תמונות מחיי הכפר / Temunot me-ḥaye ha-kefar by Amos Oz

Mar 07, 2012 Mark Staniforth rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

It is for others with a surer grasp of the subject to decide the extent to which 'Scenes From Village Life' by Amos Oz is an allegory for the parlous, fragile state of modern Israel.
Certainly, there are broad hints in that direction: the characters who people the majority of Oz's eight stories live tentative, uncertain lives; Tel Ilan, their rural village in question, itself seems to exist in a state of perpetual unease.
Yet conflict of the political kind is only once overtly addressed, in 'Singi...more It is for others with a surer grasp of the subject to decide the extent to which 'Scenes From Village Life' by Amos Oz is an allegory for the parlous, fragile state of modern Israel.
Certainly, there are broad hints in that direction: the characters who people the majority of Oz's eight stories live tentative, uncertain lives; Tel Ilan, their rural village in question, itself seems to exist in a state of perpetual unease.
Yet conflict of the political kind is only once overtly addressed, in 'Singing', in which the story's narrator expresses his ambivalence over the latest bombing raid, and the roar of fighter planes overhead is drowned out by a resolute and gutsy community choir.
Oz, it seems, is determined to illustrate the afflictions of his nation by much more delicate means.
'Scenes From Village Life' is a strange book in every respect, oozing general unease, sprinkled with imponderables and actions devoid of answers. If, early in the book, it is so nuanced as to not so much miss a beat, as lack percussion entirely, it soon lures you in, like taking a walk in a new neighborhood which appears entirely unremarkable until you begin to scratch at its surface.
Many of Oz's characters are gently propelled by the allure of abandonment: most comfortable curled up in abandoned water towers, left alone in dark cellars or drawn to dim, empty bedrooms with the stale scent of long-gone tragedy.
Their wider motives are left unexplained: the mysterious stranger who turns up on an old man's porch and proceeds not only to cajole him into selling half his house, but to climb into bed with him and his ancient mother; the scratching, digging sounds from the cellar which torment a teacher and her ageing father; a wife's unexplained departure; a tour of an old house's subterranean passageways.
Oz's prose is simple and achingly poetic. The sixth story, 'Strangers', starts: 'It was evening. A bird called twice. What it meant there was no way of telling.'
In 'Lost', the narrator, a property prospector, takes a circuitous twilight walk towards a bleak old house for which he hopes to put in an offer:

'A smallish package wrapped in brown paper and tied up with black cord was lying on a shady bench at the end of Tarpat Street. I paused and bent over to see what was written on it. There was nothing written on it. I picked it up cautiously and turned it over but the brown paper was smooth and unmarked. After a moment's hesitation I decided not to open the package, but felt I ought to let someone know I had found it. I didn't know whom I should tell. I held it in both my hands and it seemed heavier than its size would have suggested, heavier than a packet of books, as if it contained stones or metal. Now the object aroused my suspicion, and so I replaced it gently on the bench. I ought to have reported the discovery of a suspicious package to the police, but my mobile phone was on my desk at the office because I had only gone out for a short walk and didn't want to be interrupted by my office business.'

The package is never mentioned again. And in this mildly ghostly world, there are other, unexplained apparitions. It is a world of sad hearts, in which 'the distance from pity to love was like the distance from the moon reflected in a puddle to the moon itself.' Yet the community which Oz chronicles in these intriguing overlapping stories appears eerily content.
Only the last story shatters the soporific atmosphere: 'In a Faraway Place at Another Time' is a brief orgy of depravity set in a stinking, fetid swamp: is it what Tel Ilan has been, or will become? Like the rest of Oz's fascinating collection, it poses plenty more questions than answers. (less)

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Jan 08, 2012 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories

When I started Oz's latest, I thought, I would be so content to live in a small village in the north of Israel. Yet in these scenes everyone is unhappy, unhappy, but deeply aware of their connection to others, whether family members or acquaintances. A son will not leave his old mother, nor will a daughter leave her volcanic old father; a veterinarian makes unbidden house calls; a librarian weeps for not having been more sympathetic to an adolescent boy; an aunt waits for her beloved nephew. In...more

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Apr 09, 2013 Maria rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Mooi boek met 8 verhalen over inwoners van het Israëlische stadje El Ilat. Het mooist aan dit boek vond ik hoe Oz bij ieder verhaal met een paar woorden een persoon zo neerzet dat je er meteen een beeld van hebt. Dat je weet wat het voor iemand is. En dit had ik toevallig erg gemist in de laatste paar titels die ik gelezen had….

