Recollections of a Childhood Lived Between Two Worlds

A DOUBLE THREAD

Growing Up English and Jewish

in London

By John Gross

Ivan R. Dee

192 pages, $23.50

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Memoirs come in many shapes and colors: discreet or indiscreet, impressionistic or precise, nostalgic or vindictive. A memoir may often be an account of its author’s acquaintance with a famous figure. Most memoirs written nowadays, however, are stories of their authors’ childhood and development: nonfiction versions of the classic Bildungsroman. Such is the case with “A Double Thread,” John Gross’ evocative and thoughtful recollections of a boyhood in England during the years before, during and after World War II.

Currently theater critic of the (London) Sunday Telegraph and, before that, the editor of the prestigious Times Literary Supplement, Gross grew up in London’s East End, where his father practiced medicine. The title of his book, “A Double Thread,” refers to two traditions that informed his emerging identity: English and Jewish. His family were observant, Orthodox Jews. But the larger world surrounding him was English. “The contrast between these two worlds

Gross’ experience of growing up in two different, but not incompatible, worlds led him to distrust the temptation to frame questions in the dramatic, Kierkegaardian mode of either/or. He recalls, for example, feeling troubled by “the apparent iron logic of Arthur Koestler, who began arguing ... that, now that Jews had their own state, they were faced with a simple choice. If they wanted to remain Jews, they should go to Israel; otherwise they should forget the whole thing. The only reply I could think of was that life wasn’t like that, that people are inconsistent.”

Whether he is discussing his reactions to Bible stories, his experiences of anti-Semitism, his notions about romance and sex, his understanding of politics or his response to literary Modernism, what most strikes a reader is Gross’ capacity for what Keats called “negative capability”: the ability to remain in a state of uncertainty rather than pressing for a quick “solution” to a complex problem. This judiciousness does not prevent him from making judgments; rather, it lends weight and substance to his ideas and opinions.

Certainly, his first 17 years were full of dualities, not only between Englishness and Jewishness. Even the comic books he enjoyed were of diverse origin, some English, some American. Childhood itself seemed to incorporate at least two forms of consciousness: the one, imaginative and romantic; the other, mundane and rote. Children’s lives, he observes, are divided “between inner and outer worlds, between private thoughts or imaginings and the common currency of classroom, playground and street. An unrepeatable innocence coexists with scruffy experience.” “War,” he recalls, “was all around. It seeped into every corner of life....And yet I am also struck, looking back, by the extent to which it didn’t impinge on my own small world.” Gross’ personal experiences of anti-Semitism were few and far between. Yet he grew deeply aware of the horrors being perpetrated against the Jews of Europe. Ironically, this young lover of literature was to encounter more instances of anti-Semitism in literature than in his personal life.

Gross finds it hard to recall a time in his life when he wasn’t beset by doubts about religion: “Where was the evidence?” But although strongly attracted to the skepticism of thinkers like David Hume, Gross did not abandon his faith: “Much of my continuing readiness to believe, and to pray, was based on loyalty ... to the ‘little platoon’ in which I had been born....But religion retained my allegiance on broader grounds, too.... It seemed to me that without the realm of religious experience, life would be a thinner and poorer thing.... Wavering became a way of life....”

There’s also a kind of dual consciousness that comes with summoning up memories, and Gross’ book beautifully exemplifies this. On one hand, he does his best to re-create the way things seemed to him then, while on the other, he takes care to put his youthful impressions in the context of what he has come to know as an adult. Intelligent, humane, highly civilized, yet utterly unpretentious, the voice we hear not only holds our attention but also wins our affection and respect.