Customer Reviews

Esau: A Novel

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Maybe because I just finished the "Blue Mountain" again, I scored this novel, "only" nine... I read everything Shalev has ever published, including his arcticles at the friday paper... I have a problem thinking that this book is read not in Hebrew, because his writting - in all his novels, feels so real - for the people in Israel. He makes me feel so Israeli, so good about being an Israeli, that I don't think that one - out of Israel, could understand many of the little stories behind the main story. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe because my English do not give me the chance to express like in Hebrew, I think the book isn't good in English as in Hebrew. Well, the best way to know that, is simply by buying this GREAT book, and I'm sure you won't get dissapointed from it!

Shalev, in Esau, has created a beautiful, lush novel about the history of one family. He takes the narrative and jumbles it about, taking us back and forth in time, slowly unraveling the tale of the Levy clan. As we would expect from Shalev, there is an emphasis in this novel of the vicissitudes of love. Shalev is at his best when he is evolving theories of love, showing love in action, how it is born and how it dies. In the end, Esau is a novel that is a vast contemplation on love in its various forms. Shalev never exhausts this inexhaustible topic.

In his very special way, Shalev takes us to a journey to Israel, Historical and new, In a story that will bring you to tears, both of sorrow and laughter.

Shalev is one of the most original and exciting Israeli novelists, and not well known in the US. This book is fascinating as is Blue Mountain!

I found this book darker and more difficult than Blue Mountain; perhaps it is best labelled "advanced Israeli fiction," whereas Blue Mountain is more accessible to the casual reader. Both books are greatly enhanced by familiarity with their settings and history, but Esau seems to actually demand it. Most notable is one character's experience of the pre-statehood Arab riots in Jerusalem, focusing on the intimacy of personal experience, rather than the comfortable distance of historical perspective. Shalev is a rare writer, intimate with the topography of grief, able to convey the absolute ridiculousness of it without losing sight of the black whole. A most evocative tale, but sometimes difficult to digest. A note: just as Blue Mountain will be of special interest to anyone planning to visit a kibbutz or moshav, or the Galilee for that matter, Esau will probably benefit by being read in Jerusalem.

This book contains 3 short sotries combined in the whole major plot (and hints on it). I read it in hebrew and as always Shalev uses up almost all the words there are in hebrew to describe the emotions of the characters and what hapens to them. Should pay attention to what's happening and the story for example about the 2 soldeirs entering the bakery at night - that was Shalev in his military service. In one of his lectures Shalev admits that writing in first body ("me") is considered to be like masochism. "P.S." There isn't a Jew named Esau.... Is Esau a liyer ?