Beschreven wordt het eigenlijk heel saaie doodgewone leven in het stadje, maar toch voel je in ieder verhaal een onrust en een onderhuidse spanning, bijvoorbeeld in het...more Mooi boek met 8 verhalen over inwoners van het Israëlische stadje El Ilat. Het mooist aan dit boek vond ik hoe Oz bij ieder verhaal met een paar woorden een persoon zo neerzet dat je er meteen een beeld van hebt. Dat je weet wat het voor iemand is. En dit had ik toevallig erg gemist in de laatste paar titels die ik gelezen had….

Beschreven wordt het eigenlijk heel saaie doodgewone leven in het stadje, maar toch voel je in ieder verhaal een onrust en een onderhuidse spanning, bijvoorbeeld in het verhaal over Rachel, haar vader, een voormalig parlementslid, en een bij hen wonende Arabier (!). De vader en Adel, de Arabier horen ’s nachts gravende geluiden onder het huis. Rachel aanvankelijk niet maar dan toch…’
Er zijn verder verhalen over de burgemeester die een briefje bezorgd krijgt van zijn vrouw: ‘Maak je niet ongerust over mij’ en vervolgens uren zijn vrouw loopt te zoeken en daarna in het park op een bankje gaat zitten wachten. Over de makelaar die een oude villa wil kopen, zich door het huis laat rondleiden en uiteindelijk in de kelder laat opsluiten. En verder de smachtende 17-jarige Kobi, verliefd op de bibliothecaresse. En o ja de dokter, wachtend op haar neef.

Het zijn allemaal verhalen waarvan het soms onduidelijk is wat er nu eigenlijk gebeurt en waar het verhaal naar toe gaat. Zo ook in het een-na-laatste verhaal ‘Zingen’, diverse personages komen hier bij elkaar om samen Israëlische liederen te zingen, er is sprake van een geheimzinnige vrouw en het slot is ook weer bizar.

Het laatste verhaal vond ik er niet bij passen (of ik begrijp het niet?) maar de rest zijn stuk voor stuk juweeltjes.

Uit: ‘Graven’
Rachels vader: ‘Zesentachtig was hij, van top tot teen dooraderd en vereelt, ruw, zijn huid leek wel de bast van een olijfboom. Een sterke, explosieve man die overliep van opvattingen en idealen’Hij denkt over de Arabier: ‘Je ziet aan hem dat hij ons haat, maar zijn haat verbergt met vleierij. Ze haten ons immers allemaal. En hoe zouden ze ook anders kunnen? Ik zou ons in hun plaats immers ook haten. En eerlijk gezegd, niet alleen in hun plaats. Ook zonder dat ik in hun plaats ben, haat ik ons. Geloof me, Rachel, als je ons een klein beetje van buitenaf bekijkt, dan zie je dat wij alleen maar haat en verachting verdienen. En misschien ook een beetje mededogen, maar dat mededogen kan niet van de Arabieren komen. Zij snakken immers zelf naar alle mededogen die er bestaat.’(less)

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Mar 28, 2013 Noam rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-but-didn-t-finish

I bought this book after reading and very much enjoying a similar book by Oz called "Between Friends". It's a collection of short stories, all taking place in kibbutz in the 1950's. The setting of both books is the same: a small community, short hummane stories about people simply living their life, which small interaction and mentions of characters who travel between the different tells.

However, I could not finish this book. Maybe it's an age thing, but for me to read this high and pompous lan...more

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Feb 04, 2013 John Brooke rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Scenes from Village Life is a short, elegant collection of “linked” stories by Israeli master Amos Oz. "Linked" means characters reappear in several stories, sometimes as a central character, other times just walking by or only in reference. Also, issues or instances are seen from various perspectives from one story to the next. The motif helps depict a community at a moment in time – which is the present, more or less. Although the long history of this village is also a constant touchstone. Thi...more

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Jan 14, 2013 Mike rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book of fiction is a collection of stories set in the village of Tel Ilan in Israel's Manasseh Hills, each story building on the inhabitants and their interactions. Village life is much slower and quieter than in the city, and the stories evoke solitude in a century-old pioneer city with its modern villas and ancient ruined houses and farms falling apart with rusting farm implements nearby and the sound of jackals in the hills answered by village dogs in the moonlight.

