Reading is Believing

The inevitable family dramas of the festive period formed the perfect backdrop to Zoe Heller’s impressive new novel, 'The Believers'.

Her dark comic portrayal of the Litvinoff family is both as amusing and as upsetting as those familiar turkey fuelled clashes.

"a reader would be unlikely to sacrifice
more energetic bedtime activities in order
to resolve a pressing cliffhanger"

The gaggle of disagreeable, but truly compelling characters is not unlike that of Heller’s successful 'Notes On a Scandal.' However, this fresh offering showcases a more mature narration in beautiful, effortless prose.

Unlike Heller’s bestseller, 'The Believers' isn't particularly gripping: a reader would be unlikely to sacrifice more energetic bedtime activities in order to resolve a pressing cliffhanger. Yet the Litvinoffs are endearing, their lives fascinating and their convictions provoking. The internal debate they incite is a lasting one.

Heller’s prologue, set in a loudly political 1960’s London, creates the enduring voice of the novel: one for which faith, especially political faith, is everything. The jump from England in 1962 to the US in 2002 is intelligently devised to create not only the transatlanticism of Audrey, the protagonist; but also of the ideologies presented in this meditation on belief.

In fact, 'The Believers' is a slightly ironic title for a novel peopled by determined Atheists. It examines the faith of those who have no faith, a Jewish family whose father scrawls ‘THERE IS NO GOD’ as an RSVP to a bar mitzvah. Joel and Audrey’s communist convictions are proved outdated and impractical, while their daughters struggle to break from this overpowering influence.

Heller’s message is apparently that all beliefs should be tested and, if necessary, revised. However, this is not dictated and the reader is left attempting to spot the positives of faith. The lifestyle of each character is brought into question: the most admirable qualities in each are gently demolished as their beliefs fail to help them through life.

The Litvinoff matriarch Audrey is particularly fascinating; what begins as a commendable strength of will gradually becomes the bitterness of a defeated old woman. Her transformation comes at the close of the novel when she is finally able to act in true accordance with her communist beliefs, which until that point have been merely a means to criticise others.

Perhaps the greatest triumph of the novel is the juxtaposition of the rules and conventions of communism with those of Judaism. Both doctrines are presented, through Audrey and her daughter Rosa respectively, as simultaneously inspirational and hilariously hypocritical.

Nevertheless Heller succeeds in occupying the position of impartial observer in the narrative. Each of the three women whose stories she tells is convincing and their beliefs are not directly criticised, instead she seems just to allow them to naturally critique each other.

‘The challenge of modernity is to live without illusions and without becoming disillusioned’. The choice to prefix The Believers with a quote from famous Marxist Antonio Gramsci seems a little strange at first; this is not a Marxist text, in fact it is often just a catalogue of everything funny about communism. However, this line does tell us a lot about Heller’s motives. The novel is designed to demonstrate both the flaws of political and religious dogma and also how essential some kind of faith is. Principles are, she claims, the ‘guiding stars’ in human life.

A tale of politics in New York would perhaps appear deficient without some reference to 9/11, but Heller neatly avoids trapping herself in this dangerously emotive territory too. The subtlety of references to terrorism and its relationship to faith is endorsed by a sobering glimpse of ground zero from a comfortable hotel room.

Although the pretty gold leafed cover of 'The Believers' may attract certain readers, it is strangely misleading. This is an intelligent study of the conflict between the prescribed actions of faith and those demanded by daily life, merely disguised as chick lit.