Customer Reviews

The Book of Intimate Grammar: A Novel

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A young boy named Aaron struggles to get away from the things in his life that appall him the most: food, his family, girls(with one exception), and the war. With his over-self-reflection Aaron is dragged into his own world of masochism and special words saved like pennies in a jar for rainy days. He is a boy that is mixed up and not so mixed up. He composes the child that we have all been for at least one moment in time. He is the future, he has been part of the past, and he is ageless while still being locked within an age

it's been a long time since i read a book written in stream-of-consciousness, and when i picked up and started this book, i realized
that i'd attempted to read it before and, i guess, just hadn't been in the mood to attempt it at some previous time. i'm glad i persisted.

the immediacy of the 14-year-old main character's experiences is visceral and moving. the book is described as a [...] it is also a sometimes erotic, often comic, and almost always relentlessly intriguing word picture of a painfully excised slice-of-life on glaring display. the 14-year-old's confusion, and his labyrynthine interior exploration for the causes of the effects he sees so keenly (effects which are described vividly and sympathetically) open understanding to the reader. grossman is masterful.

Aron is the overly sensitive and thoughtful adolescent son of two parents who vie for the place of the most awful parents in Israeli literature (uneducated, uncouth, self-centered, extremely nosy, while also completely oblivious to Aron's troubles). In any case, his parent are too busy living through their own crises. Aron's body's refusal to grow up mirrors Grossman's perception of Israeli society: precocious and extremely childish at the same time, reflective, yet stuck. The book takes place in the time of (false?) innocence prior to the Six Day War. Friends, sister, neighbor weave in and out of Aron's life, but he is left on his own, constructing his own intimate grammar, trying to experience something that is impossible in the words and according to the rules of his native tongue. He tries and needs to break the bounds of language, body, and fate. It is never quite clear whether he succeeds.

This is not Grossman's only forray into exploring the adolescent experience. It is perhaps his best.

Grossman is on of the best Israeli novelist of the modern ages. This is a beautiful, beautiful description of growing up. Take this book and a day off, because you wouldn't let it leave your hands. One of the best books I've ever read.