Diary of a Lonely Girl, or The Battle against Free Love

by Miriam Karpilove, Jessica Kirzane (Translator)

First published serially in the Yiddish daily newspaper di Varhayt in 1916-18, Diary of a Lonely Girl, or The Battle against Free Love is a novel of intimate feelings and scandalous behaviors, shot through with a dark humor. From the perch of a diarist writing in first person about her own love life, Miriam Karpilove's novel offers a snarky, melodramatic criticism of radical leftist immigrant youth culture in early twentieth-century New York City. Squeezed between men who use their freethinking ideals to pressure her to be sexually available and nosy landladies who require her to maintain her respectability, the narrator expresses frustration at her vulnerable circumstances with wry irreverence. The novel boldly explores issues of consent, body autonomy, women's empowerment and disempowerment around sexuality, courtship, and politics.

Karpilove immigrated to the United States from a small town near Minsk in 1905 and went on to become one of the most prolific and widely published women writers of prose in Yiddish. Kirzane's skillful translation gives English readers long-overdue access to Karpilove's original and provocative voice.

Genres: Jewish, Fiction, Classics, Womens, Historical, Novels, Judaism

321 pages, Paperback

Published December 2, 2019

Reviews

[Toni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The translation of Jessica Kirzane is simply wonderful. She put so much thought into rendering subtle nuances of meaning rendered by the stylistic use of different languages in this novel. I also really enjoyed reading her excellent foreword analysis which gave me an insight into the historical context and Miriam Karpilove's themes.
Thank you to Edelweiss and the publisher for the ARC provided in exchange for an honest opinion.

[D_S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in the 1920s, Miriam Karpilove’s personal narrative, Diary of a Lonely Girl, Or The Battle Against Free Love, analyzes how her experiences with love and sex as a Jewish immigrant contradict the social ideologies invoked to vindicate the fraye lobe (“free love”) movement—an anti-repression counterculture advocating for sexual relationships liberated from gender norms and unchained from matrimony. With intricate love triangles and unrequited fascination, Diary of a Lonely Girl is an eloquent, irreverent journey through love in the 1920s Jewish world.

Karpilove’s entries aren’t just personal; they form profoundly political reflections on the impossible standards that define her romantic life. Whereas for a man, “it’s certainly nice to be in a young woman’s room until dawn, speaking of love… urging her to live a little… for the young woman, it is very, very uncomfortable.” (Karpilove 83) Karpilove articulates how “restrained by her modesty, she must be vigilant, lest she becomes a ‘fallen’ woman.” (83) On her part, it’s clever to juxtapose the token 19th-century concept of fallen women against a socialist worldview premised on repudiating limits and stigma around nonchalant romantic expression. Despite fraye lobe’s flashy status in progressive circles of Karpilove’s era, she’s careful to demonstrate how its implementation disempowers women at both ends: demanding their sexual availability while connoting sexual behavior as ‘improper.’

Karpilove also captures how women themselves come to ingratiate this impossible dichotomy. Referring to another young woman roughly her age, Karpilove describes, “yesterday, [the landlord’s daughter], foaming at the mouth, spoke of long-haired intellectuals. All that they want to do is have love affairs. Let others marry, they say.” (137) With a glimpse of humor, she holds her friend accountable for romanticizing, to a physical extent, a structure that privileges men looking to coerce women into relationships that singularly prioritize male gratification. So-called “long-haired intellectuals'' cloak their image in esoteric socialist values, pandering to females pushed toward the margins of a cultural revolution in the Jewish world.

Finally, beyond the astute cultural analysis, what makes Diary of a Lonely Girl so robustly enjoyable are the wry musings on love that Karpilove intertwines throughout her entries. Instead of creating a hopelessly romantic illusion of love, which I find to be a reductive female archetype in its own right, her insights are practical and refreshing. At one point, Karpilove laments how “playing at love so late when I have to get up early to make a living is a luxury I cannot afford.” (81) For women of Karpilove’s era, romantic love possessed great importance as a form of personal validation. But Karpilove rejects the norm, adamant in her choice not to let these pressures supplant her responsibilities and independence.

