Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son

"Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son" (originally "Motl peysi dem khazns" -- Mottel Son of Peysi the Cantor) was Sholem Aleichem’s last novel, and is regarded as one of his funniest. Written from the perspective of a ten year old orphan boy, the novel centers on an Orthodox Jewish family during Tsarist Russia of the early 20th Century, and follows them and other members of their small village as they immigrate to the United States. With large doses of humor, the novel tells, through the innocent eyes of an irrepressible boy, of the hardship, poverty and fear that was the lot of Russian Jewry in the early 20th Century. It is remarkable in its ability to apply this humor even to grave events such as pogroms (in Russia) and violent labor riots (in New York) without once descending into a dour or depressed tone. Sholem Aleichem has often been referred to as “the Jewish Mark Twain” (Mark Twain once remarked that he considered himself the American Sholem Aleichem), and in no other book is the similarity more evident than in this one, with Mottel’s adventures and knack for getting into trouble matching that of Tom Sawyer’s. Mottel’s quintessential cry of joy, “Lucky me, I’m an orphan!” speaks of a spirit that refuses to be broken by life’s tragedies.

Plot summary

Mottel’s father, the village’s cantor, passes away after a long illness. Mottel discovers that being an orphan confers on him certain social privileges, as the adult community tends to be more forgiving towards his pranks – something he is quick to exploit. His older brother Elijah, recently married, tries to pull the family out of poverty through a series of Get-rich-quick schemes he learns from a book, schemes to which Mottel is a willing accomplice. But after their schemes cause most of the village’s sheep to be dyed black and the river polluted for months (both caused by ink they had tried to sell), and after they nearly poison the community with defective pesticide, their luck runs out.

As the family sinks deeper into poverty, and with rumors of pogroms against Jews abound, the family and most of the village decide to immigrate to America. The route to New York is lined with danger, con-artists, other refugees, foreign customs that require getting used to, and a long boat ride.

America seems to offer only new problems at first, in the form of the austere immigration control in Ellis Island, the sweatshops of the Lower East Side, and the labor riots that often broke out as workers took to the streets to protest working conditions. But life in New York allows Mottel new adventures and experiences such as he had never dreamed of before (most notably smoking and watching Charlie Chaplin movies), and slowly, the family begins to prosper. In the last chapters they buy a grocery store and are set to begin living the American dream.

Unfinished ending

Sholem Aleichem died while writing the last chapters of this novel, thereby leaving it unfinished. Perhaps it is the triumphant spirit of the book, and maybe it is the fact that it simply did not require a closure, but Mottel the Cantor's Son has been a great success in both Yiddish and Hebrew even without an ending. It was first translated to English in 1953.

Relation to other Sholem Aleichem works

Katrielevka, the Jewish village in which the Russian part of the novel is set, closely resembles the village of Anatevka described in Fiddler on the Roof, with its rich tapestry of characters and peculiarities. It is essentially the same village described in all of Sholem Aleichem’s books, and is probably modeled after his birth village of Pereyaslav.

Translations

The novel was translated to English in 1953 as "Mottel the Cantor's Son" (Henry Schuman, Inc. New York), and in 1999 as "Adventures of Mottel the Cantor's Son" (Sholom Aleichem Family Publications, 1999, ISBN 1-929068-00-X).