Nicht ich by Zeruya Shalev, translated by Anne Birkenhauer

Zeruya Shalev is by far one of my favorite contemporary Israeli writers and from one novel to another she is becoming more deep and meditative, dissecting love, pain and betrayal. I´ve read until now all her novels, in various translations. 

Her latest, Nicht ich - Not me, in my approximate translation, from Hebrew Rakadeti. Amadeti/Dancing. Standing - translated by Anne Birkenhauer was chronologically not her latest. In fact, this book was written 30 years ago, and as the author herself mentions she kept it in the drawers for 30 years. 

It is a story of a woman who abandoned her family for love, confronting her passions and temptations. Unnamed, she is confused, is wandering through the labyrinth of her own uncertainties while playing between unassumed roles of wife, mother, lover. 

As a first person account, it is an unidimensional story, self-centered and we are unable to compare, explain and understand, but beyond this relative shortcoming, it touches upon very relevant strong feelings and roles assigned and expected from women, any of them.

Maybe if I would have start my exploration of Zeruya Shalev books would have been different? Not sure about it, as although a debut, Nicht ich shows a strong introspection and understanding of emotions, literary skills that I appreciate so much at this author.

A recommended read to anyone interested in strong women voices, with an unique take on deeply understanding emotional turmoils.

Rating: 3.5 stars

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Book Review: How to Love Your Daughter by Hila Blum translated by Daniella Zamir

´I see all the peculiar ways in which mothers prepare their daughters for life, ad they are always suffused with sorrow´.

Daughters at the puberty age are complicated beings. Mothers of daughters, mothers of unique children in general are double complicated: once by their condition and secondly, their condition is amplified by the impossible conditions of their daughters. Contorsed bodies of paper blow by the wind of desires.

How to Love Your Daughter, by Jerusalem-based writer and editor Hila Blum, translated from Hebrew by Daniella Zamir is a story of mother-daughter alienation. A crescendo going back to the source of the separation, an innocent yet existentially breaking lie, made of too much love. We are repeatedly shared the details of the separation, for how long, how it enfolded, the relative moments of communication. But until towards the end of the story, we are unable to fathom the reason. 

Told by the mother, the story has apparently nothing dramatic, there is no traumatic event that may explain the radical separation. Leah is a well beloved unique daughter of a middle class family, intelligent moderately beautiful and living a protected life. ´We had Leah. She was one of those girls who was endlessly loved by their parents and just a little less loved by the rest of the world; and there came a time when I sensed she resented that. The disparity. Maybe she didn´t find herself pretty. But to her father and me she was the most beautiful girl in the world, and the love of our lives´. 

But when the parents are blinded by love, ignoring the moral compass and the ethical values, encouraging their children to protect themselves, only for love, may be wrong. May lead to wrongs of the highest kind. Sometimes, our children don´t want blind protection, this is not the love they expect from us. This is not love.

How to Love Your Daughter is relatively short but made of perfectly refined fragments, concise yet powerful. For me, it´s one of the best book about mothers and daughters I´ve read in a long time, a book that will stay with me for a very long time.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Book Review: Die Siegerin/Victorious by Yishai Sarid translated into German by Ruth Achlama

 

Abigail, once a gifted child, is a psychologist helping the Army to win wars. Her father, a well known Freudian, is chronically ill. Her son, Shauli just joined the military service and would change her way of considering victory and war achievements in general. Her relationships are rather temporar, mostly former or current patients, most of them suffering of post-traumatic stress disorder. The father of her son is a happily married chief of staff with whom she had a one-night stand.

Those elements appear in the latest book by Israeli writer Yishai Sarid, Victorious - translated into German as Die Siegerin by Ruth Achlama. Sarid´s The Memory Monster was one of the most thoughtful books I´ve read the last year and I couldn´t wait to get my eyes on Victorious. However, although the context - war, an Army psychologist doubting the belief into her own work - offers a number of interesting combinations of plots, - predictable at a certain extent though, in the end prevailed a story self centered on Abigail´s.

The story is exclusively a first person account lacking sometimes the counter story which may be revealing and adding complexity to the story. A self-centered story is nothing more than a self-cetered story excluding any other narrative. Even though in a way it is predictable where the story goes - once her son is getting into the army her views on victory, military victory are put on trial -, in this case it is definitely no effort to bring more complexity and depth. In the end, everything goes just in the middle, with no radical break-up. Abigail does not contest the system openly - also a predictable outcome but at least makes the characters alive, and generally she does hurry up to decide, except when she decided to have her boy. 

Although I may understand the importance of introspection and of a ´me´ story I may confess that Die Siegerin/Victorious haven´t caught my interest too much. But the translation is very good therefore at least I was able to spend some time improving my vocabulary. 

Rating: 3 stars