The Book of Daniel By E.L. Doctorow; Daniel Written by E.L. Doctorow Radner, Susan G. Radical Teacher 46 (Apr 30, 1995): 53.

The Book of Daniel (1971), E. L. Doctorow's fictional account of the

story of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, explores the ramifications of

political choices on personal development. By retelling the story of the

Isaacsons (Rosenbergs) from the point of view of their

son, Daniel, Doctorow details the emotional cost of political

commitments in a hysterical era. In so doing, he contrasts the political

ideas of the thirties, when Paul and Rochelle Isaacson joined the

Communist Party, with those of the fifties, when they were executed

as spies for the Soviet Union, and of the sixties, when their children

come of age in the anti-Vietnam war movement. (Still to come were

the seventies and the women's liberation

movement.) Doctorow weaves these political events into an intricate

novel which moves back and forward in time and which plays with the

"facts" of the story. The film, Daniel (1983), is a useful adjunct for

teaching the novel. In his screenplay, Doctorow straightens out the

novel into two traditional plots, that of the Isaacsons in 1954 (with

flashbacks to the 1930s) and that of the Isaacson children, Daniel and

Susan, in 1967.

With references to the Bible and contemporary films, and with

interpolated essays about contemporary history and various methods

of torture and execution, The Book of Daniel creates Daniel's internal

world. Doctorow gives us Daniel in 1967, trying to write his

dissertation at Columbia, and instead writing a novel about his family.

He gives us Daniel, brother of Susan, who also bears the cost of the

tragedy of the Isaacsons; Daniel, ungrateful adopted son of the kind,

liberal Lewins; and Daniel, sadistic husband of Phyllis, a sixties flower-

child. All of these Daniels are propelled by Daniel, the thirteen-year-old

child who can do nothing about what is happening to his

parents. Daniel-the-novelist recreates the story of his parents in all its

chilling details to try to better understand himself.

In The Book of Daniel Doctorow shifts the voice of the protagonist and

jumps from one time and place to another. Students have a difficult

time just figuring out what is going on. Doctorow does not help them,

giving contradictory facts about his characters. Because The Book

of Daniel is a novel within a novel, on one page Daniel is thirteen and

Susan eight, while on another page Daniel is fourteen and Susan nine.

In addition, Doctorow repeats key incidents, phrases, and motifs

throughout the novel: the poster of the Isaacsons, the starfish,

"Goodbye (or "good boy") Daniel," the Thanksgiving day scene at the

Lewin home. And hanging over everything is the image of the electric

chair.

What Doctorow omits altogether from The Book of Daniel is any

awareness of sexism. Daniel is abusive to all the women in his life: his

adopted mother Lise, Phyllis, and even Susan. While Daniel is

presented in this negative light, the rationale behind his actions is

supposed to make us sympathize with him: after all, his parents were

the Isaacsons. Susan, who has turned her anger inward, eventually

succeeds at committing suicide. But Susan is presented only as a

figure in Daniel's life; she does not emerge as a complete character.

Nor does Phyllis, who suffers Daniel's physical beatings and

humiliations. The women are presented as Danielsees them; their

function is to explain his behavior.

In discussing the literary themes in The Book of Daniel, the political

themes emerge. What was the attraction of Communism to college

students in the 1930s? How did the Cold War ideology affect ordinary

people's lives? Were the Rosenbergs guilty, and, if so, of what? What

was life like in the sixties for idealistic young people? My students,

almost none of whom were alive during these years, find these

questions very meaningful. Many of them reported asking their

parents what they were doing during these decades.

The film, Daniel, with a soundtrack of songs by Paul Robeson, is well

cast, with Timothy Hutton as Daniel and Amanda Plummer as Susan. It

delineates parallel stories, building to the inevitable double climax --

the electrocution of the Isaacsons in 1954 and Susan's suicide in 1967

-- and the two funerals. The film makes The Book of Daniel accessible

to students who otherwise would have difficulty reading such a densely

textured work.