The People of Forever Are Not Afraid in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 26, 2012 Jeff Scott rated it it was amazing

Shelves: e-book, fiction, war, israel

The People of Forever are not afraid follow the lives of Yael, Avishag, and Lea growing up as part of the Israeli Defense Force. It's a very surreal experience to someone who doesn't have enemies at the borders using everything in their power to kill you, even children carrying RPGs. Even though this book is a novel, it reads like a series of short stories. It really heightens the experience and the author knows how to take each story and weave it wonderfully together. She has excellent comman

The People of Forever are not afraid follow the lives of Yael, Avishag, and Lea growing up as part of the Israeli Defense Force. It's a very surreal experience to someone who doesn't have enemies at the borders using everything in their power to kill you, even children carrying RPGs. Even though this book is a novel, it reads like a series of short stories. It really heightens the experience and the author knows how to take each story and weave it wonderfully together. She has excellent command of metaphor mirroring the sometimes surreal life of a solider.

What I really loved about the story was how she can use the specific circumstance, whether it was guarding a security fence, or training a solider to shoot straight, to make the story a metaphor for the characters own life. It encapsulates the feeling of being there connecting one feeling to another providing a very fresh perspective. Some of their duties are surreal and mundane, like watching a screen or watching a phone that won't ring, and it suddenly becomes a symbol for life at certain intervals. The starting, the stopping, the nothing of waiting, it's all captured wonderfully in this book. It also shows that while many films and books can vilify Israeli soldiers at check-points that job is awful for them too. It emphasizes the terrible situation as well what happens when their tour of duty is over. What is there for them to do next? What happens now?

The core of it is someone going through mundane, pointless, and sometimes cruel tasks and the only way to get through it all, is with a very vivid imagination. Many of the stories reminded me of O'Brien's The Things They Carried. It seems like many of the stories are biographical, or people the author knew, but using the fictional technique enhances the story and allows the author to go much deeper with her stories. The chapters like short stories can slow the narrative, but the intensity in that chapter makes up for it. Everything has a linear arc leading to a sometimes soft message and sometimes a shocking, demonstrating the complexity of the situation, a highly engaging and riveting work.

Favorite Parts:
"It seems he is only interested in killing himself, and slowly. He doesn't care about killing me. It makes me sad that he cares about himself more than about me. Say I am just not being realistic, but it still makes me sad when people are like that. Most people are like that. Dan was like that, in the end. Only interested in killing himself. p. 25

"The mask protects me. They cannot see my face. They cannot see my mouth. They do not know that it was me who made the sound. If I scream, if I scream right now, a deafening and smashing and muted scream, there is a chance, there is always a small chance that no one will ever know it was me. It will be the sound of all girls screaming." p. 27

He was so ashamed of how much it hurt, that humdrum, human urge, and of the relief he felt when he finally did pee. Of how empty he felt afterward. As if he had emptied out who he was and all he had to show for it was a puddle of urine and a doormat for a bed and a locked door. P. 80

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