Emotional Arithmetic

by Matt Cohen

Melanie is a mother and a lover, middle-aged, eccentric, courageous, and often hilariously unpredictable. She’s also deeply scarred by her internment as a child in Drancy, a Nazi detention camp. Through the humanity and friendship of an English boy, Christopher Lewis, and her self-appointed protector, Jakob Bronski, Melanie managed to survive. Forty years later, Jakob, now a frail, well-known Soviet dissident, and Christopher, a writer who’s never forgotten the young Melanie, reenter her life. Memories of the past, coupled with her husband’s infidelity, upset Melanie’s precarious emotional stability, forcing her to confront the absurdity of trying to balance good and evil, guilt and love, duty and desire. With its finely drawn characters, rich humanity, and rare wit, Emotional Arithmetic is a novel of memory and hope, offering an unforgettable look at how the shadows of the past illuminate the present.

Genres: Literature, Fiction

254 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1992

About the author

Matt Cohen studied political economy at the University of Toronto, and taught political philosophy and religion at McMaster University in the late 1960s before publishing his first novel, Korsoniloff, in 1969.

His greatest popular success as a writer was his final novel, Elizabeth and After, which won the 1999 Governor General's Award for English-language Fiction only a few weeks before his death. He had been nominated twice previously, but had not won, in 1979 for The Sweet Second Summer of Kitty Malone and in 1997 for Last Seen.

A founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada, he served on the executive board for many years and as president in 1986. During his presidency the Writer's Union was finally able to persuade the government of Canada to form a commission and establish a Public Lending Right program. He also served on the Toronto Arts Council as chair of the Literary Division and was able to obtain increased funding for writers. In recognition of this work he was awarded a Toronto Arts Award and the Harbourfront Prize.

Cohen died after a battle with lung cancer. A Canadian literary award, the Matt Cohen Prize - In Celebration of a Writing Life, is presented in Cohen's memory by the Writer's Trust of Canada.

He also published a number of children's books under the pseudonym Teddy Jam. Cohen's authorship of the Teddy Jam books was not revealed until after his death. The Fishing Summer was also nominated for a Governor General's Award for children's literature in 1997, making Cohen one of the few writers ever to be nominated for Governor General's Awards in two different categories in the same year.

A film adaptation of his 1990 novel Emotional Arithmetic has been produced by Triptych films starring Max von Sydow, Christopher Plummer, Gabriel Byrne and Susan Sarandon. It was the closing Gala at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007.

Reviews

[Mary ♥]

dnf at 80%

This one had some very important representation of mental struggles but I couldn't handle the fact that almost every time a woman was described, it focused on the sexual aspects??

[Teresa Mills-Clark · Rating 1 out of 5]

Again, if we could use a half-star system I would give this book 1.5. Perhaps, I didn't like it because it was written in 1990 and since then there have been more contemporary authors who have handled the material with more plausibility and less 1990's "formula". To me, the formula of that time included random sex scenes which added nothing to the plot and seemed to be mere filler. Also, as a woman, I can nearly always tell when it is a male author writing a sex scene ... the authenticity is often lacking.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read the book, after seeing the movie, called "Autumn Hearts: A New Beginning". I wanted more character development. Honestly, the movie doesn't really follow the book. Same characters, same location, same history, but how they work their way through the situation is totally different in the book.

Interesting, interesting character development. I found that I liked the characters a lot less, when I got to know them in the book.

[Katharine Holden · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good bits of writing. Confusing storyline that wanders, but not in a fun way. Ultimately, I no longer cared what happened to the characters.

[Tom Gray · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his previous novel “Nadine” Matt Cohen created the members and relations of the Bronski family. They were a family of American Jews living in Paris at the beginning of the German occupation in WW2. The parents Jakob and Gabrielle attempted to flee Paris and reach the Spanish border. They left their child Nadine in the care of an aunt. The novel “Nadine” tracked the life of their daughter of the same name. The parents Jakob and Gabriele were betrayed and were taken of the train before reaching the border. Gabrielle disappeared and died in one of the death camps. Jakob was sent to the transit station called Drancy near Paris. It is the events touched by his life that are the basis for this novel “Emotional Arithmetic”. In the Drancy camp, Jakob became the protector of two parentless children. The Americana Jewish Child Melanie came under his protection as well as Christian boy named Christopher.” Emotional Arithmetic” is a story of flashbacks surrounding the events taking place after an middle-aged Melanie has located Jakob in a Russian mental hospital and has bought him to their family hobby farm in Canada to live out the last part of his life.

The structure of the novel is to move forward with sections based on the memories and impressions of individual characters. This can be quite effective. The evocation of the life in the Drancy transit camp from the viewpoints of Jakob and Melanie is quite vivid. I have read a history of the experiences of the French resistance women who were imprisoned there, and the feeling of that price of non-fiction and Cohen’s fiction illustrate how there can be multiple ways of writing history. Cohen’s aim in the novel was to show the effect of the cruelty in these camps as they pass through the years and through the generations and he is quite effective.

[Nicholas George · Rating 2 out of 5]

Melanie and Christopher were teenagers who met at a way-station for Jews on their way to Auschwitz during WWII. Now, years later, they reunite, each well into their lives: Melanie as a doctor's wife, and Christopher as a novelist. There isn't much juicy plot to this book, as it is primarily a literary analysis of the toll their war experience has played on this couple's life, and of those around them. Everything was too distant for my taste, although it was nicely written.

[Lydia Hale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t enjoy this book that much. It seemed pretty flat to me and I almost didn’t finish it.

[Koen Eidhof · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I had to describe this book then I would say it has some beautiful texts but sadly they are impossible to follow.

[Cheryl]

I did not like the writing style of this book... hope the movie is better