Fiction for, If Not of, Our Times
Philip Rahv says relevance, not timeliness, is key to great fiction. Where is the fiction that is relevant to what is happening in Israel?
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
I have such respect for D.G. Myers. I’m so grateful that he launched this topic on Twitter today. And I’m going to share with you his subsequent tweets for your reference and edification (and for mine).
Ruchama King’s “In the Courtyard of the Kabbalist” is a wonderful guided tour to Israel we rarely see: http://t.co/mHeSpRV5iR
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
“When I Lived in Modern Times” by @lindasgrant is about Mandate Palestine, but still relevant: http://t.co/WFeqvTrRXf
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
Risa Miller’s novel about West Bank settlements is loving and non-ideological: http://t.co/zCaml3f3w4
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
Howard Jacobson’s brilliant one-of-a-kind “Finkler Question” is best novel about polite Anglo anti-Zionism: http://t.co/WeGg7itpwl
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
Best introduction to Jewish self-division and debates over Israel remains Roth’s amazing “The Counterlife”: http://t.co/BXlEnHsEes
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
Joan Leegant’s “Wherever You Go” may be more representative of liberal opinion than of aliyah, but worth reading: http://t.co/ll5QzzRCO7
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
Steven Pressfield’s “Lion’s Gate” is soldier’s perspective of Six Day War by a good novelist: http://t.co/RjXbbJjTTp
— D G Myers (@dg_myers) July 23, 2014
and one tweet of my own, back to David (D.G.):
.@dg_myers Sayed Kashua has been on my tbr list for awhile, too. See http://t.co/ZfkWtsnKHU and, sadly, http://t.co/zi4YF94lWP
— Erika Dreifus (@erikadreifus) July 23, 2014
What about you? Relevant fiction that you’d recommend at this trying time?
Yoram Kaniuk’s spectacular 1948 or Tashach in Hebrew; Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun, trans from Arabic
Mitch, thank you! I’ve been meaning to read 1948. And another of Kanafani’s books has been sitting on my nightstand, too–I was intrigued when I heard about Motti Lerner’s stage adaptation of “Returning to Haifa.” I’ll begin my foray into Kashua’s work with SECOND PERSON SINGULAR now that I know you’re the translator.
More recommendations from D.G. Myers, posted with his permission: David Grossman’s TO THE END OF THE LAND (which I also admire–trans. Jessica Cohen) and Barbara Rogan’s CHANGING STATES (which I haven’t yet read). On the same Twitter thread, Mitch Ginsburg added another suggestion: A.B. Yehoshua’s FACING THE FOREST.
As a practitioner of and an advocate for of literary nonfiction I’m recommending these work , for their prescience as much as their stunning narrative prose — David Grossman’s Yellow Wind, and Amos Oz’s In the Land of Israel; also Oz’s eye-opening, poignant, and impeccably-written memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness.
Thanks Erika for your efforts.
Kitty, wonderful to hear from you. Many thanks.