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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The best collection of essays I've read in years, November 12, 2008
This review is from: Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics (Hardcover)
Writing in the Dark is a collection of essays on literature and politics by David Grossman, possibly one of the world's best living writers. This slim volume contains only 6 essays, but there's more insight and intelligence packed into these 131 pages than resides in most books. In perfectly crafted prose, Grossman speaks personally and passionately about his writing life: "I write, and the world does not close in on me. It does not grow smaller. It moves in the direction of what is open, future, possible. I imagine, and the act of imagination revives me."
Many of these essays touch on Grossman's love of reading and the effect of literature on his life. In one essay, he describes reading a good book: "I read the book over the course of one day and night in a total frenzy of the senses, and my feeling--which now slightly embarrasses me--will be familiar to anyone who has been in love: it was the knowledge that this other person or thing was meant only for me."
In addition to writing and reading, a couple of these essays touch on politics, particularly in relation to Israel, but this is not a political book in the usual sense. Grossman clarifies, "I am not planning to talk 'politics,' but rather to address the intimate, internal processes that occur among those who live in a disaster zone, and the role of literature and writing in a climate as lethal as the one we live in."
Without a doubt, this is the best collection of essays I've read in years. I'm perplexed as to why this book has not received the attention it so clearly deserves.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A cry in the wilderness?, November 9, 2009
David Grossman is an Israeli, born in Jerusalem in 1954. His father immigrated from Galicia in the 1930s and his mother was a Jew from Palestine. Writing in Hebrew, he has distinguished himself as a writer both of fiction and non-fiction. I confess that I had a difficult time getting into his fiction and I aborted my two attempts. Not so with his non-fiction. "The Yellow Wind", "Sleeping on a Wire", and "Death as a Way of Life" are among the finest and most perceptive books I have read on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (For those not familiar with Grossman's non-fiction, be forewarned that he is a peace activist and a staunch critic of prevailing Israeli policy.)
WRITING IN THE DARK is not quite on the same plane as those three earlier books. It is a collection of six essays (or speeches) from between 1998 and 2007. As is almost inevitable with such collections, there is a certain measure of disjointedness or diffusion of focus. For the most part, they do not directly address the political situation in Israel or the schism between Israelis and Palestinians. The most "political" essay is the fifth (and best) one, "Contemplations on Peace", a lecture from 2004. In it Grossman considers how peace would help Israel develop normally as a state and society, perhaps even allow for the realization of a once fervently held dream of "a moral and just society, a society with a humanistic, spiritual vision, a society that would manage to integrate modern life with the ethics of the prophets and the finest Jewish values." Grossman fears that the protracted and constant state of war and anxiety will end up permanently stunting the development of Israel as a nation and that of its citizens as people. He also is concerned about rebutting in a meaningful way the view, among certain circles, "that the entire State of Israel--not only the settlements--is an act of colonial, capitalist injustice, carried out by an apartheid regime, detached from historical, national, and cultural motives, and therefore illegitimate."
Another theme of the essays, the predominant one even, is how literature -- both writing and reading literature -- can be a means for transcending the propaganda and dehumanization so prevalent in a nation or society in a state of war. The point is a valid one, but in these essays, as collected here in one book, Grossman belabors it and, at times, mystifies it. Much of the discussion is far too abstract, almost mystical, and at times the writing (when I do understand it) is too precious.
If it were possible to give Amazon stars to individual essays, I would give three stars to the first three essays and five stars to the last three. Forgoing arithmetical averaging and perhaps logic, I give the book as a whole five stars, to signify the value of the last three essays, especially "Contemplations on Peace."
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Packs a lot of intellect into a tiny book, October 22, 2008
This review is from: Writing in the Dark: Essays on Literature and Politics (Hardcover)
I am always skeptical of collections of essays because they usually lack focus and cohesion. Collections of essays seem more likely to be the result of megalomania than a clear and organized plan. This book is different though, Grossman is at his sharpest in these observational essays. Yes, he is guilty of my criticism; most of these essays had been given as lectures or at conferences but they reveal the inner workings of one of the most talented living writers. Even one not familiar with Grossman's work will enjoy the approach he takes towards his various subjects--never falling too far from politics.
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