READERS GUIDE
The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading, and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your reading group’s exploration of Swimming Toward the Ocean. Set against the vividly drawn neighborhoods, parks, and museums of New York City, and evoking the prejudices and promises of the post-World War II years, Swimming Toward the Ocean tells the story of Chenia Arnow, a Jewish-Russian émigré, her charming and unreliable husband Ruben, and their three children. Narrated by the Arnows’ youngest daughter, Devorah, Swimming Toward the Ocean portrays with warmth, humor, and compassion Chenia’s courage and sacrifice as she balances the yearnings of her heart with the realities of her life.Introduction
A bright but uneducated woman, Chenia struggles to fulfill her roles as wife and mother and create a traditional home for her family. Ruben works as a supervisor in a garment factory but craves wealth that he cannot hope to achieve. He schemes to improve his lot by filing fraudulent lawsuits and escapes his family obligations in the arms of his mistress. Chenia’s pregnancy at age forty-five brings her life into stark focus: the Arnows already have two children they can barely afford, and Ruben, never the most attentive husband and father, is spending more and more time away from home. After desperate attempts to induce an abortion fail, Chenia resolves herself to suicide by walking into the freezing ocean at Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But thoughts about her children and their future flood her mind, sending her scrambling back to the beach and into the comforting presence of a stranger–the handsome, polished Harry Taubman. Shortly after Devorah’s birth, the two meet again and embark on a love affair that endures despite moral uncertainties, emotional turmoil, and physical dislocations. With Harry, Chenia’s lively intelligence and deeply sensual nature–long masked behind her awkward, heavily accented English and Old World mannerisms–flower. As the years pass, the Arnows’ infidelities and the dramas that erupt around them, including Chenia’s month-long, unexplained disappearance when Devorah is four, Ruben’s frantic, almost comical struggle to juggle a wife and two mistresses, and a series of painful betrayals and hopeful reconciliations reverberate throughout the family, shaping the fates of parents and children alike in odd, unexpected ways.Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. In reconstructing her parents’ lives, Devorah describes feelings and events of which she has no direct knowledge. Do her assumptions and interpretations undermine her reliability as a narrator? Are life stories, whether fictional, biographical, or autobiographical, ever completely "objective"?
2. Images of and references to water recur throughout Swimming Toward the Ocean. Does water serve as a metaphor in the novel? If so, for what?
3. In what ways do the Arnows represent the universal experience of immigrants in this country? How do their individual expectations affect their behavior toward one another? What goals, if any, do Chenia and Ruben share?
4. How do Chenia’s superstitions and traditional beliefs influence the way she rears her children? What is the significance of the statement, "My mother’s heart is bursting with affection for her son, but this she doesn’t say" [p. 31]? In what ways are Mimi and Sheldon shaped by their mother’s remoteness and lack of outward affection? Does Chenia treat Devorah differently, and if so, why?
5. Does Chenia provide Devorah and her siblings with the moral or ethical guidance we normally expect from parents? What values does she teach them? What role does Ruben play in the children’s lives? How do the choices Devorah and Mimi make as grown, married women reflect their reactions to their parents’ marriage and their own childhood experiences?
6. Despite her old-fashioned upbringing and her strong notions of sin and punishment, Chenia is irresistibly drawn to Harry. What makes her so vulnerable to him? How do the emotions and feelings he elicits transform the way she thinks about herself?
7. How would Chenia’s life have been different if she had not met Harry? To what extent did the affair rescue her? In what ways did it make her life more difficult?
8. How do Devorah’s descriptions of her mother’s affair with Harry differ from her accounts of Ruben’s infidelities with Trudy and Bertha? How do the specific events she recounts, as well as her tone, influence your impressions of their motivations and the depth of their feelings? Does she judge one parent more harshly than the other? Do you think she recognizes and understands her father’s need to be with other women?
9. The setting plays an important role in Swimming Toward the Ocean. What physical details does Glickfeld use to evoke the period? Which cultural, social, and political references are most effective in illuminating the particular milieu of the Arnows, their friends, and extended family?
10. From Devorah’s birth to Chenia’s first encounter with Harry and Mimi’s unlikely friendship with Sofie, the concepts of fate and coincidence are integral to the plot development of the novel. Does the author make these events credible? To what extent are the characters responsible for their own destinies and to what extent are their lives shaped by chance?
11. How does the life the Arnows have constructed for themselves differ from the other lives depicted in the novel? What do Glickfeld’s portraits of Harry, Chenia’s sister Ruchel and her husband, Trudy and Barney Fleisch, and Bertha Landau reveal about the process of assimilation? What factors, both practical and psychological, influence the various characters’ ability to make a place for themselves in American society?
12. Does Chenia’s story represent an experience that is typical of women of her generation? In what ways does she conform to society’s rules and expectations? Other than her affair with Harry, what examples are there of her refusal to follow the rules? Do Ruben’s behavior and attitude, as well as the limited options available to Chenia, justify acts which might otherwise seem selfish or immoral?
13. In imagining Chenia’s reaction to seeing Harry at the theater years after she has made another life for herself, Devorah writes, "What is she thinking, that Harry will call her up and it will be as before? Even if she could love this man again, she thinks, she can never stop hating him" [p. 332]. In light of this, why does Chenia agree to meet with him? What does she hope will happen?
14. Chenia has three very different relationships in the course of the novel: her marriage to Ruben, her affair with Harry, and her marriage to Sol. How do each of these relationships illuminate Chenia’s personality and her needs at different times in her life? Which relationship do you think best reflects the woman Chenia really is? The woman she wants to be?
15. Is the ending consistent with the spirit of the novel? Does it bring the relationship between Devorah and Chenia to an appropriate close? Does Devorah see similarities between her mother and herself? Does she fully forgive Chenia for the hurt she has caused?
16. What literary traditions (or genres) might you use to classify Swimming Toward the Ocean? Would you characterize it as a family saga? A love story? A coming-of-age novel?
