Amazon.com: The Lover (9780434890019): A.B. YEHOSHUA: Books

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11 Reviews

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

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4.7 out of 5 stars (11 customer reviews)

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33 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Israel's Faulkner in a tour de force, September 28, 1997

By

aem0608@is2.nyu.edu (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Lover (Paperback)

In a most unusual storyline, a man searches for his wife's lover in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. In the meantime, early tension of the Jewish state is plumbed: Ashkenazi vs. Sephardi, man vs. woman, Arab vs. Jew. Told from constantly oscillating viewpoints in the spirit of Faulkner's *As I Lay Dying*, Yehoshua presents a hyperrealistic portrait of modern-day Israel.

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29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My favorite Israeli Novel, January 25, 2003

By

A. B. Cost (Atlanta, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lover (Hardcover)

This novel, written shortly after the disastrous Yom Kippur war, captures the complexity of Israeli society through the lives of normal participants.

Rather than lambaste the reader with a litany of politics, the book follows the slightly bizarre, but highly symbolic life of an Israeli family as they attempt to find the Wife's lover - a lapsed Jew from France who returned seeking an inheritance.

The story is unpretentious and surprisingly readable. The author's style is to present each new chapter through the voice of a different character, often retelling the same events from several perspectives.

Through these perspectives - a wealthy secular mechanic, a conflicted rebellious teenage girl, an aging zionist intellectual wife, an elderly native sephardic, a ambitious intelligent palestinian boy, and ultimately through the story of the Lover himself - Yehoshua uncovers the complex stuff that constitutes a very strangely formed nation.

Nuanced, delightfully blasphemous accounts of Zionism like this one are not permitted to be spoken here in the US - but of course in Israel, sophisticated debates about the nature of their society are part and parcel of intellectual life.

Enjoy this book. I give it my highest recommendation.

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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars an extraordinary book one of the best contemporary novelists, August 3, 2004

By

Barry McCrea (Brooklyn, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Lover (Paperback)

Not only is it a startlingly humane, nuanced and difficult portrait of Israel, by an Israeli, but one of the most profound explorations of humanity in its daily round of work and thought I have read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars I beg to differ....
Clever stylistic technique (yes, "Faulknerian"), and for the most part, an interesting story that draws in the reader. Read more

Published on December 7, 2009 by Michael Engel

5.0 out of 5 stars The Essentials of Novel writing, taken to the highest level
In this novel Yehoshua shows that he is a formal master of structure. The novel is divided up among the characters Adam, Asya, Dafi, Veducha, Gabriel and Na'im; each character... Read more

Published on September 29, 2009 by Eric Maroney

5.0 out of 5 stars Dickensian view of life in 1970s Israel . . .
Written 30 years ago, shortly after the Yom Kippur War, this novel opens a window on a cross section of Israeli society at a point where the future of Israel seemed momentarily... Read more

Published on May 7, 2008 by Ronald Scheer

5.0 out of 5 stars The reasons one have to search for a substitute
It's an amazing book! Like other books by Yehoshua, you finish reading it and the story still goes on in your mind. Read more

Published on May 2, 2006 by A. Braga

5.0 out of 5 stars Stumbled upon a gem
This is my first Yehoshua book, and I intend to read all his work. I stumbled upon this when doing a search for "The Lover" by Marguerite Duras. Read more

Published on October 30, 2005 by M. Quinn

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best book I have read in years.
A. B Yehoshua has written his masterpiece. The characters seem to come to life in his writing. This book captures so much of the political chaos and yet it does it in a reverant... Read more

Published on January 12, 2005 by David Rabenowitz

5.0 out of 5 stars War creates disequilibrium
A teacher of history, a daughter, a garageman for a husband, and a lover serve to inhabit the beginning of the story. Read more

Published on October 16, 2003 by Mary E. Sibley

4.0 out of 5 stars Intelligent and original
A well done "fresco" of contradictions in the Israelian society. Each protagonist is part of the Israel complexity. Read more

Published on December 18, 1998

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
And in the last war we lost a lover. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
tightening brakes, long side curls, blushing bright red, religious quarter

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Tel Aviv, Old City, Gabriel Arditi, Peer Gynt, Praise the Lord, Red Cross, Yediot Aheronot, Aunt Stella, Poor Dafi, Western Wall

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