Customer Reviews

Closing the Sea

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Kazir's collection of short fiction, Closing the Sea, offers a decent range of expression, and a slice of Israeli literary fiction not widely known to American readers. She uses a technique to great advantage in one story, Schlaffstunde, where the narrator tells a story to a former child lover, now from an adult perspective. The story of sexual awakening is charming and moving, and the technique works well here. In another story, Disneyel, she uses the technique to less effect. There seems to be less engagement with the subject matter. The relating-of-the-story effect is more distanced than in Schlaffstunde, and therefore less satisfying in its results. The most powerful pieces, Fellini's Shoes, and Closing the Sea, are more straightforward tales, and told to great effect. Both have a dreamlike quality, a sense that the prosaic action of the stories are but a front for deeper, less tame emotions below the surface of reality.

I found Katzir's voice to be refreshing and her stories to be engrossing. It has been a long time since I have read a short story which created such a sense of place and person in a matter of 20 or so pages. Katzir's voice crosses national boundries and I can't wait to get some more! I've been waiting for a friend to return to Israel so she can see if there are more of her books available which are translated into English.