The Book of Intimate Grammar, by David Grossman

Body, Eroticism and Word

Abstract

This work investigates the tensions between body, desire and language in David Grossman’s novel The Book of Intimate Grammar. Originally published in 1991 in Israel, Sefer hadikduk a penimi addresses the coming-of-age experience of Aharon Kleinfeld, an eleven-year-old boy who begins preparing for his Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, the bar mitzvah. Edna Blum, a neighbor of the Kleinfeld family, becomes interested in Aharon's father, Moshe, and tries to increase their contact. This relationship, which develops despite Hindele, Moshe’s wife and Aharon’s mother, exposes a latent eroticism, constructed in a fragmented, sensorial and ambiguous way, revealing the characters' struggle to restrain their desire in the face of a subtle and reciprocal sexual attraction. Eroticism, in this context, emerges not only as a physical impulse, but as a way of transgressing and expressing an unconfessable longing. The critical analysis is based on theoretical frameworks by Georges Bataille, Octavio Paz and Roland Barthes, to understand how eroticism, in Grossman, transcends the field of sexual desire and becomes a path for existential reflection and reflection on language.