Alona Kimhi

I bought this book for my language collection. The description at Amazon mentioned it was bilingual, English and Hebrew. This edition had only the translation into English. However, I enjoyed reading this book. Kimhi gave me a glimpse of life in Tel Aviv and the status of Hebrew among immigrants. (“There are a couple of documents, you know, my Hebrew’s not so good for all those little letters and complicated words.”) A few friends commented to me that Kimhi's description of Tel Aviv is very different from what they know just as it is different from what I see on American TV. I don’t know then if the urban portrait of Tel Aviv that Kimhi shows through her character is real or symbolic of her character’s extreme depression and self-contempt. Most of the novel is narrated through this character’s thoughts, which gives the reader the sense of depression in the first person.… (meer)

I'm not normally a huge fan of stream-of-consciousness novels, but I really like Susannah Rabin ("no relation") and the restrictive world she has locked herself in. When the novel starts, she is excessively timid and withdrawn (to the point that she pees in a vase in her room so that her bodily functions won't be overheard - a vase that will eventually mirror her development through the novel).

When Neo, whom she calls "the guest," moves in, she at first abhors his presence, until it becomes clear that he has been sent (like Daniel to her namesake) to rescue her, in this case from her own self-destruction, and she falls in love with him, or rather, with his access to the world outside, "[a] world of living people."

What I really liked is that it is not "the guest" who eventually frees Susannah - he is merely the impetus to her metamorphosis - it is she, in her roundabout way, who brings about her own rebirth. It's a slow read, as all the little details Susannah mentions add up to the whole at the end, but if you decide to delve into her world, you'll find yourself rewarded, not only with Susannah's ponderings but with a whole world of Tel Avivian and Israeli life.… (meer)