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A Tale of Love and Darkness
Tragic, comic, and utterly honest, this bestselling and critically acclaimed new work by "one of Israel's most gifted and prolific authors" (Helen Epstein, The Forward) is at once a family saga and a magical self-portrait of a writer who witnessed the birth of a nation and lived through its turbulent history.It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jer...more
Paperback, 560 pages
Published
November 1st 2005
by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
(first published 2002)
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This memoir recounts the author's life in the formative years of the nation of Israel as well as the years leading up to 1948, as well as the lives of his parents and many relatives from various parts of Europe. It's not only the memoir of a child who grew to become a writer and needs to tell of the terrors and memories of his childhood. It's also a memoir of the young state peopled by so many from all over who had lost everything and were desperately trying to build a permanent Jewish home. No ...more
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God there is some good writing in this. I'm obsessed with everything that's said in this description:
"In Jerusalem people always walked rather like mourners at a funeral, or latecomers at a concert. First they put down the tip of their shoe and tested the ground. Then once they had lowered their foot they were in no hurry to move it; we had waited two thousand years to gain a foothold in Jerusalem, and were unwilling to give it up. If we picked up our foot someone else might come ...more
"In Jerusalem people always walked rather like mourners at a funeral, or latecomers at a concert. First they put down the tip of their shoe and tested the ground. Then once they had lowered their foot they were in no hurry to move it; we had waited two thousand years to gain a foothold in Jerusalem, and were unwilling to give it up. If we picked up our foot someone else might come ...more
eine lange lektüregeschichte - die aber dem lektüralen erleben angemessen erscheint. oz erzählt - und das in sehr beeindruckender art&weise (der mann kann erzählen!) - eine geschichte über den beginn des jüdischen staates. eine sehr authentisch wirkende geschichte, nämlich die seiner familie - und insbesondere, die des selbstmords seiner mutter, die als symbol für ein mit den nazis ausgelöschtes judentum steht. das im neuen israel zusehends seines ansehens verlustig ging - und also auch zur gesc...more
Una storia d'amore e di tenebra: questo il titolo scelto da Amos Oz per la sua autobiografia romanzata; un percorso tortuoso, difficile, frammentario, affollato di nomi ricordi persone eventi e sentimenti ambivalenti, perennemente intrappolato nella morsa dell'amore e della tenebra, degli affetti familiari, le amicizie, l'amore per la madre e per la patria, e degli incubi, le paure, il conflitto arabo-israeliano e infine il suicidio della madre, il grande tabù nella vita di Amos Oz.
Tutto questo...more
Tutto questo...more
There are books which, after you've read them, would give you this silent thought either that you could have written them yourself or maybe you could write something like them too someday. Then there are those books which would have the opposite effect, similar to what happened to Virginia Woolf after reading Marcel Proust's "Swann's Way" (the first book of "In Search of Lost Time")--her literary urges were paralyzed ("Well," Woolf wrote a friend, "--what rema...more
Книгата толкова много ми хареса, че след като я завърших, започнах веднага да я чета отначало. Това ми се е случвало най-много 5-6 пъти за всичките години четене. Прекрасна книга!Темите и събитията, засегнати в нея, бяха непознати и неизследвани за мен- заселването на Израел, животът в кибуците, Холокостът, погледнат от Йерусалимския хълм, безкрайно пъстрите обичаи и особености на емигрантите, дошли от най-различни части на Европа.Изпълненият с любов и симпатия поглед на автора хвърля сноп светл...more
I selected this book after reading a news story about a Palestinian lawyer personally financing its translation into Arabic for his friends and family to read, his name is Elias Khoury. He was moved by a personal account through the eyes of a young boy about the birth of Israel, its families and real world strife; he hoped for better understanding between the warring sides. I thought this must be some book. It is.
