The Amos Oz Reader: Celebrated Novels and Masterpiece Nonfiction from a Literary Life

by Amos Oz, Nitza Ben Dov, Robert Alter (Foreword)

The Reader draws on Oz’s entire body of work, loosely grouped into four the kibbutz, the city of Jerusalem, the idea of a "promised land," and his own life story. Included are excerpts from his celebrated novels, among them Where the Jackals Howl, A Perfect Peace, My Michael, Fima, Black Box, and To Know a Woman. Nonfiction is represented by selections from Under This Blazing Light, The Slopes of Lebanon, In the Land of Israel, and Oz’s masterpiece, A Tale of Love and Darkness. Robert Alter, a noted Hebrew scholar and translator, has provided an illuminating introduction.

Genres: Fiction

416 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 2009

About the author

Amos Oz (Hebrew: עמוס עוז‎; born Amos Klausner) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. He was also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. He was regarded as Israel's most famous living author.

Oz's work has been published in 42 languages in 43 countries, and has received many honours and awards, among them the Legion of Honour of France, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, the Heinrich Heine Prize and the Israel Prize. In 2007, a selection from the Chinese translation of A Tale of Love and Darkness was the first work of modern Hebrew literature to appear in an official Chinese textbook.

Since 1967, Oz had been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Reviews

[D · Rating 3 out of 5]

Timeless perspective on life in lands of conflict.

The best we can expect in the usual tragic way of conflicts between individuals or between peoples, is a process of adaptation and psychological acceptance accompanied by a slow, painful awakening to reality, burdened with bitterness and reservations that, in the way of human wounds, heal slowly and leave permanent scars.

in Hebrew 'lo el beytam lashuv' = 'not to their home to return'

The Kibbutz at the Present Time -
Here I know a very large number of people, about three hundred. I know them at close range, in a way that you can known someone after twenty years in the same place.

If I lived in London, Tel Aviv, Paris, I could never get to know three hundred people so intimately. Not the 'literary milieu,' not intellectual or academic or artistic circles, but different people: women, men, old folk, toddlers.

There are more problems in the world than solutions. In the nature of things, there are more problems in the world than solutions. Conflict, generally speaking, is not resolved, it gradually subsides, or it doesn't, and you live with it, and the flesh that has been pierced by a painful splinter grows back over it and covers it up. This is the truth the kibbutz has learned in recent years. It is becoming less fanatical, less dogmatic, it is a society that is learning the wisdom, indulgence, and patience of age. I am pleased to see how the kibbutz has learned to react calmly, patiently, almost shrewdly to exceptions and oddities, to changing times and tastes, as if it has whispered to itself: "So be it for the time being; now let's wait and see."

"It's always unhappy people who say unkind things."

"Student rhymes with prudent."

... the tranquility of waking to twilight, when time seems soft and I am tender and things around are tender.

When you grow up, steer clear of the tyrant 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 finely tuned sense of moderation.

Imagine the Other Is a Deep and Subtle Human Pleasure
upon acceptance of the Goethe Prize

I believe that imagining the other is a powerful antidote to fanaticism and hatred. I believe that books that make us imagine the other may make us more immune to the ploys of the devil, including the inner devil, the Mephisto of the heart.
[Mephistophales: an evil spirit to whom Faust, in the German legend, sold his soul, to gain knowledge and power

The name may be a combination of three Greek words: μή (mḗ) as a negation, φῶς (phō̃s) meaning "light", and φιλις "philis" meaning "loving", making it mean "not-light-loving", possibly parodying the Latin "Lucifer" or "light-bearer."]

Imagining the other is not only an aesthetic tool. Also, it is, in my view, a major moral imperative. Imagining the other - if you promise not to quote this little professional secret - imagining the other is a deep and very subtle human pleasure.

[Edith]

I enjoyed Oz's evocative style. This collection of exerpts from his works make me want to read them someday.