There is so much humor...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Tadzio Koelb rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

From my review in the Times Literary Supplement:

"Such strange moments invite a sharp awareness of the author and his choices. Stories which break with traditional realism – especially if they are open-ended – tend to ambiguity, meaning readers will be especially receptive to any perceived subtextual clues. Given the book’s setting, those they find will easily be understood as relating to the on-going crisis of the Middle East, although Oz, a vocal and energetic essayist who is not shy about voic...more From my review in the Times Literary Supplement:

"Such strange moments invite a sharp awareness of the author and his choices. Stories which break with traditional realism – especially if they are open-ended – tend to ambiguity, meaning readers will be especially receptive to any perceived subtextual clues. Given the book’s setting, those they find will easily be understood as relating to the on-going crisis of the Middle East, although Oz, a vocal and energetic essayist who is not shy about voicing his opinions, has been emphatic in interviews that his fiction is never political, arguing that only the circumstance of writing in a “trouble spot” encourages political interpretation.

Considering Scenes from Village Life, however, such claims appear disingenuous: the text is full of details suggesting a clear intention to invoke difficult issues, as well as blanks the reader will feel entitled to fill. Nicholas de Lange, Oz’s prize-winning translator, has been working with the author (who himself speaks impeccable English) since the 1970s, so we can be confident that there is no misrepresentation. “Lost” is easily interpreted as a message about Israel’s changing relationship to the Holocaust and the “pioneer” past. When, in “Waiting”, Mayor Benny Avni is unable to accept the Dear John letter he receives, he searches unsuccessfully for his wife in “Founders’ Street and Tribes of Israel Street, … the Memorial Garden”, places in “a pioneer village” named for the national founding myths. Oz cannot be unaware of having linked these in the reader’s mind to Avni’s personal circumstances, just as he cannot be unaware of the temptation to see a political parable in “Digging”. Pesach Kedem, an old man retired from the Knesset, is convinced there is a sound of someone tunnelling under his house. His daughter thinks he’s making it up. Only Adel, the Arab tenant – whom Kedem distrusts on racial grounds – hears the noises which suggest the disused farm where they live is literally being undermined by hidden forces.

If Oz is using this intimation of the political as a tactic to build tension, it is effective: the book develops a feeling of dread that might have been less forceful without it. “Singing”, the last story set in Tel Ilan, brings together some of the characters and many of the themes and images from the preceding stories, and puts them to good use, while advancing the impression of an ambiguous allegory of contemporary Israel."(less)

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May 31, 2012 Jeffrey added it · review of another edition

This "novel in stories," as the inside flap calls it, focuses on scenes from the everday lives of residents of Tel Ilan, "a century-old pioneer village" (again, the inside flap). These characters are mostly isolated; they live alone, either literally or because their relations are estranged and often a burden. Parents are senile or twisted by bitterness and regret, children are aborted, miscarried, or kill themselves. The patriotic place names that recur throughout the book (Founders Street, Pio...more This "novel in stories," as the inside flap calls it, focuses on scenes from the everday lives of residents of Tel Ilan, "a century-old pioneer village" (again, the inside flap). These characters are mostly isolated; they live alone, either literally or because their relations are estranged and often a burden. Parents are senile or twisted by bitterness and regret, children are aborted, miscarried, or kill themselves. The patriotic place names that recur throughout the book (Founders Street, Pioneer Gardens) are a hollow and empty echo of the past, while the future seems like it will never arrive, or will just be lived as an endless, endlessly painful remembering of the past.

Sometimes, the "unease" that the reviewers and blurbs speak of is less definite or clearly traced. Rachel Franco is a widowed literature teacher at the local school; intelligent and attractive, she wonders when she will leave her elderly, extremely irascible old father and begin a new life for herself. Meanwhile, her father complains of a digging sound under the house at night; in time, the Arab student who rents a small outbuilding on the property as a room hears it too. Rachel dismisses them both. One night she vocalizes her discontent and her father seems to understand and agree; she eventually retires and lays in bed, thinking of how her life will just stretch on monotously. "The school year is ending, then it will be the summer holiday, and then another year will begin, no different from the one that is ending. More marking, more staff meetings, more Mickey the vet." As she is trying to fall asleep, she begins to hear a scratching sound under her bed. She suspects either her father or Adel (the Arab student/border); "[n]either of them is entirely sane." She goes outside with a light, but finds no one in the space under her room. "Rachel Franco stands there trembling, alone in the dark under the blurred stars."