I've always been cloudy on the subject of the Israeli conflict, who started w...more
I've always been cloudy on the subject of the Israeli conflict, who started w...more
Amos Oz was a young child when the state of Israel was being created. His was a family if immigrants, escaping from the Russian and Polish pogroms. A band of intellectuals who could not find meaningful work in the Jerusalem of the time: the city was overflowing with scholars. His father's dream is to be a professor, but, in spite of his vast knowledge of languages (he speaks 17!) and ethymology, he can only find work as a librarian, forever in the shadow of his famous writer uncle. His moth...more
This book was actually a bit difficult for me to get into, but once I was into it, I could not put it down. Because Oz makes it fairly clear where he's going in his work, I ended up feeling trapped, like I was on some beautiful but terrible ride headed towards an abyss. I did read this in translation, but, assuming that de Lange's translation is anything like the Hebrew original, Oz has a brilliant and captivating style. This book will haunt you.
This is an author that deserves our FULL attention.
I am only about half-way through this 538 page book at it is due back at the library. I don't want to be greedy and keep it to myself as it is on the waiting pool. I will re-order and finish. One of the reasons that it is taking me so long to get through it is because I don't want to miss a thing.
More to come.
I am only about half-way through this 538 page book at it is due back at the library. I don't want to be greedy and keep it to myself as it is on the waiting pool. I will re-order and finish. One of the reasons that it is taking me so long to get through it is because I don't want to miss a thing.
More to come.
An international novelist of stature, Oz makes an assured leap to autobiography and is greeted with reverence and awe. Aware of the universality of his story, he enlists excerpts from the diaries of friends and relatives to provide a broader context. He also forgoes tying his narrative to a strict timeline, opting instead for a circular approach. Settings and characters bear the vibrant imprint of his descriptive skills. For all the praise, a few devil's advocates lurk out there__David Cesarini
...more
Amos Oz is a famous Israeli writer, and this book is his autobiography of his early years growing up in Israel. His family came to Israel before WWII, so the accounts of the early Jewish community there and the events leading to independence in 1968 and subsequent history are captivating. I read this book because a well known Palestinian publisher decided to have it translated into Arabic and distributed in Arab literary circles. For this the publisher was strongly criticized, but defended hi...more
This book was very well written (and I hope well translated). It's a memoir of the author's childhood, he goes very deeply into his family's history and details the relationship between his mother and father; and his relationship with each of them. The last 100 pages were definitely the most interesting.
This is an amazing book. It will be difficult for all future Israeli autobiographers to write without feeling in the shadow of Oz's masterpiece. The book works on many different planes... The tastes and feelings of childhood, late pre-state and early post-state Israel, mid-century European Jewish literary culture, the nascent Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem in the 30s and 40s, labor vs. haganah, the development of the Hebrew language in a sea of non-native speakers. It's an incredible...more
Only with this book and with Jane Eyre did I finish and miss the story. But not the actual story; it was the characters, the narrator, and the tale that I missed. THAT is genius.
