We have many, many writing lessons we can learn in reading Harry Bernstein’s The Invisible Wall, and we are going to focus on one today. But before that, I’d like for you to pay special attention to several aspects of the book as you read through it.
The Invisible Wall includes many characters, most of them minor, who move in and out of the story. I found it difficult to keep them all straight, so I made a cheat sheet of the people mentioned and selected an identifying characteristic for each. I’ve attached it below if you’d like to use it.
Also, pay attention to the themes (main ideas, underlying meanings) that unify the book. Bernstein focuses on quite a few important ones. In the comments section below, list the themes you’ve come across so far.
As you read through the chapters, examine how Bernstein depicts his father and mother because we will discuss this in an upcoming master class.
The main focus of today’s video is writing dialect–what it is, what works, what doesn’t work, and how Bernstein relies on dialect to tell the story of growing up in Lancashire in Northwest England. The most important thing to know about dialect is that a little goes a long way. I attached a short excerpt of Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel by Zora Neale Hurston, which is written almost exclusively in dialect. This book is a classic, but writing this much in dialect is not something I’d recommend for us mere mortals.
Here’s a very short comment by a German farmer from upstate New York that wraps up a tense scene. It’s the only thing he says:
Sam looked up and saw our predicament. He waded toward us through the shallow water in his hip boots, grabbed the bow of the canoe and hauled us over to the landing. It took two of us to extract his wife from her topless cage. He looked her up and down and laughed.
“Ya’ look sommat’ peeved, eh. Did’ja have some fun?
I would say some themes, other than poverty as you mentioned, could be: parenting, marriage & familial relationships, parenting, sibling rivalry, alcoholism, religion, gender roles, antisemitism, bullying, hardship, war, fashion/style, education, faith, hope, kindness, family, immigration, revolution/protest, and change.
I’ve attached my dialect piece. I know the southern dialect well. Hope you like it.
Mr. Bernstein’s writing of the British and Yiddish dialect of the time of his story made me feel as if I were clearly hearing it, once I got into it. One of the major themes of the book was the handling of a love affair between a Christian and Jewish couple, specifically Sarah Harris and Freddie. I thought it ingenious the subtle way Mr. B. told of Sarah’s fate, page 93. How the Harris’ could have saved the money they spent on Sarah’s transportation because the fate of ships crossing the ocean England to Australia, year around 1917-18, WW1, and… Read more »
I must make a correction. I was sure Mr. B. had foreshadowed Sarah’s fate of never making it to Australia, but found out that she did safely arrive there, eventually marry and was somewhat happy.
I loved the video and I generally like reading dialect. It adds seasoning to the story. I don’t have any current story where dialect would be appropriate, so I pulled out a story a wrote a while back. I have an explanation of how the dialect fits in before the dialogue. Let me know what you think.
This read really well, Millie. A completely believable exchange.
Millie, I read your story. I cannot say that the dialect is true in reference to Eastern European Jews. I could offer some help for your future reference. When you write a dialog between people from Europe, concentrate on the sound of V when writing a word that starts with W. For example, the word What. would, most likely, sound like Vot. In addition keep in mind that it is hard for the Europeans to pronounce TH and most of the time it comes out sounding like Z. European language forms in the stomach, unlike English that is formed inside… Read more »
In addition to the dialect of working-class Lancashire, ‘arry Bernstein sprinkles in a bit of Yiddish in Chapter Two. On page 36, Mrs. Levine refers to her husband as “meshuggener”, yiddish for a crazy man It’s prompted by Mr. Levine’s suggestion for ‘arry’s Mother to open a business on her own, knowing full well the family doesn’t have enough money for food. Page 38 – “fire goys”. In Yiddish, “goyim” is the plural term that refers to non-Jews.. A fire goy is a non-Jewish person who lights the fire in Jewish homes on the sabbath. In the Orthodox tradition of… Read more »
I love the video on dialect, but find it challenging to write dialect. I doubt that I will use it a lot, but may try it with minor characters. One of the chapters in my life story depicts Bill, my brother-in-law, married to my sister Mary. Here is a sample paragraph about Bill where I attempt to use dialect in dialogue: Both Bill and Mary had successful careers in Michigan. Mary taught for the Detroit Public Schools and Bill was an executive with Ford Motor Company. I recall when Ford promoted Bill to a supervisor of engineers though he did… Read more »
Thank you Patricia for the PDF of the Characters. This is very helpful and I liked how you described them. When I began reading this book the dialect, was challenging, however, once I kept reading it became interesting. ~ KMD