An actual book!

So I have finished a book not assigned for my classes and without incurring a library fine (well that is not really true, finishing the book did not magically return it to the library, so it will be returned late tomorrow).  David Grossman's To the End of the Land (this is an excellent interview with Grossman), as this is my blog and not a review I will share with you a few thoughts, somewhat random and then perhaps come up with something to say about whether you should read it.  The book tells the story of Ora, who escapes to hike in the Gallilee in order to avoid any notifiers who might come and tell her that her son, serving in the army, is dead.  She hikes with an old friend and lover who was a POW in Egypt 30 years prior to to the novel's main time frame.

So actual book reviews are often filled with these stock phrases and this is a book that calls out for such phrases (the back of the book, which includes excerpts from seven reviews, favors words like "wrenching," "full of anguish" and "passionate" -- and one Israeli paper says this book is the "stamp of maturity upon Israeli literature," which I misread as the "swamp of maturity," which struck me as an intriguing thing to say....alas.).  Ok, so my reviewy phrases will be paired with my actual thoughts in brackets.  The book opens with an utterly captivating first chapter [why? because you could imagine it was the first chapter in a postapocalyptic plague novel -- three young people in an empty hospital and a nameless nurse].  Each chapter reminds the reader of the various forms of pain that humans are capable, and willing, to inflict on one another [to this I responded -- 7 days in a row -- by falling asleep with the book on my head.  Some of this pain is inflicted on the reader: you will not know what is happening, you will not know when it is happening and you will never know why it is happening].  The descriptions of the Israeli landscape are lyrical [and compel me to find out what a terabinth tree looks like and to really find out what a wadi is].  The main character, Ora, is maddening [ok, that is me not my reviewer voice -- reviewers say she is Emma Bovary (pish) and Anna Karenina (posh) and that Grossman has created a "fully alive" character -- actually I found her to be not particulalry alive, she is always in her head,  -- and that is what makes her maddening, and compelling].

So, in all seriousness -- two things I really liked about this book:  first is the telling of a child's life.  Ora describes her family life to Avram and in doing so brings her children to life in words.  She is not just telling funny or not so funny anecdotes.  She tells them into being for Avram and for the reader.  As she tells she remembers more and more about the early years of both of her children (the years you don't remember unless you, unlike me, had the good sense to write things down).   As the world knows, Grossman's son Uri was killed during his army service while Grossman was writing this book.  The book reminds about the work that words can do to bring someone alive. Second is the sense of place -- the geography of Israel (and I have never been and know little about its geographic feel) is palpable and striking -- primarily in contrast to my own sense of the geography of the US.  Most of the book takes place on a hike along the Israel trail -- a comparable hike along the Appalacian trail would not yield quite the same combination of army base, arab village, grocery store, creek, mountain, school group, sheep, shepherd, bedouins, wild dog and coffee.  Nor would it include the multiple plaques dedicated to the memory of soldiers who died.  I suspect some do hike the appalachian trail and make coffee three times a day (and if you are planning such a trip, invite me!) and I have seen cows on the Appalachian trail -- but this description of the Israel trail makes me think about two things: first of all the United States is just huge and its landscape is so incredibly variable and regional and specific.  And second, I am not sure there are very many places (particulalry natural spaces) that I could describe in such detail: having lived in 6 states as an adult I am not sure there is any one landscape that feels particulalry like home.  I could give a fair description of the inland woods of Beaver island, MI or a certain beach in Maine or even Tom, Dick and Harry trail in Oregon -- but I do not have spaces that I return to daily or weekly that I know so well.  This book gives you the sense that Grossman is describing his home -- and it is a home that he knows so intimately in flower and stream and mountain and rock and sound and bird and lizard and flower and fruit trees and people.

And my last thought about the book?  Its take away for me: remember that being right is rarely enough.