I learned so much from Amos Oz and his way of recounting his childhood. And some people say that they had trouble with the start of the book. I enjoyed it all! It's been long (and probably will be long) since a book has made me laugh out loud, although at the same time it was horribly depressing. It was a fev...more
I learned so much from Amos Oz and his way of recounting his childhood. And some people say that they had trouble with the start of the book. I enjoyed it all! It's been long (and probably will be long) since a book has made me laugh out loud, although at the same time it was horribly depressing. It was a fev...more
Not many of us could realistically make the claim that our individual life story conveys our national history on a smaller scale. Amos Oz could realistically make this claim, but the sensitivity of his perception and the honesty of his writing prevents him from doing so. Put simply, this is a personal story of Oz's life as a lens on the ideas and events that gave birth to the state of Israel. A Tale of Love and Darkness is humble in its tone, but speaks of such profound notions like peace, recon...more
I had never read any Amos Oz before but was curious to do so, and I ended up picking up this memoir. Although he repeats himself a bit, it is a really amazing book. He gives a first-hand account of the events of 1947-48 in Jerusalem, and his own history is woven into the emergence of the Israeli state. On a personal level, the book is an attempt to come to terms with his mother's suicide when he was 12. It was a surprisingly gripping read, especially his descriptions of the war and of the re...more
This is a beautiful and heartbreaking memoir, perhaps a bit longer than it needs to be, perhaps with more detail of ancestors from centuries past than it needs to have, but these are mere quibbles. The much acclaimed novelist and non-fiction writer, born in 1939, has a tale of his Israeli youth to tell that educates the reader enormously about Israel and evokes such compassion - for him, the artist-to-be, and for his unforgettable, doomed mother. His style, as translated from the Hebrew by his...more
I was so moved by this memoir, the story of a boy growing up in Jerusalem in the '40s and '50s. Oz tells stories within stories (my mother likened it to "a chinese puzzle"), and with such clarity and detail that I began to feel a real understanding of his world even though it is so very different from my own. That quality might be why Elias Khoury, a Palestinian lawyer, recently paid to have this book published in Arabic (in honor of the tragic murder of his son -- see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/07/world/......more
This book snuck up on me and made me fall in love. I wasn't sure how I felt about it for the first hundred pages or so. I thought the writing was exquisite, but I wasn't sure how interested I was by a story about an only child growing up in his dreamy, book-filled world. But as I kept reading, I found myself pulled further and further into his world. So many poignant details, so many touching family stories, so many tragic human interactions.
Some of my favorite parts:
- The auth...more
Some of my favorite parts:
- The auth...more
A beautifully written and moving autobiographical story by Amos Oz. He describes his childhood in Israel, his parents' background and how they left Europe to participate in the building of Israel after the war. Most touching is his relationship with his mother, an avid music and book-lover, and how - as a child - he perceived her depression. His childhood is of course marked by his mother's suicide (it is mentioned on the back of the book - am not giving away the story!!. Amoz Oz is a very cha...more
This book was really amazing. It's a little rich, so I found it easier to read it in smaller sections to savor it. It's a candid personal history full of humor, insight, joy, and sadness, a colorful series of stories, and an invaluable glimpse into a particular historical period. In a few instances, Amos provides too much detail in his recollections, but most of the time his descriptions are simply rich, informative, or sensual. I'm eager to explore what else he has written. I highly recomm...more
"Books filled our home. My father could read sixteen or seventeen languages and could speak eleven (all with a Russian accent). My mother spoke four or five languages and read seven or eight. They conversed in Russian or Polish when they did not want me to understand."
A Tale of Love and Darkness is a coming of age memoir that takes place in Israel during the 1940's and 50's. A child of a celebrated intellectual, the author relates the tragic history of a family esca...more
A Tale of Love and Darkness is a coming of age memoir that takes place in Israel during the 1940's and 50's. A child of a celebrated intellectual, the author relates the tragic history of a family esca...more
Avevo dunque capito donde venivo: una matassa sfilacciata di tristezza e finzione, di nostalgia e sogghigno e miseria e sussiego provinciale, di educazione sentimentale e ideali anacronistici e paure soffocate e rassegnazione e disperazione.
Una storia d'amore e di tenebra: questo il titolo scelto da Amos Oz per la sua autobiografia romanzata; un percorso tortuoso, difficile, frammentario, affollato di nomi ricordi persone eventi e sentimenti ambivalenti, perennemente intrappolato nella...more
Una storia d'amore e di tenebra: questo il titolo scelto da Amos Oz per la sua autobiografia romanzata; un percorso tortuoso, difficile, frammentario, affollato di nomi ricordi persone eventi e sentimenti ambivalenti, perennemente intrappolato nella...more
Wow.
I think this is the best thing I've ever read about the foundation of Israel and yet it's so much more than that.
Amos Oz is from a very special generation. He is the child of diaspora jews raised in a land that is strange to them. During WWII all these cosmopolitan intellectuals are forced to flee Russia, Poland, Venice, and so on to find themselves living provincial existence in cities like Jerusalem. On one hand Oz is exposed to erudite and cultured conversation and a...more
I think this is the best thing I've ever read about the foundation of Israel and yet it's so much more than that.
