Don't Call It Night (Harvest in Translation) [Paperback]

Amos Oz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 15, 1997 | Series: Harvest in Translation

In this “extraordinary novel from a great and true voice of our time” (Washington Post), a teenage drug overdose throws a closely knit Negev Desert settlement into turmoil - and tests the limits of a precarious love affair. A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Translated by Nicholas de Lange.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Few writers have explored the souls of Israelis with the clear, unsentimental vision that Oz brings to both his novels and his nonfiction. His characters, while influenced by political events in a land under constant siege, also exhibit the universal emotions of love, longing, fear and ambition, as well as the tension of ethical dilemmas. This novel, his 10th (after Fima), is set in Tel Kedar, a quiet desert town in the Negev that is both a microcosm of Israeli society and a vividly evoked setting whose atmosphere and residents are palpable. The protagonists, whose voices alternate in narration, are lovers, but their relationship is starting to fray. Theo, a stolid, graying, insomniac civil engineer in his 60s, feels his life has entered a stage in which he will experience "the gradual decline from pain into sadness." He and Noa, a frenetic, idealistic schoolteacher 15 years his junior, seem to live at cross purposes. They share an apartment, but they exist in a shadowy state of contained emotions and mild bickering. After one of Noa's students accidentally falls to his death from a cliff while on drugs (or did he jump?), ensuing events threaten Theo and Noa's relationship. The boy's shady father, a military adviser in Nigeria (or is he an arms dealer?), offers to finance a drug rehabilitation clinic in his son's memory. Noa leads the task force for the project, which Theo, like most of the community, opposes. The subtle tug-of-war between them shakes rational Theo out of his passivity and into a cautious idealism ("when you're not burning to do anything... you start dying") and moves impulsive Noa to a more thoughtful position. Perhaps Oz's intends this as an object lesson for his country. The narrative sometimes has a static quality despite Oz's lyrical prose, but in the end, his story carries thought-provoking implications.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Aging civil engineer Theo and his younger lover, No'a, who teaches school, have wound up in the stark little town of Tel-Kedar, which seems to be at the ends of the earth. Theo is stolid, proficient, and resigned; dynamic and flighty No'a is his opposite; and their relationship is beginning to wear thin. Then one of No'a's student's dies, apparently of a drug overdose, and the bereaved father comes to Tel-Kedar to establish a drug rehabilitation clinic, putting No'a in charge. Shifting his narrative between the two lovers in a stream-of-consciousness style that seems personal and introspective, as if these characters were talking to themselves, noted Israeli novelist Oz examines the impact of No'a's new job on the lovers while tracing their separate histories. The clinic never gets built, but the relationship endures, perhaps renewed, perhaps not. A lesser writer might have used these events to engineer a momentous change in the lives of his characters, but Oz's brilliance here is to acknowledge that in real life such changes rarely occur. Instead, life ticks on, subtly, slowly, and by novel's end we feel as dusty and obdurate as the desert surrounding Tel-Kedar. For most collections.
-?Barbara Hoffert, "Library Journal"
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (October 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156005573
• ISBN-13: 978-0156005579
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,008,622 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

AMOS OZ is a world-renowned novelist and essayist whose books include My Michael, To Know a Woman, Don't Call It Night, and The Same Sea. Most recently, his memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness, received the Koret Jewish Book Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a connection across a sea of difficulties, April 3, 2008

By 

Lynn Hoffman, author:The Short Course in Beer (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Dont Call It Night (Hardcover)

Don't Call it night is set in Tel Kedar, a semi-seedy desert town in Israel that evokes the real difficulty of making life bloom where the land is sterile. The narrators are lovers whose relationship is undergoing a test. Theo is muscular, judgmental, intelligent and sexy. Noa, much younger has delayed her growing up in taking care of an elderly father. The two live together, but there is a barrier to their intimacy that they occasionally leap over. After one of Noa's students dies while on drugs the boy's father offers to finance a drug clinic in Tel Kadar.
This is not the story of a crusade, instead it's the story of two people-Theo and Noa- who find a way to talk to each other in spite of profound differences in the way they see the world.
Many of the review focus on the problems in their relationship, but I wonder if Oz may have been trying, very subtly to draw our attention to the way people can manage, with kindness and tact to bridge enormous gaps.

Lynn Hoffman, author of bang BANG: A Novel and New Short Course in Wine,The

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars enchanting, melancholic, wise, July 31, 2006

By 

Aleksandra Nita-Lazar (MD, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Don't Call It Night (Harvest in Translation) (Paperback)

Two people, so fundamentally different, who somehow find peace and understanding together.
This is, in principle, what "Don't call it night" is about.

Amos Oz, probably the most famous Israeli writer and propagator of peace, wrote a very wise novel. Israel is inseparable from the story, its history and geography (the overwhelming desert) are in every sentence, but the truths emerging from this book are universal.

Noa and Theo, a couple with eight years together behind them, are in a bit stagnant phase of their relationship. Theo, a man in his sixties, who achieved a lot in life as a successful architect, and saw a lot, living for years in Central America, has reached a minimalist attitude. He is very introvert, drawn in, finds pleasure in observing other people and in his daily routines. Noa, a middle-aged literature teacher at the local school in a small town of Tel Kedar, who started her independent life very late, after the death of her paralyzed father who she was taking care of, is always running around, never happy with her achievements, always setting new goals.

The novel starts when they have to face a difficult situation: Noa has suddenly been asked to organize a refuge for the young drug addicts as a memorial to her pupil, who died (suicide?) recently. The boy's father promised to provide the money... Noa, an energetic, even restless woman, starts the research immediately... only to discover endless obstacles. She does not want to show her weakness and ask Theo for help, until she has to. Theo, on the other hand, does not want to interfere if he is not asked...

The whole problem seems to be also a trial for their relationship... But shows only their enormous affection, tenderness and love for each other. Thanks to a formal maneuver- the chapters change narrators between Noa and Theo - the reader knows more of their feelings to each other, than they do.

The language of the novel is very pure, simple yet precise without baroque ornaments and erudition shows, so common nowadays. Oz uses the knowledge of history and the Bible where it is essential for the plot. "Don't call it night" is a beautiful book, worth returning to from time to time.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting relationship., May 7, 2003

By 

algo41 "algo41" (philadelphia, pa United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Don't Call It Night (Harvest in Translation) (Paperback)

Theo, a highly capable, but directionless civil engineer in his 60's, lives with Noa, a teacher in her 40's in the small dessert town of Tel Kedar. Noa is seeking more in life, and when she comes to head an effort to establish a drug rehabilitation center she sees working on this project as the answer, but at the same time this heightens her dissatisfaction with what she sees as her lover's lassitude. The story is told in their alternating voices, a device which works very well: sometimes they are talking about the same events, more often each voice moves the story along. Oz has a great appreciation for the physical environment and conveys this to the reader: the apartment the two share, its views, the desert surrounding the town. The book is somewhat limited in its plot, and in its secondary characters; also, while I was interested in the relationship between Theo and Noa, I did not find them particularly interesting people. Consequently, what is a rather short novel, almost seems too long, yet one definitely worth reading.