As this perhaps indicates, many of the stories are slightly surreal or seem vaguely metaphorical or parable-like (much more so than anything else I've read by Oz); the final chapter is nightmarish. The image of someone in the dark, either in the open night or in an enclose man-made space, and often struggling to see by a weak or constricted light, repeats itself through the novel. The prose is precise and deliberate, describing each individual action of characters who are often unsure of why they're doing what they are, or who feel like they should be doing something else, but can't figure out what. Among the other books I've read by Oz, my favorite is Don't Call It Night, and his voice here is very similar--deeply warm, humane, sympathetic, intimate and immediately present in his character's inner lives (in this way, Oz's voice often reminds me of Galway Kinnell's), while somehow simultaneously being distant and detached (not words you would ever use to describe Kinnell). I remember when I read Don't Call It Night I thought it was maybe the most purely atheistic literature I had ever read; it was somehow almost palpably clear that there was nothing beyond the characters and their purely human lives (except for nature which, there as here in Scenes From Village Life, serves only to heighten the individual's alientation). The same sense is here; the characters in these stories are completely alone, struggling and mostly failing against that fact. The way that Oz details the crushing loneliness of these characters as they struggle to go through the everday banalies of "village life" is what I found most affecint about the book.

A couple of paragraphs (from different chapters) for prospective readers:

Around ten o'clock Gili Steiner said to herself that Gideon would not come this evening and that there was really nothing for her to do except to warm up the fish and potatoes in the oven and eat them on her own, then go to bed and get up tomorrow before seven and go to the clinic to look after her irritating patients. She stood up, bent over, took the fish and potatoes out of the oven and threw them in the trash can. Then she switched off the electric heater, sat down in the kitchen, took off her square, frameless glasses and cried, but after a minute or two she stopped, buried the battered kangaroo in the drawer, took the laundry out of the dryer, and until almost midnight she ironed and folded everything and put it away. At midnight she undressed and got into bed. It had begun to rain in Tel Ilan, and it rained on and off all night.

"You're all wrong," said Dafna Katz, but what she was going to say was submerged in the general hubbub, with everyone talking at once and some people raising their voices. Inside everyone, I thought, there is the child they once were. In some you can see that it's still a living child; others carry around a dead child inside them.(less)

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May 09, 2012 Susan Segal rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This collection of very loosely connected short stories about life in one, probably fictitious Israeli village, was striking for Oz's hilarious and wonderful depictions of the characters: their foibles - both poignant and funny, often at the same time - their fears, their daily lives - was spot on. And each story ended on a very strange note. (I don't want to give too much away.) I felt I had to stop to think about the story in a new way at the end of each one. Unfortunately, the final story is...more

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Nov 01, 2011 Darryl rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This collection of short stories by Amos Oz is set in an apparently fictional historical village in Israel that has been populated by Jews for roughly a century. The characters in the first seven stories all know each other, and those who are the center of one story will often appear in a minor role in one or more other ones. The stories are about the lives of the characters within their families and community, and focus on the loneliness and barely hidden frustration and despair that plague eac...more This collection of short stories by Amos Oz is set in an apparently fictional historical village in Israel that has been populated by Jews for roughly a century. The characters in the first seven stories all know each other, and those who are the center of one story will often appear in a minor role in one or more other ones. The stories are about the lives of the characters within their families and community, and focus on the loneliness and barely hidden frustration and despair that plague each of them. Each character is in a search for something, often without knowing what it is they are looking for or why, and the stories are dreamlike, haunting, and often mildly uncomfortable and menacing.

In the longest story, "Digging", a middle-aged widow lives with her cantakerous and difficult elderly widowed father, along with a shy and introspective Arab university student who lives in a shed on their land in exchange for performing household chores. The elderly man is awakened each night by the sound of digging underneath the house, yet no one else seems to hear it. Other stories feature a single doctor who expectantly waits for her ill nephew; a divorced woman pursued by a lovestruck and lonely teenager; an older man who lives in peace with his infirm mother at the edge of the village, until an intrusive stranger who claims to be a relative urges him to sell his mother's property; and the town's mayor, who receives a mysterious note from his wife. Oz does not provide the reader or his characters with straightforward resolutions to their dilemmas or searches, which made the stories that much more memorable and powerful.

The last story is quite unlike the others, as it is set in a different place at another time (past? present?), in a town whose structures are decaying and whose citizens are dying despite the best efforts of the official who is charged with their welfare.

The stories are wonderfully written, with simple yet evocative language, and I slowly savored each passage, such as this one from the elderly man in "Digging", as the Arab student plays a haunting Russian melody on his harmonica on one summer evening:

'That's a lovely tune,' the old man said. 'Heart-rending. It reminds us of a time when there was still some fleeting affection between people. There's no point in playing tunes like that today: they are an anachronism, because nobody cares any more. That's all over. Now our hearts are blocked. All feelings are dead. Nobody turns to anyone else except from self-interested motives. What is left? Maybe only this melancholy tune, as a kind of reminder of the destruction of our hearts.'

