NONFICTION
Dreyfus: Politics, Emotion, and the Scandal of the Century
by Ruth Harris, $35
One of Ruth Harris’ goals in this book is to delve into the motivations of the actors in what she calls “the scandal of the (19th) century.” That includes showing that the supporters of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer in the French army framed for leaking secret documents, were not plasterboard saints.
Hence her complex portrait of Émile Zola, the novelist who took up Dreyfus’ cause so boldly as to publish an open letter to the president of the French republic, in effect indicting the nation for mendacity and anti-Semitism, and beginning with the clarion call “J’Accuse . . . !”
In Harris’ reading of his character, Zola saw the affair as a great opportunity for him, perhaps a capstone to his literary career — as indeed it was. “He realized, of course, that the Affair was not a novel, that it involved the destinies and reputations of real men and women.
Nonetheless he came to see the Dreyfus affair, and especially his role in it, as one of his own literary creations: “I am in the process of writing the most beautiful page of my life. A great joy and great glory are happening to me.”
For all the good he did by calling attention to the French military’s dissembling and cover- ups, Harris asserts, Zola was rather a mixed blessing to the cause for which he fought: “His tendency to demonize helped to destroy any possibility of compromise.”
NONFICTION
97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
by Jane Ziegelman, $25.95
Modern American cuisine was born in 19th-century New York, when immigrants forked over their varied gastronomic habits. So says Jane Ziegelman in her delightful book “97 Orchard.”
The subtitle, however, is a bit misleading. Ziegelman does check in with five immigrant families in one Lower East Side apartment house, but they are only bit players in a broader exploration of New York’s culinary evolution.
Throughout, we see the rudiments of modern American cuisine. Here’s the sphere of ground beef that will one day become hamburger, and over there a vendor selling 15-cent pails of cabbage and corned beef — early takeout.
Immigrants also contributed wursts, matzoh balls and spaghetti, among other staples.
As Ziegelman writes, “Native-born Americans, wary of foreigners and their strange eating habits, pushed aside their culinary (and other) prejudices to sample these novel foods and eventually to claim them as their own.”
