The Hill of Evil Counsel [Paperback]

Amos Oz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 28, 1991

Three stories in which history and imaginative narrative intertwine to re-create the world of Jerusalem during the last days of the British Mandate. A book “as complex, vivid and uncompromising as Jerusalem itself” (The Nation). Translated by Nicholas de Lange in collaboration with the Author. A Helen and Kurt Wolff Book

Editorial Reviews

Review

Three long interrelated stories set in one neighborhood of northwestern Jerusalem during the last months before Israel's birth. Oz is a wise writer who keeps his lyrical laces, so to speak, loose. Young boys narrate the first two stories: Hillel, a quiet, chubby boy whose parents are sexually and temperamentally mismatched; and Uri, a resolute but in-drawn kid who dreams of the annihilation of Israel's enemies. Out of these two, Oz extracts an atmosphere of almost milky apprehension, of dailyness hushed by the expectation of violence: British soldiers making house searches; Uri's meek printer-father hiding "Mr. Levi," the Underground leader, in his printshop; the storage of explosives. The last story, "Longing," narrated by a young dying doctor in the form of letters to his psychologist-girlfriend (who has left the uncertainty of late-Mandate Palestine for secure New York), is less impressionistic and fractured than the rest; over the tense and embryonic activity of the city, these letters cast a sort of foreshortened dusk, a pessimism. The pall doesn't fully satisfy, though, as much as we understand the structural need for it. But Oz, at his most mosaic and oblique, is a writer of stunning effects and often great power, and these stories enhance his reputation. (Kirkus Reviews )

Language Notes

Text: English, Hebrew (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 210 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books (March 28, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156402750
• ISBN-13: 978-0156402750
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.4 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #895,912 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars israeli statehood, February 20, 2000

By 

bonnie mitchell (WEST HARTFORD, CT) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Hill of Evil Counsel (Paperback)

This is a series of three stories, all of which share the same time period and location, Jerusalem just prior to the departure of the British in 1948. The characters all encompass the same sense of destiny, fear and the unknown surrounding the birth of the tiny new nation, Israel. The strange small,large boy, Uri, is encircled by a conflicting group of newly arrived immigrants and activists seeking to establish themselves in the forth-coming battle against the British and then the Arabs. This is a grandly-woven tapestry of intricate misfits, humor and history. In wonder, a non-Israeli asks, "How does she (Israel) do it?--How does this worn-out, barren old girl make them all fall madly in love with her? I was once in southern Persia: exactly the same miserable hills, dotted with gray rocks, with a few olive trees and pieces of old pottery. Nobody crossed half the world to conquer them." Told with affection, the question is the very essence of the book.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three brillant stories, January 31, 2002

By 

Pedro (V.N.Gaia Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hill of Evil Counsel (Hardcover)

Amos Oz tells us 3 simple stories where there is a slight connection, a little boy. That in fact isn't the most important thing in all this. The fact that the first history tell us about the start of the life of a Jew family in Jerusalem in the 40s, the second the beginning of the first signs, very slight, of resistance to the English occupation and the third a story of a sick young man and the organization of the neighbors to the eminent put out of the British. The official life of Israel seems to be their as the little distraction like commercial on the TV but is that that flows all the stories on this three novels.

3 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Three brillant stories, January 16, 2002

By 

Pedro (V.N.Gaia Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Hill of Evil Counsel (Paperback)

Amos Oz tells us 3 simple stories where there is a slight connection, a little boy. That in fact isn't the most important thing in all this. The fact that the first history tell us about the start of the life of a Jew family in Jerusalem in the 40s, the second the beginning of the first signs, very slight, of resistance to the English occupation and the third a story of a sick young man and the organization of the neighbors to the eminent put out of the British. The official life of Israel seems to be their as the little distraction like commercial on the TV but is that that flows all the stories on this three novels