Scenes from Village Life is an unforgettable book, which is one of my favorite reads of the year, and one I look forward to returning to in the near future.

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Oct 12, 2011 Lakis Fourouklas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The international press hailed this book as a parable about what really goes on in Israeli society today.
Scenes from Village Life cannot be described as a novel nor as a short-story collection. It features a number of interconnected tales, which I would simply describe as short glimpses of everyday life.
The stories take place in the fictitious village of Tel Ilan, where lately a lot of strange things happen to some quite common people. Firstly, in Heirs, we have the story of a retired lawyer w...more The international press hailed this book as a parable about what really goes on in Israeli society today.
Scenes from Village Life cannot be described as a novel nor as a short-story collection. It features a number of interconnected tales, which I would simply describe as short glimpses of everyday life.
The stories take place in the fictitious village of Tel Ilan, where lately a lot of strange things happen to some quite common people. Firstly, in Heirs, we have the story of a retired lawyer who lives in a house with his bedridden ninety year old mother and spends all his time doing absolutely nothing. Their every day is a copy of the one before and nothing much seems to happen, until a strange man arrives claiming that he’s a relative and turns things upside down. In Relations we read about a woman that feels really disappointed when her beloved nephew does not arrive with the bus and does something way out of character. Digging is the story of a retired army officer that every night hears someone digging underneath his house. He suspects that behind all that is Abel, an Arab student and aspiring author who lives in a shed in the garden, but his daughter Rachel just thinks he’s crazy. However soon enough she’ll have to change her mind, since Abel will start hearing the strange sounds as well. The old man, despite his past, seems to understand the reasons why the Arabs do not like the Israelis, while he thinks that after everything that has come to pass the only thing that one is left to feel is melancholy. In Lost we follow in the footsteps of a real estate agent who’s about to close the deal of his life, a fact that was supposed to, but fails to make him happy. So he starts wandering the streets in the night, thinking about his life, which leads him to the discovery of a suspicious package and the warmth of a woman’s embrace. Yet another unexpected occurrence, the disappearance of his wife, leads the mayor of the village to wander the streets at night as well, with a dog following his every step and keeping him company, in Waiting. Strangers talks about a love affair that was never meant to be. A seventeen year old boy is in love with the village’s postmistress, but when he finally manages to get close to her things take an unexpected turn. Singing, the last story, describes the meeting of some colorful characters in a house, where they spend their time singing and talking about politics. Their host, and narrator of the story, doesn’t seem to stand them anymore, so she escapes the living room and rushes to the master bedroom, where she hides under the bed, wanting to feel that she was “in a faraway place at another time.” The image she projects is bleak, just like the past.
If I’d have to describe these texts in simple words I’d just say that what we have right here is the stories of some more or less common people; weak people and somewhat strong people; sanguine people and sad people; people full of insecurities and doubts about the future and questions about the world that’s destined to die. The author paints the picture of a micro-society where anything could happen at any given moment and it does. Just like in real life.
This is the first book by Amos Oz that I’ve read and so I can’t really say whether it’s his best or not. What I definitely can say though is that it’s extremely well-written and it becomes lyrical at times, and thus can offer a lot of joy to the reader. Recommended.
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May 16, 2012 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-in-translation, literary-fiction

Just as the title states, Scenes from Village Life, is neither a collection of stories nor a novel but eight stories which together make a portrait of the life of the century-old village, Tel Ilan. Oz's characters, whether male or female, adolescent, middle-aged or elderly, are so very real, nothing generic about them. His writing is always engaging, often surprising in its apt description and turn of phrase:

Her shoes grated on the gravel path as though they had picked up some tiny creature that...more

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Feb 08, 2012 Kecia rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: judaism, short_story_collections

Maybe I need to be more familar with life in Israel to understand these stories. Each one really grabbed my attention, but then left me flat. Hanging. These stories with no resolution made me frustrated.

