Daniel Mendelsohn’s book Fleeting Embrace – Culture

It is one of the mysteries of culture that a book that describes and analyzes our present so perfectly was conceived and written 25 years ago. At that time, the confused author called his editor and asked if what he was planning was actually possible: A subjective experience, i.e. a single, not particularly adventurous or prominent life to be linked with the philological interpretation of classic poems and myths. The editor replied with a laugh that it was his book and he could do whatever he wanted. In this way, Daniel Mendelsohn created a unique, often imitated and now definitive style.

He rose to fame in Germany with Die Verlorenen – the 2006 story of his search for a branch of his family, whose members were murdered in the 1940s for being Jews. Mendelsohn’s theme is the search itself, the tricks and pitfalls of family historiography, and the sheer horror of those deeds that one likes to keep at bay with complicated terms.

The book comes to us from a time when one could approach questions of identity even more impartially, i.e. radically

In doing so, he succeeded in clearing the fog of an ominously clouded global history and precisely reconstructing how his relatives were shot by Germans in front of an apple tree in a neighboring garden. German readers understood that a search similar to the one Mendelsohn undertook here would lead to the men in her or another family who murdered these people at the time. The book, along with all the others, is a powerful demonstration of the power of the Enlightenment and a commitment to a love of truth. It’s not all postmodern gimmick in the humanities.

In the new book, Mendelsohn tackles the subject of identity. Nothing works without the term in today’s political, personal and philosophical debates – mostly it serves as an argumentative trampoline from which everyone wants to push off again. Identity politics, a vague description of supposedly over-the-top minority claims, is said to be to blame for the decline of the classic left, the rise of populists, and the division of society in general.

There is no evidence of such an enormous effect, at most they are about modernizations in children’s books or adaptations of language in general, which fall into the category of respect, politeness and timeliness. We no longer say that someone is as fast as an express train, or call a 60-year-old an old man. This is what makes this book so controversial: it comes to us from a time when this question could still be approached in a completely impartial, i.e. radical way.

Daniel Mendelsohn does this in a very classic way by beginning with the word: He traces the term back to the Latin adverb “identidem” and above all to its rhythm: “ba-BAM-ba-BAM” A simple iambus, repeated, because that Word is a doubling of the word “idem”, same: idem et idem. The same and the same. Mendelsohn sums it up: “This word does exactly what it means!” It is the duplication of what is supposed to be unique that makes the topic so interesting: Why twice? You only have to affirm what is in question. Mendelsohn thus comes to an explosive insight: by speaking of identity, one is at the same time doubting it.

Mendelsohn describes how he looked at himself in the mirror as a boy. He could see himself clearly as he was. It existed twice, but once in reverse. Motifs like this – the found identity eludes you as soon as you think you’ve grasped it – run through the book. As a philologist, he repeatedly introduces classic ancient texts, for example the motif of Narcissus or poems by Sappho, which he interprets with modern questions in mind.

Mendelsohn appreciates not being completely absorbed in one neighborhood, one way of life

One aspect of his identity is homosexuality. He describes his journey into love and his exploration of gay culture in the early 90’s. It’s the pinnacle of internet service America online, so Mendelsohn accurately describes the transition from a cruising culture still practiced in bars and streets to digital outreach. He observes and describes this change very precisely and also how he changes it as a desiring, loving man. It’s liberating and lucky to live in an area where there are a lot of gay men, with their routines, cliques and quirks – but Mendelsohn also appreciates being somewhere else, not completely absorbed in one neighborhood, one way of life, but also to always stand a bit apart, for example through his profession as a philologist, through his commitment as a son and other friendships, on a commander’s hill of postmodern everyday life.

Later, the friendship with a woman turns into something more. She is expecting a child but has no contact with the father. She asks her friend Daniel to be there for her son, to be a kind of male role model. He then develops a close bond with the child that is so completely different from any he has known before. Immediately after the birth, at which he is present, the thought crosses his mind that the little boy will one day be present at his, Mendelsohn’s, funeral. It’s a relationship that doesn’t have a clear name, because he’s neither daddy nor uncle, but that shapes and sustains his life and the boy’s life. This experience shapes his identity, but in it he doesn’t mutate into a heterosexual dad.

In his New York surroundings, in his elegant apartment, he is also still the Daniel for a small boy in the suburbs and there, in the cozy and chaotic house of the boy’s mother, he is also someone who is there, but also somewhere else belongs. One lives with different roles, each identity is a duplication of the same, and in the connection of the two halves there is enough space for a third, a question or a longing. At the end of all stories, Mendelsohn summarizes his insights, we live on the journey, in the medium between concepts and places, not firmly, not, as Sartre would have written, “justified”, but we live, because this search, the question, the Research and the journey are our life. What an inspiring, funny and exhilaratingly optimistic book!