Non-Serious Religious Sentimentality

Above: The metaphorical nature of Bildad's misreading.

Indeed, Eliphaz, how easy it is to confuse Santa and Satan. Just ask Dylan, who might be the most convincing Satanic Santa Slothrop’s ever Seen and which you have too, now, and no fewer than eighteen times a day by your own admission. I hope you enjoyed the eggnog.

As for you, Bildad, your fantastic close reading would have impressed just about any undergraduate, so thorough and smart and convincing it all sounds. But: the connection between S.Y. Ansky and Sy Ableman, though perceptive, remains largely clever rather than useful and in no way makes the prologue any more integral to the film. Because, see, if you take away the connection that the author of the prologue is Sy Ableman reincarnate, nothing changes regarding Sy’s character; he remains insidious and gross and terrible regardless whether or not those qualities are being channeled through an ancient dybbuk. Satan’s been around forever, and whether he looks sexy or gross, he does know how to quote scripture whenever necessary.

You ask: “as the Coens give their little Larry over to Sy, as God once gave Job over to Satan, do they not identify the most vulnerable spots of their little man's psyche, and wound him cruelly there, and through him, us?” They do! Sorta. Problem being that it’s not terribly hard to find a passive weeny and engulf him in all sorts of imaginable sufferings. Imaginable because I’m sure everybody just about has a bad Friday like this every once in a while. It’s the unimaginable that would have been much more interesting; perhaps seeing Larry do something miraculous in response to this plague of modern day failings. But he’s flat at the start and remains flat at the end. I’m surprised, Bildad, that you found this litany of miseries miraculous; on the contrary they are the very definition of mundane: they happen to everybody, everywhere, all the time. And they weren’t his “most vulnerable” spots, they were all his vulnerable spots. Take aim at motionless dartboard and you’ll hit something soon enough.

“and maybe my pal Zophar will ask Slothful Slothrop tomorrow about the miraculous end of A Serious Man, though that's not my department--Sy/Satan is my concern.” Slothful yes, but Slothrop can still discern the difference between the accidental and the miraculous.

“So how did the Coen brothers manage to fade him out of their film? How could that arch-enemy lose to Larry the Loser? After all, there was no second death-scene for Sy. It's not like Larry found any good answers to his foe's machinations: he didn't un-cuckold himself, he didn't publish a book in a few days to get tenure, he didn't sweep the leg like Daniel-son. Nor did Larry's lawyers, his rabbis, his family help him with his Sy-problem. No Jesus here, either, thank God. So let me ask you, Slothrop: have the Coen brothers exorcised their usual demons more carefully this time? Is Sy's reign of terror and its quiet failure not one of this film's great successes?”

This is shocking, coming from you Bildad. Have your eyes or your memory, or both failed you? Sy disappears but never goes away! You said so yourself! In fact, he comes back repeatedly! Even as a tornado! That’s the whole point: Larry doesn’t win! He gets lucky! Temporarily! No different at all from No Country For Old Men, except here we have the false crutch of religious faith to make it appear like it––religious tradition–– is something we might possibly hide behind and use to explain our impermanent good fortunes. The Coen brothers aren’t praising the God of the Old Testament or vanquishing evil! To hear you claim that Larry won or that Sy is faded out from the movie is one of the grossest misreadings Slothrop’s done fallen into and consequently smells like the dung of an overly optimistic cow who mistakes the slaughterhouse for a green pasture.

So yes, Jesus never makes an appearance, but it’s not God we have to thank, for he’s terribly absent as well.

“So let me ask you, Slothrop: have the Coen brothers exorcised their usual demons more carefully this time”

No. They did so not more carefully, but more atheistically.