Sue’s Bookshelf: "Marjorie Morningstar" to Kick Off 2022 CJE Book Club

Charlotte Jewish News December 2021

Sue Littauer

“Marjorie Morningstar” is a 1955 novel by Herman Wouk about a woman who wants to become an actress. “Marjorie Morningstar” has been called “the first Jewish novel that was popular and successful, not merely to a Jewish audience but to a general one.” Wikipedia

When Hadassah was looking for a recommendation for a great book with a strong Jewish woman as its central character, “Marjorie Morningstar” appeared at the top of the list. In fact, some women said they read it once a decade, others once a year. That’s why Hadassah chose it for “One Book One Hadassah,” and why I’ve chosen it as the first 2022 selection for our Center for Jewish Education Book Club. For me and other women of my generation, “Marjorie Morningstar” was the first adult novel we read as teenagers.

In preparation for our January book club meeting, I took the opportunity to Zoom in on “Marjorie Morningstar and Other Essential Reads for Jewish Women,” a panel discussion with authors Rachel Kadish, “The Weight of Ink”; Nessa Rappaport, “Evening”; and Paula Marantz Cohen, distinguished professor of English at Drexel University and the author of the novel “Jane Austen in Scarsdale: Or Love, Death and the SATs,” among others. Some of my takeaways pertain to the direction for our upcoming discussion. For those of us who read the book so many years ago, it will be interesting to discover how we view the book today compared with our thoughts when we read it for the first time. One woman wrote, “As a 19-year-old, I loved Noel (Marjorie’s love interest); as a 75-year-old, he repels me.” It will be interesting to see how different generations of women perceive the book, and it would be really special for mothers and daughters to read and discuss the book together.

The themes of the book are many. Paula Marantz Cohen comments that “Marjorie Morningstar” is “the journey of a young woman wrestling with contradictions in herself and in society, ultimately leaving those contradictions not entirely resolved. In other words, she becomes an adult.”

Other themes to be considered are the relationship between mothers and daughters, Jewish identity and assimilation, the role of women in society, coming of age and sexuality, and Jewish stereotypes.

The 1958 movie “Marjorie Morningstar,” starring Natalie Wood and Gene Kelly, raises another interesting point. (You can find the movie on You- Tube.) When you read the book and watch the film, you find they have different endings — another topic for us to discuss and speculate about. Whom did each ending satisfy? Marjorie? Her mother? The reader?

I hope you are as excited about discussing, reading, or rereading “Marjorie Morningstar” as I am. Please join us on Wednesday, January 12 at 10:30 a.m. in Room A110 on Main Street at Shalom Park. Feel free to bring a friend, your mom, or your daughter. Also, if you are interested in joining our CJE Book Club, please email me at sueb. littauer@jewishcharlotte.org. A complete schedule for the 2022 Book Club will be published in the January issue of the Charlotte Jewish News.