Joshua Cohen was interviewing the literary critic Harold Bloom shortly before his death in 2019, trying to get as many stories out of him as he could. During this time Bloom mentioned an episode from early in his teaching career at Yale when he was asked to coordinate a visit over the winter of 1959-60 for Dr Benzion Netanyahu, his wife and their three children. Cohen’s novel The Netanyahus is a reimagining of that episode.
The novel is dedicated to Bloom and the main character has a similar name - Ruben Blum - though Blum is apparently very different from Bloom, and has a different discipline to Bloom: economics rather than the humanities.
This was a really fun campus novel. Blum is an affable young professor forced into the role of host for the mysterious Dr Netanyahu by his boss. Cohen writes all of his characters with a strong sense of personality that’s very enjoyable to read.
The first 140 pages is absent the title characters and instead focuses mainly on Blum’s visiting sets of in-laws over the holiday season and his daughter Judith’s pursuit of getting a nose job. There are also two lengthy reference letters about Netanyahu - one glowing, one very negative - to make the reader unsure what to expect with the character, while also building up his arrival.
This first section of the novel is not entirely boring but it does feel unnecessarily overlong. I suspect this is what’s referred to as the “comedy” from the blurbs - a ribbing of stereotypical Jewishness. The rudeness of the elderly in-laws, nose stuff, the obsession around Israel and the plight of the Jews in history - later, once we meet the Netanyahus, cheapness is satirised. But I guess it’s ok because Cohen is himself Jewish?
And it’s not to say that, while it feels a tad indulgent, maybe even trite, some of these scenes weren’t amusing - Blum’s insufferable in-laws were entertaining and the different perspectives on Dr Netanyahu were intriguing to see. Judith’s nose-job stuff though went on a bit. I think I’m just not as fascinated with the narcissism of small differences that make up the different branches of modern Jewish identity as writers from that background are.
When the Netanyahus do make their entrance for the final 90 or so pages, the story really takes off because they are utter bastards. Benzion and Tzila are so obnoxious to their gracious hosts, while their sons Jonathan, Benjamin and Iddo are such little shits, that it’s very compelling watching Blum, his wife Edith and his colleagues at the fictional Corbin College have their politeness stretched to breaking point over the course of the single day the Netanyahus are with them.
Benzion’s subject was Jews throughout the Middle Ages and, while Cohen’s clearly read up quite a lot on his work, it does get somewhat repetitive and esoteric once he starts into his academic lecturing. But it is fun to see Benzion’s increasing contempt for everyone he encounters over the course of his interview process, where he has to teach a class, give a lecture, go through a regular panel interview, and then sit through a dinner with potential colleagues.
I’ve no idea if Benzion and Tzila were at all like Cohen portrays, or whether, with Bloom’s first-hand experience, this is exactly what they were like to host. But it’s always engaging and interesting to see horrible people cause mayhem to a group of people who didn’t deserve it.
Cohen’s prose is challenging enough that you do have to pay more attention to it than most popular novels - partly due to the academic passages, though also to accurately reflect the voice of the highly educated narrator, Blum - but it’s also accessible and rewarding that you do make the extra effort. I certainly found it very worthwhile and absorbing.
The Netanyahus is not without some minor flaws but I still had a great deal of fun with Joshua Cohen’s delightful novel. If you enjoy lightly amusing campus novels (campus novels telltale sign: characters referring to wine as “plonk”), with a strong helping of pontificating on Jewishness and sparkling characterisation, The Netanyahus is worth checking out.
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