amos oz's a tale of love and darkness
this memoir by one of my favorite novelists actually disappointed me a little--mainly in terms of writing style, which i'm hoping was actually more the fault of the translator than of oz. although the totally non-chronological structure annoyed me some(it worked better once oz got to his own life, but was really hard to follow when he was talking about his grandparents), the constant repetition of phrases was the thing that really bugged me. the constant mentions of peer gynt, the constant notation that such-and-such friend of his mother's wrote two books on child psychology (when she really had no gift for communicating w/ oz, at least), etc. of course, the anecdotes themselves are engaging and i personally enjoyed all the memories of joseph klausner, who turned out to be oz's great-uncle, and whose works i read for one of my religion classes at duke. the second half of this book was significantly stronger than the first. i have to say that it wasn't worth buying in hardback.
2 comments:
He is scheduled to be on Fresh Air tomorrow (Wed). Any suggestions on a good first Oz book for someone who's not read anything by him? --JohnM@SILS
my first impulse would be to recommend elsewhere, perhaps, a novel about the sort of the hothouse, insulated kibbutz life.
however, his latest (the same sea) was pretty great, and his first major novel (my michael) still garners a lot of praise, and lots of people talk about black box as one of his major works . . .
elsewhere, perhaps is somewhat soap-operatic, but touching nonetheless, and a fairly accurate view of kibbutzim from what i can tell. it's one of my favorite books, actually, and now i want to re-read it. :)
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