The Blue Mountain by Meir Shalev translated into German by Ruth Achlama

I was recently looking to update my list of recommended Israeli literature reads and from one reference to another, I´ve got The Blue Mountain by Meir Shalev, translated into German by Ruth Achlama as Ein Russischer Roman.  

I always love a good read featuring kibbutzniks as through the story of beginnings one can better understand the present, especially when it comes to the State of Israel. If they will still belong to the future, it is hard to say, but as for now, the kibbutzim - although in a more capitalistically-oriented form - still exist, and their resilience defines the nation. 

Told by Baruch, the third generation kibbutznik who set up a cemetery, it is a multi-generational story of (now) old people with funny ways of being. The characters are full of humour, wild, over-sexual, they love plants and animals. One bull´s name is Jean Valjean.

The story is going back and forth, with a timeline that it´s often confusing. There is not too much happening, as we are took into the story with the imagination of a voyeur: we are watching what the characters are doing - not that much - how they are getting old and dying. Some episodes are funny, some just life - not always exciting. And this takes about 500+ pages to share.

There are clearly parts of this book that I enjoyed, but concision is not the strongest feature of this book. I had some literary expectations - in terms of story structure, character and plot development - that were barely met, but at least I had a great laughs in the company of the kibbutzniks and their stories. Sometimes it may be enough when you are looking to some inspiration for better appreciating the flesh and blood brave kibbutzniks.

PS: Although I usually appreciate the German-speaking edition houses book covers, this time - a  1860 portrait of the French Catholic Louis Auguste Cézanne by Paul Cézanne - was not necessarily an inspired choice by the Swiss edition house Diogenes Verlag.

Adama by Lavie Tidhar

´They´re good boys, but bad things happen in war´.

 

The Hebrew word ´adama´ - earth, do include the word ´dam´ - blood.

Lavie Tidhar´s noir story of Israel, is subversively embracing a different, less romanticized narrative of the country. An inter-generational story that does not act according to the usual back and forth towards the memory lane, with gangster kibbutznik women following revenge until death do us apart. I laughed and had second thoughts and even checked some references that were obviously fictional, intentionally confusing the reader.

In Adama the kibbutzim and their inhabitants are everything we wished they are, and what some of them really were: fierce, boiling revenge, breaking up every single rule, breathing freedom. Tidhar moves with a joyous irony through fragments of Israeli history, with fine irony and historical references made in full honesty.

Ruth, the matriarch of kibbutz Trashim - ´rocky ground´, not ´trash´, but who knows - a fictional location placed in the North of Israel, is the perfect new Jew. A Holocaust survivor from Hungary, hard as stone, fierce. She hates Zohar Argov. Unstoppable even when touched by early setting of dementia. But some things simply cannot be forgotten. 

I always despised the Romantic view on kibbutzim. Pioneers, hard working, patriots. They were all of it and a bit more. Tidhar, a prolific science fiction writer and pulp fiction consumer, instilled life in the usual stereotypical kibbutznik. And how I love the gangster touch of it. After all, history is made by people, people like Ruth and the boys hidding weapons between the freshly harvested vegetables. 

The book is the second installment from the Maror Trilogy, and it was only my personal choice to start with the second one. I will continue with the reviews of the other two books at a later time.

Rating: 5 stars