Diary of a Lonely Girl, Or The Battle Against Free Love is not a masterpiece in the traditional sense. Karpilove’s prose oscillates between bitingly smart and repetitive—which makes sense considering the nature of her work. The story is composed of diary entries published serially in a Yiddish paper between 1916 and 1918. However, Karpilove’s realization, that without coordinated social change so-called radical movements can all too easily reinforce archaic values, is deeply relevant for periods of heightened cultural reconsideration. Given her insights, Diary of a Lonely Girl has just as much to offer for readers who don’t enjoy angsty ruminations about love. In fact, although Karpilove’s approach is decidedly less contemporary, I notice a Margaret Atwood-esque element to the story’s analysis and conclusions. Deeply embedded in its historical context while maintaining perennial resonance, Diary of a Lonely Girl, Or The Battle Against Free Love is an enriching addition to the Yiddish literary canon.

[Rachel]

I was really intrigued by this diary first published serially between 1916-1918 by one of the few women who made their living as a Yiddish writer. The translator's note and introduction by Jessica Kirzane was really interesting especially how she described Miriam Karpilove's diary as a forerunner to Bridget Jones's Diary and Sex and the City and put it in the context of World War I, women's access to birth control and the free love movement. However, after reading about 100 pages of the diary I got bored. It's really superficial and shallow - it's all about a young woman being seduced by a slimy, sleazy, older married man while pining (pathetically) after another guy. Skimming through the rest, it sounds like she ends up with a third guy but I'm not compelled to finish it.

[Sarahjane · Rating 5 out of 5]

The number of times I thought "I've met that guy" was staggering, considering Diary of a Lonely Girl is the English language translation of a serialized Yiddish novel that was originally published during WWI.

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

i was in the tenement museum book store when I flipped this book over and saw a review that said "Who knew that a century before Lena Dunham's Girls, a Yiddish writer named Miriam Karpilove was already telling the world, in mordant, sometimes hilarious prose, what it was like to be a young Jewish woman in New York City?" They knew how to capture my attention. Instant add to cart.

so for some history, this was written in the 1920s and published in a Yiddish newspaper in a weekly column. some time after the column it had been made into a book, but it was only recently translated into English.

This book truly reads as a diary, even though its fiction. My main criticism is I could tell that it would make so much more sense as a weekly column when reading it just because it was so repetitive. But the writing itself was really good. I just think it would have been a much better read if like 10 of the chapters were cut out.

Some excerpts:

"My suffering is dear to me. I bolster it by imagining his love for other women and feel a painful pleasure in torturing myself, in suffering for him."

"I was sitting by my window watching life passing by and imagining my future alone when Rae, a friend who's as lonely as I am--but with less patience for it--came to ask me to go to a picnic with her."

"When I see the spring, the thought comes to me "Soon it will be winter again.""

[Beatrice]

It's like reading 56 Dorothy Parker short stories back to back! Faith Jones' queer reading (https://ingeveb.org/articles/diary-of...) is a much-needed saving grace, because the serialized format does make for uneven pacing. (And the exigencies of the venue make it rather more moralizing than a good story really ought to be.)

It's certainly interesting to compare with eg Yezierska: the protagonist here is much more attached to the radical left than the protagonist of Bread Givers, but she is living just the life Yezierska!self-insert desired for herself, with a room of her own -- but we see the limitations of that life far more clearly.

The translation deserves a great deal of praise, it handles the intense multilingualism of the original text deftly and effectively.

[Elaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's an interesting read because of what it reveals about a young, Jewish immigrant woman living completely on her own in New York in the early 20th century. How will she make her living? Where will she live? How does she know the men who are pursuing her are trustworthy? She has an alphabet of male friends -- A. is the one she likes, B. likes her but is married to someone else, C. is a mansplainer which infuriates her, D. etc. -- you get the picture. The book goes up to F. I wished there were some more concrete details about her life -- where did she work? How much did she earn? What transportation did she use? Was she in touch with her family back in Europe? So it was not completely satisfying, although I loved the narrator's quest for independence and sassiness.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really love this translation by Jessica Kirzane. She brings Miriam Karpilove’s voice to life in these pages. The narrator of the novel is young woman in 1910s New York. This is a time when free love is popular and women are no longer destined for a life at home. The narrator lives in a number of different rented rooms and socializes with friends, both male and female. But something about free love unsettles her and she tries to resist the coercion of a number of men. I found the issues to be the same today. Maybe people are more into marriage now, but the predatory behavior of the men the narrator meets is not so different from folks today. Sex in the City may have seemed revolutionary for the 1990s, but Miriam
Karilove wrote about the same decades and decades earlier.

