Customer Reviews

The Lover

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

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 and kind way. My two favorite characters were Dafna and Adam. They were so full of love and kindness. I read this book two months ago and can't seem to get it out of my head. It is a must read.

It's an amazing book! Like other books by Yehoshua, you finish reading it and the story still goes on in your mind. Besides giving a fierce view of the israeli society during the Yom Kippur war ('70s), the author also pictures very well this strange world where we are like ghosts barely touching each other. The situations and reasons to take action the characters have are underlined by this sense of survival and urgence to protect themselves and their on achieviements, despite the sacrifice they apparently are willing to make. It's like they are ready to sacrifice their relationships in order to maintain their own balance. The goal is, no mather what we do to keep institutions alive we end up alone and struggling to keep what we already got as an heritage.

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 less uncertain and the current stand-off between Israelis and Palestinians was still far in the future. All the same, the novel is not dated but almost prophetic in its portrayal of a handful of characters who struggle with identity and relationships, amidst uncertainties and ambiguities. The "lover" of the title is a character who has disappeared during the war. As the novel develops, however, other "lovers" emerge in the narrative, and the play of carnal desire against a backdrop of social uncertainty makes for a fascinating contrast of personal and political.

The shifting points of view and multiple characters offer a Dickensian worldview within the confines of the handful of square miles traversed by its characters - who are often on the road going somewhere. This aspect of life in Israel is captured nicely by the nighttime road service operated by one of the characters, coming to the rescue of people in car wrecks and having breakdowns. On one level, as we read, we are drawn along by the attempt to solve the mystery of a missing person. On another level, we watch as love distracts, blinds, entraps, confuses, and torments whomever it touches. Finally, the playing out of these themes takes place against a social fabric that links together people of many different kinds, including Arab Israelis, Zionists, religious Jews, secular Jews, the military, recent immigrants, long-time residents, and so on. This is a novel by one of Israel's foremost writers of modern fiction. I highly recommend it.

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 has the narrative mike for a segment, only to relinquish it to another character. These clashes of voices, this mosaic of viewpoints, gives the novel an interesting texture, like reading the minds of a tight circle of people without their awareness. This gives great power to the novel, allowing Yehoshua to explore each character's depth and complexity; the reader comes away from this novel with the feeling that no stone has been left unturned. That in each action and thought of these five characters there is something ennobling and uplifting, even with their faults and shortcomings on full display. And isn't this one of the prime tenants of fiction writing? To show the essential humanity of each person, regardless of background, nationality, religion or class?

The Lover is textbook of the humane novel; it illustrates the ties of love that connect all of us.

Clever stylistic technique (yes, "Faulknerian"), and for the most part, an interesting story that draws in the reader. But it simply falls apart towards the end, as the often compelling examination of the characters' mindsets devolves into narrative confusion and pointlessness--and an utterly meaningless ending. The transition from realism to surrealism simply does not work. If this is, as others are saying, a picture of Israel, then the only conclusion I can draw is that the Jews are hopelessly dysfunctional, and only the Arabs are clear-headed. That may indeed be true, but I suspect that is not what the author wanted to say. Indeed, he appears to have been so carried away with his technique that he may have forgotten his purpose in writing the novel.

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. That kind of serendipity pleases me, and I am the richer for having read Yehoshua's first novel. I recommend it highly!

A well done "fresco" of contradictions in the Israelian society. Each protagonist is part of the Israel complexity. A simple and a little surreal story in a difficult history. Great book.