Amos Oz is from a very special generation. He is the child of diaspora jews raised in a land that is strange to them. During WWII all these cosmopolitan intellectuals are forced to flee Russia, Poland, Venice, and so on to find themselves living provincial existence in cities like Jerusalem. On one hand Oz is exposed to erudite and cultured conversation and a...more
Thanks to my honeymoon I finally finished this book. And even then it took nearly the entire trip.
I received this book as a birthday present prior to my depart for my first-ever trip to Israel in March. My friend promised it would be good and the book had great reviews. I admit I had never heard of Amos Oz before reading the book, but I am not well-versed in Israeli culture.
I wanted to like this book from the get-go. I was excited to use it as a window into Israeli life. ...more
I received this book as a birthday present prior to my depart for my first-ever trip to Israel in March. My friend promised it would be good and the book had great reviews. I admit I had never heard of Amos Oz before reading the book, but I am not well-versed in Israeli culture.
I wanted to like this book from the get-go. I was excited to use it as a window into Israeli life. ...more
Amos Oz is pure genius. He is simply seductive.
His impressive intellect captivated me with rich (very rich!) detail and enticed me to hang on to every word. It took me a few chapters to adjust to his brilliant writing (very few writers in our world have his natural capacity of intellect) but once I adjusted I loved reading the stories of his parents & their parents, war-torn Jerusalem in the 1940's & 50's, Europe, early years of the State of Israel, his famous Uncle, adolescence, li...more
His impressive intellect captivated me with rich (very rich!) detail and enticed me to hang on to every word. It took me a few chapters to adjust to his brilliant writing (very few writers in our world have his natural capacity of intellect) but once I adjusted I loved reading the stories of his parents & their parents, war-torn Jerusalem in the 1940's & 50's, Europe, early years of the State of Israel, his famous Uncle, adolescence, li...more
I don't know how he does it.. The book has chapters and subchapters, but the story doesn't seem to end or pause between them.. You fnish a sentence, or a chapter, but you can't stop, you go right on, to the next ones.. The recomandations on the backcover are right, it is a book like I didn't read in some time, it fascinated me, it kept me plugged in, reading it until I couldn't keep my eyes open and I would fall asleep with the book in my hands. I'm sure you will enjoy it at least as much as I d...more
OK, the book is completed and I am having difficulty choosing between 4 or 5 stars, so I guess I will choose 4. It is best to save 5 stars for those books that you are sure must get 5! Otherwise 5 stars doesn't mean much! There is alot to think about in this book. That is why I like the book. It seems to me a very Jewish trait to analyze, discuss and argue about everything. I like that. Nevertheless in this family there were some things that were NEVER discussed. Issues that should have been dis...more
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| Middle East/North...: A Tale of Love and Darkness (May/June 2011) | 80 | 33 | Jul 13, 2011 11:32am |
Amos Oz is an Israeli writer, novelist, and journalist. He is also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Be'er Sheva. Since 1967, he has been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In 2008 he received an Honorary Degree from the University of Antwerp. He also received the Dan David prize in 2008 for "Creative Rendering of the Past."...more
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“There are lots of women who are attracted to tyrannical men. Like moths to a flame. And there are some women who do not need a hero or even a stormy lover but a friend. Just remember that when you grow up. Steer clear of the tryant lovers, and try to locate the ones who are looking for a man as a friend, not because they are feeling empty themselves but because they enjoy making you full too. And remember that friendship between a woman and a man is something much more precious and rare than love: love is actually something quite gross and even clumsy compared to friendship. Friendship includes a measure of sensitivity, attentiveness, generosity, and a finely tuned sense of moderation.”
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22 people liked it
“If you steal from one book you are condemned as a plagiarist, but if you steal from ten books you are considered a scholar, and if you steal from thirty or forty books, a distinguished scholar.”
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10 people liked it
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