I enjoyed the way Oz set the scene for each story. I read the opening paragraphs several times because I liked them so much. I enjoyed seeing the same characters in each of the stories. By the end of the book I felt like I knew this village. Still I was frustrated that the stories had no endings....more

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Feb 27, 2012 Lawrence rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Amos Oz is one of my favorite authors. "Scenes from Village Life" is a series of stories about some of the people who currently live in an Israeli village that was founded long before the establishment of the State of Israel. The village has changed and is changing. Each story focuses on one or two persons and a crisis, sometimes an acted-out existential crisis, in their lives. I love Oz' neutral eye. He describes people, not heroes. Goodness or moral worth does not come into play directly. His...more

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Nov 30, 2012 Lois rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: short-stories, fiction-from-other-countries

I don't know what to make of these stories. They are very well written, but the lack of resolution is unsettling. In an interview, the author says that "these are unresolved stories because life is unresolved, and in a state of perpetual search is the human condition as I conceive it ... the stories are about the search, about the uncertainty of something that is hovering in the air, nearly there, nearly touchable but not quite there and not quite obtainable." He says that the last story is abou...more

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Feb 01, 2011 Marjet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Am highly inspired by the people in this book, Amos Oz- Dorpsleven

Dorpsleven van de Israelische schrijver Amos Oz sluit mooi aan op De veerboot. De bewoners in het dorpje Tel Ilan in het noorden van Israël zijn gewone mensen, lijkt het, maar zodra het verhaal zich ontvouwt duiken kleine obsessies en vervreemdingen op bij de personages. Zoals Arjee Tselnik in het verhaal Erfgenamen zijn dagen slijt met zijn oude dove moeder in het oudste en mooiste huis van de streek, todat een zonderlinge bezoek...more Am highly inspired by the people in this book, Amos Oz- Dorpsleven

Dorpsleven van de Israelische schrijver Amos Oz sluit mooi aan op De veerboot. De bewoners in het dorpje Tel Ilan in het noorden van Israël zijn gewone mensen, lijkt het, maar zodra het verhaal zich ontvouwt duiken kleine obsessies en vervreemdingen op bij de personages. Zoals Arjee Tselnik in het verhaal Erfgenamen zijn dagen slijt met zijn oude dove moeder in het oudste en mooiste huis van de streek, todat een zonderlinge bezoeker zijn rust komt verstoren.
Of in Verwanten zoals de arts Gili Steiner, die bij de bushalte op haar neef en soldaat Gidon wacht. Hij zit niet in de bus en ze gaat hem zoeken. Haar ongerustheid is misschien gegrond, of toch niet. Een verhaal dat gebouwd is op angst en schuld. Heel knap.
Graven vertelt het verhaal van oud parlementslid Pesach Kedan, die met zijn dochter Rachel in Tel Ilan woont. Een Arabische student, Adel, huurt het kippenhok tegen het doen van klussen op het erf en het strijken van Rachels ondergoed. Pesach is een notoire klager en gelooft dat er onder het huis gegraven wordt, iedere nacht hoort hij het gegraaf. Hij verdenkt de Arabier. Totdat de jongen het graven ook hoort en uiteindelijk hoort Rachel het zelfs. Een beetje lang dit verhaal, maar heel subtiel hoe de gekte ons op een dag allemaal te pakken krijgt.
Het verhaal Verloren is in een ik-perspectief geschreven. De andere verhalen worden door een alwetende verteller verteld en dat is altijd even omschakelen, want nu dacht ik dat de ik de alweter was.
Deze ik is makelaar. Hij wil het huis van Batja Roebin kopen, de weduwe van de ziekelijke Eldar Roebin, een bekend schrijver, hoewel niemand zijn boeken echt las. Als de ik aanbelt doet dochter Jardena open, ze is alleen thuis. Zij studeert in Haifa, terwijl haar moeder in Jerusalem was. Jardena nodigt de ik uit en verleidt hem op een tocht door het ruïneuze huis. Uiteindelijk verleidt ze hem en laat hem achter in de rolstoel van haar vader. Prachtig, wat een verhaal en wat ik hier leer is ook het belang van de tijd nemen om een verhaal te vertellen.
Wachten gaat over de burgemeester van Tel Ilan, Benni Avni en zijn vrouw Nava. Nava geeft Adel (de Arabische student uit het verhaal Graven)een briefje dat hij zich geen zorgen hoeft te maken over haar. Vervolgens is zij spoorloos. Benni gaat haar zoeken, hij is niet ongerust, waarom zou hij. Tijdens zijn zoektocht komt hij op plaatsen en heeft herinneringen en associaties, waardoor je als lezer een verontrustend beeld van de man krijgt.(less)

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Oct 07, 2012 Samantha rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A novel in related stories, "Scenes From Village Life" reads a little bit like an Israeli Olive Kitteridge, particularly since it primarily concerns older people, people who carry disappointments and regrets. "Digging," about an elderly former Knesset member living with his daughter and her Arab student-boarder (all of whom hear mysterious digging sounds), and "Singing," the penultimate chapter, dealing with a communal singing session which comprises many of the characters from earlier chapters,...more