[Marvin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this an incredibly boring book, if you can call it that. It is made up of a serial story and reads like the author was being paid by the word. It is quite repetitious. In addition, her behavior towards many of the men she allows into her room, in the evenings, with little or no illumination, is incredible. All the men do is try to have sex with her, trying to convince her to do so with a cascade of words. Instead of throwing them out, she allows them to return, in her search for love from the one man whom she desires. In addition, the end is quite abrupt. If I was not reading this for my book club, I would have given up about chapter 8.

[Deborah Adelman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating novel, with a great introduction by the translator that enhances the experience. Actually, the introduction is a must-read, as it explains why this novel, serialized in Yiddish newspapers, was such an important social commentary on life amongst Jewish immigrant youth in the early 20th century New York. Makes me wish I could read Yiddish, to catch some of the dry, hilarious commentary of the narrator in my heritage language (retirement project, crack that alphabet and begin to study a language I understand a little bit of already).

[Antoinette · Rating 5 out of 5]

I hilarious but also completely frustrating novel that could be summed up as f*ckboys are still f*ckboys, even a century after this book was written. A scathing look at how political movements for liberation either don't care about women, or worse, how some of the men will use their "liberated" capacity to use women instead of seeing them as fully human.

I read this book for JWA's 2019-2020 bookclub.

[Sara'la · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not quite what I expected. It felt one-dimensional. Focused on the one topic of "love". Wished there was more about what it was like living during the early 20th century. However, the depiction of the battle this girl was up against, her will to remain a staunch traditionalist in love vs "free love,"was refreshing. The world around her is changing how they view love outside of marriage and men are using it to their advantage. Sounds eerily modern.

[Ella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’ve been rather into diary format writing lately, and also recently watched Diary of a Lost Girl (from my understanding from the intro, this is in conversation with the novel upon which that is based). You can definitely see that this was serialised due to the very short capsule chapters, and it’s got a very winning voice. Should probably be better known.

[Rachel Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, the relevance and freshness of this work, which is over 100 years old is astounding. It's truly evergreen.

It dragged a little with her relationship with Mr. C, and I was getting agitated reading about him. It was just Too Much at times. Unfortunately, I have known men like him **shivers**

[sim · Rating 3 out of 5]

maybe like 3.5
the main character is interesting but also self sabotaging and self pitying in a way thats sometimes very frustrating to read. at the same time though, shes so real. shes so girl. its so real. but also shes so straight it was a tough read

[Lauren Schneider · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining in a “the more things change the more things stay the same” sort of way. A bit repetitive in the middle, would probably hit different if I was reading this serialized in a newspaper rather than in a handful of sittings.

[Adina]

This book charmed me! I will always remember the line "Making a match isn't like eating a bagel."

[Erika Dreifus]

A terrific act of literary reclamation by Jessica Kirzane, who has translated Karpilove's (originally serialized Yiddish) work.

[Tommie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightfully wry, and the kind of dive into a small segment of life and community that is very rewarding. It only suffers from having been serialised, which rather drags out certain sections.

[Dylan Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love.

[Jay Resnick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Challenging book.

[Eve · Rating 2 out of 5]

An emotionally claustrophobic and repetitive narrative with meager insights into its social milieu and performative norms. Dialogue and characterizations were as clumsy as the predicament depicted.

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily just became my favorite book. For one, Miriam Karpilove's story resembles my own, had I been born a little over a century ago (to NY from Belarus, just as my own family did). Her fabricated diary feels so modern in the way she navigates the world of love and loneliness. Any girl who has a kinship with love will see themselves so clearly for the first time in Miriam's words. Maybe not, but the two of us at the very least share romance in the same way. And diaries--no details about anything other than the people coming and going from this life. I think I'm falling for girlhood.