Yehoshua KenazBesprekingen

In a novel that’s fresh, crisp, and entertaining, Kenaz brings his readers into a rather dark mosaic of contemporary Israeli life. Describing a number of residents in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, the author delves deeply into the psyches of such diverse individuals as an invalid who has been left in the care of an immigrant maid and is unable to clearly verbalize his thoughts, a couple distressed at discovering that their soldier son is being sought for going AWOL from the army, and a “kept woman” who debates the pros and cons of staying in her secret love relationship. There are five separate stories which, although each can stand on its own strength, are interwoven to produce a “neighborhood” of connected stories. It’s like nosing into neighbors’ lives and suddenly finding out too much. Often people are much more complex than they seem and their relationships to other people are not apparent in their their outward actions. These are stories that work well together and provide an entertaining and absorbing read through to the very last page

Yolanda is a retired Tel Aviv school teacher who has broken her leg and ends up in a rehab facility for nearly a year. This novel is the story of her stay in rehab, a closed society with a group of individuals in various states of illness, as well as some sharply drawn staff members. (One of the blurbs compares the book to The Magic Mountain in this similarity of subject matter.) The staff includes the head nurse, named "Satana" by Yolanda, after she believes Satana tried to murder her early in her stay in the facility by pushing her wheelchair down a steep garden path where it overturned. The young tech/aide Leon, is a gigolo of sorts, and is constantly hitting on Yolanda. We get to know Yolanda's roomates, as well as a handsome artist from the male ward she develops a friendship with.

The book often seems a comedy (and I can't help but wonder how accurate its depiction of the Israeli health care system is--some of it seems pretty surreal). But I think in actuality it's a pretty grim depiction of old age and loneliness hiding behind the humor.

First line: "From the side entrance, Mrs. Moscowitz could see a lawn and standing in the middle of it a lofty, broad-boughed tree with big dark green leaves.

Last line: "Like glittering eyes they shone above her like pure eternally young eyes, contemplating themselves in an infinitude of love, and redeeming nothing with their gaze."

3 1/2 stars

Somehow this review seems inadequate to me. I liked the book a lot. I was attracted to it by the blurbs on the dust cover from authors I respect, which included these (they were longer, these are excerpts):

Philip Roth compares Kenaz to Malamud and Appelfeld
Amos Oz--"a masterpiece"
A. B. Yehoshua--a small subject--a sick old woman--but a drama of emotional depth, "one of the best books I have read in the past decade.½

ארבעה סיפורים קצרים של קנז שאין הרבה קשר ביניהם. כולם טובים, שניים מהם מצויינים כל אחד בדרכו. קנז מתגלה כבר כאן כאומן של תמצות וכתיבה ברורה קולחת וחודרת לנשמה½

A choice of mildly weird stories about individuals in conflict with their environment that ranges from their physical body to their families to their origins and even to the style of the text they find themselves in. On the narrative level there is no constructive resolution to any of those conflicts, there never can be.

The small collection is quite heterogeneous: about half of the stories were written and published in early 60s, others are purportedly new. It is an inciting book that leaves you reasonably satisfied and confidently hoping that the author is capable to do more, better, as if he were a promising debutante.

Not a hot mess but just not something I liked at all. i am leadign a discussion of it next week- wish me luck.

Yehoshua Kenaz is an exceptional author. He writes with great clarity and somehow also with great subtlety. This collection of short stories are bound together by a common thematic denominator of youth and the rite of passage into adulthood. Each of the four stories tackle an aspect of the passage to adulthood and it's revelations about death, love, beauty, and sexual awakening. A very male perspective coupled with Israeli cultural norms make this very interesting and enjoyable reading!

An exquisite coming of age story.

קנז הצליח ללכוד היטב את החוויה שהיתה משותפת לרבים מאיתנו

חומר גלם יוצא מן הכלל. טירונות בבהד 4. בעיות של עדות, קיבוצים, צבא והתבגרות. הזדמנות ליצירת מופת שהוחמצה. טפול גמלוני כתוב משעמם. הטיפוסים כולם נודניקים ולא נעימים. יותר מדי פילוזופיה, חלקה בפרוטה.

סיפורים קצרים, חלקם נוגעים ללב בעצב, חלקם הזויים, כולם שכיחים

Yolanda Moskowitz is a 76-year-old woman who ended up in a Tel Aviv rehab hospital after a debilitating fall. Her story is not only an amazing story of aging and that of a crotchety old woman, but it is also a glimpse of paranoia and the chance to stare uncertainty straight in the eye. Among the many colorful characters in this book (the artist Lazar Kagan, the nurse Satana, the masseuse Adela, the demented patient Paula), the reader gets to experience the drama of aging and becoming incapacitated. It’s a rough road.

Again I’ve fallen in love with the way Yehoshua Kenaz writes. He has the ability to dissect people to see things within themselves that perhaps even they cannot see. This is a book of humor, but not the hilarious kind. It's the gentle sad humor that comes with knowing that life is not perfect and the years are spinning by.

I especially love the translation from Hebrew by Dalya Bilu. The words of the novel are not complicated. Some of the sentences are translated literally from Hebrew, making me want to hold onto this book and perhaps, someday in the future, try to read it again in its original language. It will be a delight to read this book again at any time.

This is an intricate and haunting novel about five seemingly separate people and their lives. They are connected to the same building but have seemingly no direct, or at least friendly, connection to each other. As the story unfolds, however, it is revealed how much their lives interconnect when, for example, one character's violent obsession with another character completely devastates the life of a third.

Although Kenaz clearly doesn't cater to an international audience - he explains nothing about Israeli culture, but takes the reader's knowledge of such for granted - his overall themes of love, jealousy, obsession, insanity, and, at the forefront, alienation are intensely universal.

There are no clear heroes or villains in this tale, only regular people with regular problems, who, due to their feelings of detachment, are unaware of how similar they are to the people around them. Although we may not want to admit it, most people have had as dark, or even darker, feelings and thoughts as these characters, who are locked into their own private hells, which turn out to be parts of a much larger communal hell.

I highly recommend this fascinating read, which isn't afraid to reveal the ugly, the petty, the violent, and the crazed in each and every one of us.

Note: If you like Amos Gitai, his movie Alila was based on this novel.