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Apr 01, 2012 Chris Yarsawich rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was my first book by Oz and definitely won't be my last. What I enjoyed most was the point in each story where the ordinary and fully believable melted away, revealing a bizarre and grotesque alternative reality underneath. The prose is squeaky clean, tight and clear as a winter night. His eye for detail is one of the best I've had the pleasure to see through in a long while. The unresolved tension and strange morphings are, on my first reading anyway, delightfully, chest-poundingly caught...more

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Nov 25, 2011 Katherine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

"The old man, from his hiding place, wished them both an attack of foot-and-mouth disease" (51).
“ ‘They all hate us. How could they not? If I were them I’d hate us too. In fact, I’d hate us even without being them’” (58).
“ ‘The last of the anti-Semites hasn’t been born yet. And never will be’” (67).
"She is suddenly sorry for herself and feels sad for the days that go by so aimlessly and pointlessly. The school year is ending, then it will be the summer holiday, and then another year will begin,...more

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Dec 11, 2011 Bookmaniac70 rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Амос Оз е неповторим в обрисуването на делничните картини от живота в Израел. В тази книга чрез умело нахвърляни скици на отделни моменти от ежедневието на жителите на Тел Илан той създава усещане за скрито напрежение и безнадеждност. В привидно спокойното селце има някаква обреченост, защото няма развитие, няма перспектива. Искаше ми се книгата да е по-дълга, за да се насладя на майсторски преплетените съдби, представени както винаги с много човечност.

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May 04, 2012 Parrish Lantern rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: on-my-shelves, iffp-long-list-2012, review-copies, short-stories, translation, authors-tbr, blog-post, fiction

This is a book of fragments, there are seven tales and a coda in this book, and what you get are glimpses into the lives of the inhabitants of the fictional village of Tel Ilan, just a short bus hop from Tel Aviv. This is starting to become an issue as it’s distance and it’s beauty makes it an ideal setting for the smart set to move in with their money and chic boutiques, pricing out the locals. This is merely one of the backdrops to what is a strange and disturbing book, all the more so for be...more

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Apr 12, 2012 Lisa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: israel, iffp-longlist, library-book-or-loan

Scenes from Village Life is a collection of interlinked short stories by the acclaimed Israeli author Amos Oz, and the interesting aspect of the collection is that each of the tales is ‘unfinished’. When I read the first one, Heirs, I was not expecting this, but by the time I got to the third story, ‘Digging‘ I had anticipated the unresolved ending as part of a pattern. It alters the way one reads the stories. It’s more like real life, the unresolved ending, because none of us really knows what...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Bas v/d Bogaard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is not a bad book, but it is extremely dull. Almost nothing happens. The characters do not develop. Almost every story consists of a short biography of the protagonist (marriage, divorce, death of a loved one), plus a few everyday events such as a nephew failing to show up at a bus stop or a teenage girl showing a real estate agent around an old house. And that's it.

If there is a hidden meaning in the stories, I must have missed it.

It is not a bad book however, because Amos Oz is clearly a...more

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Feb 12, 2013 Clivemichael Justice rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, pyschology, library-ebook

Cryptic, sometimes evocative mostly dissonant personalities in conflict. These stories flow with persuasive writing toward a sense of unrequited conclusion. Certainly I wanted more. Each story a slice of slow stagnation of the physical, the emotional and cultural towards an inevitable collapse of the village. Not a lot of joy here, but the writing is excellent. I sense the author is jaded. Yet his ability to reflect so well the flavour, the smell and feel of crumbling buildings, the personalitie...more

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May 30, 2012 Lisa Lieberman rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jewish-interest

What a strange little book. Considering that it was written in 1998, the disquieting portrait it presents of Israeli society (as viewed through the microcosm of a small village) is quite striking. I'm haunted by some of the vignettes: the sound of digging that two -- eventually three -- characters in one of the stories hear beneath their house in the wee hours of the morning. The observation the unnamed narrator makes, in the final story: "Inside everyone, I thought, there is the child they once...more

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Nov 18, 2012 Louise Silk rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This is a series of self-contained stories of everyday life in a small century-old Israeli pioneer village where the characters portray the questioning of a bleak unrealized life that is an echo of their dreams and desires.

The prose is precise and deliberate heightening each individual's alienation by surreal and metaphorical images of unknown sounds, constricted light, missing persons, and dark cellars.

