New York Times perfume critic Chandler Burr decided to vent his angry opinion about orthodox religion to the world. His chosen medium? A charming and sophisticated novel about married couple Anne and Howard Rosenbaum.
English-born, and with a PhD in literature, Anne Rosenbaum is classy. But she’s also a snob. As the narrator, her eloquence and powerful opinions set her apart from the glamourous superficial world of Hollywood that her movie executive husband is part of. Despite the glaringly obvious: “nobody in Hollywood reads”, Anne suddenly finds herself the leader of a book club, filled with hotshot directors and agents.
Despite Anne and Howard’s love for each other, and their seventeen-year-old son Sam, they can’t escape the dark spot in their lives: Howard comes from an Orthodox Jewish family who refuse to accept Anne as their daughter-in-law. And Orthodox Jewish religion dictates that the child is the religion of the mother. You can imagine, they have their fair share of awkward moments. Howard has shunned the Talmudic reasoning for Anne’s love. As the presence of this truth ebbs and flows in their lives, Anne finds she is becoming a celebrity in her own right, with all of Hollywood waiting to see what book she will recommend to her club next.
You Or Someone Like You is a multilayered story. Firstly, and perhaps at its most shallow level, it is a wistful scenario about what Hollywood would be like if all its top suits and execs were well-versed in English literature. But it is also a sociological examination about humans and group identity, of “Us and Them”, as explored through Howard’s sudden orthodox Jewish reawakening. It’s a bitter and controversial look at the hypocrisy of religion, and while in this case examines the faults of Judaism (Burr suggests a ‘holier-than-though’ attitude), it could be easily said about any of the major religions of the world, religions that require their followers to believe they are better people than others because of their faith. But, to the book loving readers of Burr’s novel, it is a gorgeous exploration of literature, and how it affects us, how it permeates through our lives, and informs our relationships with others and ourselves. Anne is the ever articulate expert on Eliot, Auden and Shakespeare, and her love of the written word is contagious, leaping off the pages. She tells her audience, and us, “Literature shocks not because what it shows about us is inherently surprising. It does the exact opposite. It is shocking because it breaks down what we would be and shows us what we know we are.” (p378)
Despite being a compelling read, the story at times is didactic and a little preachy. And with all these layers, it’s an emotional and intellectual bombardment. Anne is a self-proclaimed snot, yet her other fault, a coldness-masked fragility, is ultimately what allows us to sympathise with her. The book will fill your head with so much to think about that you emerge from it feeling a little heady. But this isn’t exactly a terrible thing.
A startlingly emotional story about the pervasiveness of orthodox religion, told through the marriage of Jewish Hollywood executive Howard Rosenbaum and his Gentile, PhD literature-holding wife, Anne. Witty and full of fantastic references to English and American literature, it’s a social exploration of the ever-confusing notion of identity and belonging in the modern world.
