Kaaterskill Falls by Allegra Goodman; "Kaaterskill Falls"; 324 pages; hardcover; $17.95.

"As a plant upon the earth, so a man rests upon the bosom of God; he is nourished by unfailing fountains, and draws, at his need, inexhaustible power." Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Nature"

A summer vacationer in Allegra Goodman's latest novel, "Kaaterskill Falls," remarks, "We always felt safe here. We thought the summers would last forever. I remember looking up at the falls, and everything rushing and white and beautiful. You looked up there and you felt that you could do anything. That absolutely nothing could ever stop you."

The falls, a source of energy and symbol of constancy, sound the potential for spiritual strength in the characters' lives. "Kaaterskill Falls," which takes place in the 1970's, centers on a summer village in upstate New York and cradles several interwoven tales of the tension between religious and secular lives. Goodman's main characters, members of three families who belong to the same small Orthodox Jewish sect, are not bound to make great revolutionary changes in their lives; instead they will merely bend with the current, remaining always their most basic selves.

Goodman's characters are devout at varying levels; however, all struggle with issues of faith and self-definition. Both vacation and spiritual respite, Kaaterskill is where the trajectories of the characters' lives intersect.

The Shulmans, a devout, no-nonsense husband and his young wife, Elizabeth, rent a cottage in Kaaterskill every year. Lively, athletic, literary, mostly content with a life many would call circumscribed, Elizabeth is an endearing character, next to which the other characters fade into a two dimensional background. Elizabeth's increasing fascination with the secular world complicates her life. She is desperate for stimulation in a culture that seems to think art, music, and literature secular and unnecessary. She begins to want "the chance to shape something that cannot become anything else, only hers. To truly create something, material, definable, self-limited." Symbolic acts--like writing secular names on her daughters' birth certificates--have not been enough. Her simple solution is to have her own kosher store, but even this small act of independence creates unforeseen problems. Contrary to what a modern reader might be led to expect, Elizabeth does nothing extreme--she neither divorces her husband, nor leaves the faith, nor commits suicide. Yet her dignified dialogue with the limitations of her life is part of the novel's fascination, and Goodman's talent for illustrating the natural beauty of ordinary experience.

Another set of major characters, the Melish family, consists of Andras, his Argentinean wife, Nina, and their two children. Andras is impatient with his faith and attends to it only at the urging of his wife, who, newly come to the Judaism, is anxious to do everything right, which necessarily includes directing his behavior as well as the children's. Looking for temporary respite from his family, Andras literally wanders through the woods where he encounters Una, an old photographer who lives alone in a cabin. She is a source of solace to him--he enjoys simply watching her photograph the natural landscape. Fearing that an old woman cannot take adequate care of herself, Andras condescends to worry about Una but comes to fear her casual relationship with death. Andras's journey into the woods and his subsequent friendship is Jungian, fairytale-like, and perhaps too briefly explored.

Other characters "enter the woods" in less obvious ways. Renee, Andras's fourteen-year-old daughter, discovers the secular world through her hip and assertive summer friend, Stephanie--a girl she meets while exploring on her bicycle. Another, Jeremy Kirshner wanders like a stray from the flock. Jeremy and his brother Isaiah, both rabbis, are sons of the dying Rav Kirshner, patriarch of both the community and his family. The practical-minded Isaiah, who cares for his father full-time, is expected to take over as Rav when his father dies. The literary Jeremy, educated by secular universities, is both more loved and more hated than his brother. Preferring a cream-colored suit, he is an inverse black sheep desperate for the great love withheld by his father.

Possibly more barrier than flavor, Goodman's Orthodox-specific terms may be intimidating for non-Jewish readers--or even some Jewish readers. Most terms were understandable in context if not entirely clear. Only occasionally were sentences almost too difficult ("giving a drash for our ladies' shiur"). Nevertheless, to call this a Jewish novel or even a religious novel would be to unfairly simplify it. The word "old-fashioned" comes to mind--"Kaaterskill Falls" reads like a realist novel from a century or more ago. Goodman's clear writing recalls Fielding, Austen, Balzac, Tolstoy. The novel also recalls the tradition of landscape in American writing--Emerson's sublime nature, Thoreau's woods, Emily Dickinson's slant of light.

In a quiet moment, in the midst of depression, the pregnant Elizabeth looks at a catalog photo of Thomas Cole's painting, "The Falls of the Kaaterskill." She ponders, "The plate can't do justice to the real painting, let alone the original experience." It is the sense of "original experience"--faith and growth--that Goodman succeeds in representing. Goodman's sectioning of the novel into seasons underscores the cyclical nature of human spiritual and emotional life. Goodman's message is conservative but also comforting, like looking at the empty sky and knowing the moon will faithfully return. Although "Kaaterskill Falls" avoids resolution, the ending offers the reader both dark and light beginnings.

    Wendy L. Smith teaches English at San Diego Mesa College.