Oz does a fabulous job and just in case the reader doesn't get it, he throws in an Arabic stu...more

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Jan 02, 2013 hillary rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read2013

Collection of short stories all of which concern inhabitants of a small Israeli village and the village itself (as well, in the last story, something more - the future? the past? unclear). Reminded me of Spoon River Anthology, though stories (not poems) and snapshots (not epitaphs). The stories are fine, fluidly written and largely designed to show some sad or sinister underbelly that we theoretically would not expect from the surface (except that all are arranged in the same manner). Oz seems t...more Collection of short stories all of which concern inhabitants of a small Israeli village and the village itself (as well, in the last story, something more - the future? the past? unclear). Reminded me of Spoon River Anthology, though stories (not poems) and snapshots (not epitaphs). The stories are fine, fluidly written and largely designed to show some sad or sinister underbelly that we theoretically would not expect from the surface (except that all are arranged in the same manner). Oz seems to take particular pleasure in describing the characters we encounter, and in these descriptions his generally straightforward prose really works for him:

"The postmistress, Ada Dvash, who was also the librarian, was a thirty-year-old divorcee. She was short, jolly, plump and smiley. Her shoulder-length fair hair fell more on her left shoulder than her right. Her large wooden earrings swayed as she walked. Her eyes were warm and brown, and a slight squint enhanced her charm, as though she squinted on purpose, mischievously. She enjoyed her work at the post office and at the library, whch she carried out painstakingly and precisely. She loved summer fruit and was fond of light music." (p. 132);

"This is how Danny Franco ate an apple: for a while he would turn it around in his hand, inspecting it closely until he found the precise point at which to sink his teeth into it, then he would stare at the wounded apple once more before attacking it again, this time at another point in its circumference." (p. 61);

"He deliberately confused or 'forgot' the names of present-day political leaders, just as the world had forgotten him. He, however, had forgotten nothing: he remembered the tiniest details of every insult, resented every wrong that had been done to him two and half generations earlier, kept a mental note of every weakness shown by his opponents, every opportunistic vote in the Knesset, every glib lie ever uttered in committee, every disgrace brought on themselves by his comrades of forty years ago (whom he tended to refer to as false comrades, and, in the case of two junior ministers of his day, Comrade Hopeless and Comrade Useless" (p. 42).

###

"He had always hoped someday to return to the village of Tel Ilan. To return to this house next to the tall cypresses of the cemetery. 'It's so peaceful here, much more peaceful than our village, which ha grown so much it isn't a village anymore, it's a small town now, full of shops and garages and dusty parking lots.' It was because it was so beautiful that he had dreamed of returning And because of the peace and quiet. And because of something else that he couldn't define but that he might succeed in describing in the book he wanted to write. He would write about the differences between a Jewish village and an Arab village. 'Your village was born out of a dream and a plan, and our village was not born, it's always been there, but still they do have something in common. We have dreams, too. No, comparisons are always false. But the thing that I love here, that isn't false." (p. 57)(less)

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Jul 28, 2012 Biblibio rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, short-story-collections, hebrew, 21st-century

A small, absolutely lovely collection of short stories by one of Israel's foremost writers. Scenes from Village Life paints a general portrait of characters in a fictional Israeli village, with Oz succeeding in creating unique and wholly believable characters in a few simple brush-strokes. The setting enhances a certain distance between reader and character, making the whole collection feel just a bit beyond reality. Though the opening and closing stories were the weakest in my mind, the meat of...more

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Jun 28, 2012 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, short-story-collection

A Spellbinding Collection of Short Stories on Israeli Life with Universal Appeal

One of the great writers of our time, Amos Oz explores the vicissitudes of life within a rural Israeli village in “Scenes from Village Life”, exploring universal themes of loneliness, fear, despair and love on an intimate stage that should resonate with readers around the globe. While he succeeds in exploring some of the difficult issues with regards to Israel’s right to exist and its uneasy co-existence with its Pal...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Kara rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

That 3 is only because i like the authors style. besides that, i would give this a 1. the stories are good but there is absolutely no resolution within the stories. so i looked up any info to see if the author gave "background" about his writing. he says they are just stories about the very human part of human nature. i get that. but there is NO - i can't say it enough- NO resolution. also if this is an allegory of modern day israel, i wouldn't have known it if it bit me. (my own uninformed self...more

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title link	preview: תמונות מחיי הכפר / Temunot me-ḥaye ha-kefar
avg rating	preview: תמונות מחיי הכפר / Temunot me-ḥaye ha-kefar Goodreads rating: 3.64 (286 ratings)
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תמונות מחיי הכפר / Temunot me-ḥaye ha-kefar

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