Yehoshua Kenaz (1937–2020)

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… (más)

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.… (más)

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.… (más)