyrics but the notes themselves - tell the story is just fantastic. From the moments when the fiddler plays the sprightly warning notes of his "tradition" tune to the last notes of his serenade that lift a weary man's shoulders for the road that still stretches ahead of him, it is both the storyteller and the storyteller's tool.

Reason to Love #2: Tevye grows up. This is not a story about three girls breaking from traditions and yentas and finding husbands for themselves, at least, not really. It is almost like a collection of short stories about minor yet significant characters that tell one bigger story about someone else entirely, not unlike the Bible. The real change is wrought in Tevye, who learns over the course of a heartwrenching season that certain things are more important than others. He finds out after 25 years of (arranged) marriage that he and Golda love each other. He realizes that love actually is important, that happiness is not dependent on wealth ("They are so happy they don't even know they're miserable!"), and that sometimes your opponents are your friends and your friends are your enemies but family is always family no matter what. It isa  hard and humbling journey, but one that is filled with grace.

I was reading a Belloc essay about rest from his collection, "At the Sign of the Lion," and he speaks thus of the ending of things: "...One may say that in proportion to the largeness of [man's] action is this largeness and security of vision at the end." He is referring to a rest that is not death, but is rather the steadfast, sturdy peace of a life put through the fire of turmoil and made all the stronger for its pains. I think perhaps those last moments that we are with Tevye as he pulls his cart down the muddy track show a man who has tasted something of that rest. He has weathered far greater crises than this: it is not the end, but another beginning.

Reason to Love #3: Apparently, dancing is not the only activity that leads to illicit unions. I have it on good authority that reading books will gain you a very cute, very Russian, very unfortunately Eastern Orthodox and not at all Jewish husband. I'm not Jewish, therefore, I have no qualms in the matter. Bring on the books!

Reason to Love #4: I recognize that this is a fairly idealized portrayal of Jewish culture. However, I can't help but love the way that they wear black clothes and sober faces, but their age lines are laugh lines and their life is so extravagant as to make up for the color absent in their dress. From the dancing to the jesting to the drinking and good cheer, it is as if their everyday face nods sagely at the trials and torments of living while one eye winks puckishly and one foot taps slyly because they have realized that there is a far greater truth to be found, and that is joy beyond circumstance which tastes all the sweeter for the contrast.

Reason to Love #5: The dancing. It makes me want to watch "Riverdance: The Show" on repeat for a couple of days. Not the one with Michael Flatley though - the other guy, Colin whatsisface. Seriously, though, there had better be people dancing like that at my engagement party. Wedding. Whatever.

Suffice it so say, I was extremely impressed and rather loved it.

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