On Marriage

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But my case studies are predominantly American because Jews did really go for it there, culturally, in the post-war period – in a way that they never have here. Baum brings this sharp self-awareness to her book; as she reflects with the analytical eye of an academic on different iterations and meanings of matrimony, she also frequently illustrates her points with scenes from her own marriage. 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. So, all the feelings I’ve selected are ones that have a kind of ‘bad’ reputation that I wanted to overturn: I don’t wish to say that they’re bad feelings, though I do admit that they are or can be painful.

And I’ve also known how to access joy, how to access feelings of awe and humility – through the religion. AH: Also, making fun of yourself… At the conference “Contemporary British-Jewish Cultures” at Bangor University this month (March 2018) many speakers described this idea as something inherently Jewish, too.

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. Devorah Baum brings her literary understandings, psychoanalytic scholarship and great aplomb to the marriage conundrum. But the answer isn’t that everybody gets to have power, but that everybody gets to feel the degree to which power is a fantasy.

They feel nobody sees the brilliance that goes into creating comedy, and how deep and wise what they’re saying is in comic form.To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. In this conversation, Lisa and Devorah will discuss Losing the Dead and then, more generally, the role played by familial stories in their work. DB: That’s very interesting… The notion that satire has somehow become the only plausible way of getting your news.

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.What I’m really interested in is the way in which all feelings split us – and how we cope with that, what we do with that. I think there’s a tendency, when you use words like ‘resentment’, to adopt a severely moral, judgemental tone.

And that’s the familiar Jewish stereotype, but it’s also the product of a specific social situation, and I think it’s quite extreme in some ways, in a culture like this one – in particular where there’s a strong class system, where everybody knows their place, and you’re the people who don’t seem to have one. And that’s not just a secular idea: that idea of sanctifying or desecrating the name of God through your behaviours in public really belongs to the religion, as well. With Josh Appignanesi, her spouse, she is both co-director and performer in the documentaries The New Man and Husband. Exploring her own marriage has given Baum a unique vantage point from which to investigate the private intricacies of other people's arrangements . Because marriage doesn't always bring out the best in us, it makes us wonder what the best in us might be.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. She draws on a formidably broad frame of reference, from Kant to Fleabag via George Eliot and Nora Ephron, and any number of intriguing detours through less familiar literary and cinematic representations. DB: Feelings are contagious – you can be a winner in a society, and still be caught up in envious feelings. 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. Lisa Appignanesi OBE FRSL has written many books, fiction and non-fiction, including the memoirs Losing the Dead and Everyday Madness: On Grief, Anger, Loss and Love.