Customer Reviews

A Palestine Affair

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

 

 

Talk about a fast paced read! I got so involved in this novel I read it in almost one day! The Palestine Affair is an immensely fast and enjoyable novel, and also very British in its form and content. This isn't that surprising, since Jonathan Wilson was born and educated in England. In fact, the style and setting reminded me of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, with the theme of strangers trying to come to terms with being in a strange and foreign land. And like the Sheltering Sky, The Palestine Affair is a tightly plotted, gorgeously written, and sophisticated saga, which uses the immense beauty of the Middle East to startling effect. The struggles of the three main protagonists of the story - Joyce, her lover Robert and her husband Mark Bloomberg - are portrayed with a deft understanding, emotion and compassion. The only problems I had with the story was that I didn't quite believe the fact that Joyce, a nineteen twenties girl, would so readily enter into an affair with Robert, while she still seemed so devoted and committed to her husband. And I also felt that some of the supporting characters tended to fall into stock stereotypes, and they weren't developed as well the three main characters.

Despite this though, The Palestine affair, is still an interesting and exciting mixture of three part love affair, espionage thriller, and murder mystery, using the history of Jews, Arabs and the English occupation of Palestine as a vivid backdrop - there is no doubt that Wilson has an immense passion and cultural understanding of this part of the world and it shows in his work. And like the artist Mark Bloomberg, Wilson writes as though he is painting a scene, and he really succeeds in bringing the sounds, smells and gorgeous visual imagery of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas to life, just Mark tries to do in his paintings. Some of the descriptions of the desert are stunning, lushly detailed and incredibly cinematic - just beautiful to read.

This story also does a good job in evoking the kinds of troubles and religious conflicts that were facing Palestine at the time of the British occupation, and it does a fine job showing the "culture clash" between the Jews, Arabs and the occupying British, and the British's almost flippant attitude towards the different cultures of the area. You can see how many of today's troubles between the Israelis and the Palestinians have been festering for years and also how they both seemed to seethe under British rule. If you really want to have a cultural escape and by educated about this part of the world, you should read this book. But The Palestine Affair also works as a good, solid piece of work and a first rate literary thriller.

Michael

I would actually give this novel 3 1/2 stars. The first 50 pages are commanding, making this reader think of Graham Greene on one page and Lawrence Durrell on another. However, some of the writing in the second half seems too au courant in lingo and pacing. Some jarring point of view switches and a rushed conclusion cause this strong novel to miss its initial ascent into the upper echelon.

A good read nonetheless.

While Jay Gatsby and Scott Fizgerald partied, 1920s Jerusalem saw very serious people indeed setting the stage for all that followed in birthing Israel from a reluctant Palestine. Bringing alive the days of the British Mandate after WW1, this love story cum suspense drama really delivers -- sex, loss and betrayal,as well as the little known beginnings of modern terrorism in the Middle East.

Having once lived in Israel and read a great deal of historical fiction concering the place (both before and after the creation of the state), this is the first historical novel I have read dealing with the period of the early part of the British Mandate.

The year is 1924, and Wilson draws an excellent portrait of the clash of three cultures--Jews, Arabs and British--with some Americans thrown in as well. I was fascinated at how the characters are all affected by World War I, not often a period that modern novelists dare to tackle. The writing is crisp and the narrative involving. We feel the agonizing sweat of a Middle East summer, the creak of the gear shift automobiles climbing up to Jerusalem or down to Jericho, the anguish of an artist who has clearly lost whatever it is that he thought he had that made him great, and we get to peer into the minds of a number of very well-realized characters. The most appealing one for me was British Jew and Jerusalem police officer, Robert Kirsch. I was suprised at how much I began to understand this man when I am used to books where British officers are cast in a most unforgiving light. I was left with the impression that this summer of 1924 was like looking into a crystal ball of what was to come for the next 25 years as the state of Israel was forming. In fact, it left me nostalgic in the way that stories do when you, the reader, know you can predict the future of these characters because you know what happens next...

I would like to use this book in a book club that I run at my synagogue and I am sure the group would be able to get a good discussion going about it.

Post WWI Palestine was a hotbed of political unrest and intrigue. The League of Nations had given Britain a provisional mandate to govern the tiny parcel of desert, and the United Kingdom was publicly committed to the founding of a Jewish State. In reality, they frequently aroused the wrath of the Jewish pioneers by placating the Arab community. Meanwhile, the Zionists in America, England and Palestine were amassing money, weapons and political opinion with the purpose of creating their nation. Orthodox Jews, however, caused significant dissent, believing only God, and the arrival of the Messiah, could re-create the Jewish State. It is against this tinderbox that author Jonathan Wilson sets "A Palestine Affair."

The novel opens with a murder. This is, after all, a historical mystery. Artist Mark Bloom, a new arrival to Jerusalem, walks into his garden one night, and a man, dressed in a djellaba and kaffiyeh, stumbles toward him and falls into his arms. It turns out that the victim was an Orthodox Jew, not an Arab, who had been beaten and stabbed to death. The violent incident stirs up disturbing feelings in Mark which bring back memories of the battlefield.

Bloom, a nonobservant British Jew and his American wife, Joyce, came to Palestine because the artist had been commissioned by a Zionist organization to paint "Life Under Reconstruction Conditions. Progress. Enterprise. Development." He perishes at the thought. Bloom had just bombed at his last exhibit in London and needs the money. He is depressed, but had been self-involved, withdrawn and depressed for years, long before the recent death of his mother. "The forty-five-year-old mummy's boy," believes, "love had been stolen away by death." Joyce cannot be a happy woman, nor theirs a happy marriage. Right? She had immersed herself in the Zionist cause while in England, and is looking forward to participating in the movement, which has so inspired her, now that she is in Palestine.

Captain Robert Kirsch, a Jewish detective, is assigned to investigate the crime. As such, he enters the Blooms' life. Mark becomes more withdrawn as the investigation progresses. Joyce and Robert fall passionately in love. Mark can't blame the neglected Joyce, but is jealous anyway. Meanwhile both Arabs and Jews seem content to be rid of the dead man, who was rumored to be having an affair with an Arab youth. As Robert gets closer to finding the killer, his own government sabotages his progress, in order to keep the peace. Riots could easily start if the murderer is discovered to be either Arab or Jew.

Wilson writes a tight, complex tale. His character development is superb. Murder, politics, sex, history and the world of art - nothing remotely boring here. The author himself paints such a vivid portrait of Jerusalem, and the surrounding area, that it is easily visualized in the mind's eye. An excellent read! A terrific mystery...and much more.

JANA

Rare is a writer such as Jonathan Wilson, whose exquisite prose maps and overlays a gripping story. Perhaps the details of place, the tensions between factions, the struggle for possession of land are not so different in 2003. At the heart of Wilson's book, however, is an unforgettable human dilemma-- people caught in time , swept through a history that threatens to obscure their very lives. This book reminded me of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, but with a greater investment in the outcome of its characters. A must read. A brilliant book.

Starts out slow but then kind of grows on you. A rewarding experience overall. ( Vadim Takser)

The first book by this author I've read is very rewarding. While not a big fan of novels in such settings, Wilson overcomes my bias with great writing and excellent characters. Worth your time.

If you like fiction that deals with unsympathetic characters and fixates on bodily excrements, this is the book for you. As for the historical aspect of this work, unless you just dropped in from Oz, you already know it.