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The Imaginary Number: Short Stories
English, Hebrew (translation)
144 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1986
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September 25, 2015The Imaginary Number (1986) is a collection of surrealistic short stories, which was intended, back then, to introduce the Israeli writer, Yitzhak Oren (1918-2007), to an English-speaking audience. I was privileged to translate some of the stories (about a third of the book), but do not want to revisit a translation that I did almost 30 years ago (no, I do not and never did get any royalties for this work; translators are quite underpaid and under-appreciated). I would recommend these stories to readers who enjoy the literary challenge of the surreal, but I have refrained from rating this book for obvious reasons.
Permit me to quote from two reviews that appeared at the time of publication. I have only the hard-copy reviews at hand, so excuse me for not including hyperlinks.
Lucia Foster writes (Washington Jewish Week, July 9, 1987, p. 18):
"The stories, written between 1950 and 1983, largely take place in Israel. Although the plots vary—ranging from the discovery of a primitive cat man, to the description of one man's reaction to the Yom Kippur War, to a man's obsession with buttons—each story supports Oren's belief that the real and the fantastic coexist in reality.
In addition, Oren also presents his views on fate, art, Jewish identity and the essence of man. Even though the stories are idea-oriented, they are also enjoyable, often humorous and always challenging."
Clive Sinclair reviewed Oren's book and talked to the author (Jewish Chronicle, August 28, 1987, in the Book Reviews section: "The quintessence of man"):
Sinclair mentioned to Oren that the writer who seems most like him is not Agnon or Singer, but the Argentinean, Jorge Louis Borges. Oren laughed, noting that he had become acquainted with Borges' books in the 60s. Oren then said the following: "I started reading Borges' books and couldn't believe my eyes; how can things be so similar with quite a different background, quite a different culture, quite a different language, different life, different society, everything different? I have a Russian background, I am absolutely sunk in Jewish culture, in Hebrew culture, I read a lot of European literature, and so it's a riddle that the only author with whom I have so much intellectual and literary affinity is after all Borges, which is a paradox."
Permit me to quote from two reviews that appeared at the time of publication. I have only the hard-copy reviews at hand, so excuse me for not including hyperlinks.
Lucia Foster writes (Washington Jewish Week, July 9, 1987, p. 18):
"The stories, written between 1950 and 1983, largely take place in Israel. Although the plots vary—ranging from the discovery of a primitive cat man, to the description of one man's reaction to the Yom Kippur War, to a man's obsession with buttons—each story supports Oren's belief that the real and the fantastic coexist in reality.
In addition, Oren also presents his views on fate, art, Jewish identity and the essence of man. Even though the stories are idea-oriented, they are also enjoyable, often humorous and always challenging."
Clive Sinclair reviewed Oren's book and talked to the author (Jewish Chronicle, August 28, 1987, in the Book Reviews section: "The quintessence of man"):
Sinclair mentioned to Oren that the writer who seems most like him is not Agnon or Singer, but the Argentinean, Jorge Louis Borges. Oren laughed, noting that he had become acquainted with Borges' books in the 60s. Oren then said the following: "I started reading Borges' books and couldn't believe my eyes; how can things be so similar with quite a different background, quite a different culture, quite a different language, different life, different society, everything different? I have a Russian background, I am absolutely sunk in Jewish culture, in Hebrew culture, I read a lot of European literature, and so it's a riddle that the only author with whom I have so much intellectual and literary affinity is after all Borges, which is a paradox."
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