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luciajane's review against another edition
5.0
I just wrote some lines about this book and then deleted them again, two times.
Right now, I don’t know what to say about it other than: I was totally emerged in it, I loved it, and I think his story will stay with me for a long time.
—————————
Fragments:
The one thing we had plenty of was books. They were everywhere: from wall to laden wall, in the passage and the kitchen and the entrance and on every windowsill. Thousands of books, in every corner of the flat. I had the feeling that people might come and go, were born and died, but books went on forever. When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner of an out-of-the-way library somewhere, in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.
p.22
———
In the orchard, halfway down the avenue, there were two benches facing one another, and that was a good place to go when you felt like being alone with your thoughts in the silence between the birdsong and the whispering of the breeze in the branches.
p.156
———
p.160
(Almost the whole page: about a philosophical letter from Fania on the freedom of choice)
———
My mother grew up surrounded by an angelic cultural vision of misty beauty whose wings were finally dashed on a hot dusty pavement of Jerusalem stone.
…..
None of them could break in and seriously harm the pleasantness of my mother’s childhood, which was apparently tinged with a hint of melancholy that did not mar but merely coloured and sweetened it.
p.207
———
You went out of our yard and turned left, passed the entrance to the Lembergs’ and Mr Auster’s grocery shop, carefully crossed Amos Street opposite the Zahavis’ balcony, went down Zechariah Street for thirty yards, crossed it carefully, and there you were: a wall covered in passion flowers, and a grey-white cat, the duty cat, announcing your arrival from the window. Up twenty-two steps, and you were hanging up your water bottle on the hook in the entrance to the smallest school in Jerusalem: two classes, two teachers, a dozen pupils and nine cats.
p.274
———
It was from her that I learnt that there are some words that need to have total silence all around them, to give them enough space, just as when you hang pictures there are some that cannot abide having neighbours.
p.284
———
Memory deludes me. I have just remembered something that I completely forgot after it happened. I remembered it again when I was about sixteen, and then I forgot it again. And this morning I remembered not the event itself but the previous recollection, which itself was more than forty years ago, as though an old moon was reflected in a windowpane from which it was reflected in a lake, from where memory draws, not the reflection itself, which no longer exists, but only its whitened bones.
p.390, 391
———
Page 419
———
And every morning, even on these grey, damp, misty January mornings, at first light there always came from the soggy bare branches outside the pitiful chirping of the frozen bird, Elise: ‘Ti-da-di-da-di—‘ but in the depth of this winter it did not repeat the song several times as it had done in the summer, but said what it had to say once, and fell silent. I have hardly ever spoken about my mother till now, till I came to write these pages. Not with my father, or my wife, or my children or with anybody else. After my father died I hardly spoke about him either. As if I were a foundling.
p.506
———
And I loved the end (p.517)
Right now, I don’t know what to say about it other than: I was totally emerged in it, I loved it, and I think his story will stay with me for a long time.
—————————
Fragments:
The one thing we had plenty of was books. They were everywhere: from wall to laden wall, in the passage and the kitchen and the entrance and on every windowsill. Thousands of books, in every corner of the flat. I had the feeling that people might come and go, were born and died, but books went on forever. When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf-life in some corner of an out-of-the-way library somewhere, in Reykjavik, Valladolid or Vancouver.
p.22
———
In the orchard, halfway down the avenue, there were two benches facing one another, and that was a good place to go when you felt like being alone with your thoughts in the silence between the birdsong and the whispering of the breeze in the branches.
p.156
———
p.160
(Almost the whole page: about a philosophical letter from Fania on the freedom of choice)
———
My mother grew up surrounded by an angelic cultural vision of misty beauty whose wings were finally dashed on a hot dusty pavement of Jerusalem stone.
…..
None of them could break in and seriously harm the pleasantness of my mother’s childhood, which was apparently tinged with a hint of melancholy that did not mar but merely coloured and sweetened it.
p.207
———
You went out of our yard and turned left, passed the entrance to the Lembergs’ and Mr Auster’s grocery shop, carefully crossed Amos Street opposite the Zahavis’ balcony, went down Zechariah Street for thirty yards, crossed it carefully, and there you were: a wall covered in passion flowers, and a grey-white cat, the duty cat, announcing your arrival from the window. Up twenty-two steps, and you were hanging up your water bottle on the hook in the entrance to the smallest school in Jerusalem: two classes, two teachers, a dozen pupils and nine cats.
p.274
———
It was from her that I learnt that there are some words that need to have total silence all around them, to give them enough space, just as when you hang pictures there are some that cannot abide having neighbours.
p.284
———
Memory deludes me. I have just remembered something that I completely forgot after it happened. I remembered it again when I was about sixteen, and then I forgot it again. And this morning I remembered not the event itself but the previous recollection, which itself was more than forty years ago, as though an old moon was reflected in a windowpane from which it was reflected in a lake, from where memory draws, not the reflection itself, which no longer exists, but only its whitened bones.
p.390, 391
———
Page 419
———
And every morning, even on these grey, damp, misty January mornings, at first light there always came from the soggy bare branches outside the pitiful chirping of the frozen bird, Elise: ‘Ti-da-di-da-di—‘ but in the depth of this winter it did not repeat the song several times as it had done in the summer, but said what it had to say once, and fell silent. I have hardly ever spoken about my mother till now, till I came to write these pages. Not with my father, or my wife, or my children or with anybody else. After my father died I hardly spoke about him either. As if I were a foundling.
p.506
———
And I loved the end (p.517)
jamesv_reads's review against another edition
5.0
One of the most fascinatingly layered and stylistically original authors I've read since Nabokov. Oz's life story is grandly connected and thematically rich, yet strangely episodic and individual. He weaves Jungian and Freudian symbols into his life as well as the lives of those around him to complete a mosaic of Jewish identity and consciousness during the creation of the State of Israel.
guinness74's review against another edition
I think maybe it either wasn’t for me, or it was just the wrong time to read it. In another timeline, I may have enjoyed the historical context of it, but the world being what it is, I just didn’t need this in my life.
abisko's review against another edition
3.0
Passionate, insightful, multilayered and did I say deeply passionate! Extremely difficult to give this one 3 stars, but the sheer magnitude of detail finally wore me down. Sooo much is good and great here. So much history, so much introspection into the roots of this quagmire, and at the same time so much strife within his own life. Recommended with the warning that you will be digging DEEEEP.
colinlusk's review against another edition
3.0
I struggled to enjoy this because there's just so much detail, with all the relatives and their dozens or languages and all the minutiae, but there are some great, great passages in it about the birth of the nation, the violence and the souring idealism. It's worth reading for that, if you can plough through the rest. God knows there's enough propaganda about Israel, and the world needs human stories now, to remind ourselves of what's at stake and how Israel came to be.
yer12's review against another edition
5.0
Gran libro, cubre varios niveles y te lleva de uno a otro de forma maravillosa. Desde la historia de la migración de intelectuales de Europa del Este hacia Israel, la fundación del Estado y la intimidad de su familia. Lo quise leer por conocer más de la vida del "pacifista" Amos Oz y aunque no llega a esa parte de su vida no hay desperdicio en su historia.
mrstein's review against another edition
2.0
sorry. got as far as chapter 14, but just too dull for me. gave up. I'm sure it's me, not him, but life's too short. On to the next book.
avenue_reads's review against another edition
4.0
Amos rights beautifully. While I felt some passages dragged on his use of repetition and diction took my breath away
babaks's review against another edition
5.0
An honest, funny, sad, observant, gripping autobiographical novel. Oz's melancholy story weaved a long velvety wrap for my winter nights.