Nevertheless, I need to conclude. The library will want its books back, other blog posts are waiting to be written, and this thread is running out of oxygen. So: how do I respond to the problem in this otherwise enjoyable book? Is the anti-Semitism in Freddy the Detective a real danger – a “snake in the grass”? Or is it just an inevitable age spot, a “fly in the ointment” – something we can pick out, discard, and leave behind?
Well, I think it’s a bit of both. On the one hand (the “fly” verdict), Walter Brooks reflects his era. The first book in the Freddy series was published in 1927, the last (and 26th!) in 1958 – the year Brooks died. Brooks’ anti-Semitic ‘pastels,’ as I’ve come to think of them, are mild compared to his times, minor compared to the preceding century. Watch Simon Schama’s beautiful PBS series, The Story of the Jews (2014), and see what a miniscule gnat I’m straining out of an all-but-forgotten 1930’s children’s book. (Though Schama’s story will convince you that this gnat matters!) Watch Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), a Gregory Peck film about anti-Semitism in post-war New York, and read about the film’s backstory too. To call it “controversial,” as the wikipedia entry does, is a considerable understatement. I find the part about John Garfield, a Jewish actor who chose to star in the film and who was subsequently [consequently?] labeled a communist, especially baffling. Or, I should say, enlightening: it demonstrates how anti-Semitism isn’t an isolated or unadulterated problem that we can eliminate with a black sharpie pen.This is where the gnat becomes a snake, as far as I am concerned. I could buy my own copy of Freddy the Detective and ink out the rats’ names. I could name them…well, what would I name them? Tom, Dick and Harry? (So dull!) You see, even though the names are the tipping point where Brooks’ poisoned inspiration becomes explicit, the problem is not just the names. Nor is it limited to Brooks, or his era. It’s a way of thinking. I see Brooks’ “Simon the Rat” character as a small but apt illustration of what David Nirenberg is talking about in his book Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (2013). In his introduction, subtitled “Thinking about Judaism, or the Judaism of Thought,” he proposes that “Judaism” is not merely the religion or culture of the Jews, but a long-standing ‘habit of thought’ in the West:
'Judaism'…is not only the religion of specific people with specific beliefs, but also a category, a set of ideas and attributes with which non-Jews can make sense of and criticize their world. Nor is 'anti-Judaism' simply an attitude toward Jews and their religion, but a way of critically engaging the world. (p. 3)The book unfolds, century by century, the terrible impact of this ‘habit of thought.’ Nirenberg’s point is that we need to "become self-conscious about how we think" about both past and present; we need to know "how past uses of the concepts we think with can constrain our own thought." (p. 2) I heartily agree. What concerns me most about the anti-Semitic elements in Freddy the Detective is that they worked on me. I was two-thirds through the book before I realized what the rats’ names meant.
I agree with Nirenberg’s statement of the problem, but it lacks a solution. I still don’t know what to do about the pattern of thinking evident in the Freddy plot other than confronting it with its history, giving it a name and calling it wrong. That is what I have tried to do in these posts. I don’t think the problem can be blacked out or confined to the past. Since composing the last post, I’ve looked again at the rat character in Charlotte’s Web, and I’ve watched the BBC Television Shakespeare production of The Merchant of Venice (1980). I found the two oddly similar. Templeton is “always looking out for himself, never thinking of the other fellow.” (Charlotte's Web, p. 89) Earlier, White sums him up like this: “The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feelings, no friendliness, no anything.” (p. 48) Doesn’t this fit Shylock as well? In Shakespeare’s words, Shylock is “A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch,/Uncapable of pity, void and empty/From any dram of mercy.” (Act IV, Scene 1). What keeps either of these examples from being like Freddy the Detective is that Templeton and Shylock are presented with sufficient candor to condemn their surrounding society. The honest response is “mea culpa.”
Beyond flagging the anti-Semitism in the Freddy series as a small example of a big problem, there’s no need to boycott the Freddy series. The books are quite dated, and, in spite of their humorous bits, unlikely to reach much of an audience today. Nor does Walter Brooks appear to have been actively racist. The impression I get from reading a couple other books in the Freddy series is that his characterizations were fluid and inconsistent from book to book, and his ‘political incorrectness’ wide-ranging. Freddy and the Men from Mars (1954) is a good example: it serves up a scramble of social, space-race, and ‘red-Commie’ anxieties, topped with a little bona fide science fiction. The rats still have their habitual anti-Semitic tint, but it's muted by blending with these other shades.
So that is the end, for now. The books can go back the library, and I can think about something else. I owe Freddy the Detective and several of its companion volumes many hours of entertaining distraction over the last four months, but I can't say I care to read on. If I did read on, I would have to be on my guard - and that's not how I like to read children's books. What I'll remember the book for won't be the humorous little details that originally fascinated me, but the rude reminder that poisonous habits of thought lurk in unlikely places.
