THE CONTINUING SILENCE OF A POET –
A. B. YEHOSHUA
THE CONTINUING
SILENCE OF A POET
The Collected Stories of A. B. Yehoshua
Paperback, 1988
£10.99, 358pp, 1 870015 72 X
A. B. Yehoshua was nominated for
This new edition of A.
B. Yehoshua’s novellas and short stories includes two stories which did
not previously appear in the hardback edition published in 1988, and no
longer includes 'Mr. Mani' which, in the intervening years, has been
developed into a prize-winning novel.
The development of the author’s style can be traced from its dark
beginnings in stories such as ‘The Yatir Evening Express’, about a
village which decides to vent its frustration at its isolation and
insignificance on the evening express.
Isolation and loneliness are central to Yehoshua’s concerns, whether it
be people’s isolation from each other, from their community or from
their family. The pain of this isolation is intense, as in the title story
in which the distance between an ageing poet and his simple son is
agonising. In ‘Facing the Forests’, a fire-watcher’s isolation gives
rise to deep longings for tragedy –
a story which has since been seen to symbolise the relationship between
Jew and Arab in Israel.
Several of the stories deal with people thrust into positions of
responsibility and the feelings of frustration and impotence which ensue
are disturbing –
murderous even. In ‘Three Days and a Child’, a man agrees to care for
the three-year old son of a former lover. Those three days are marked by a
strange detachment and sadistic, heart-stopping neglect of the child.
The stories are ironic and understated, and the pace masterly. This
collection confirms Yehoshua’s talent as a major short-story writer. He
has been awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for his entire œuvre.
‘…for Yehoshua has found a way of writing inside that no-man’s land
where the perception of objective reality and private dream or
hallucination jostle for position. Reading his stories you realise that
this shifting between real and unreal is not peculiar to his characters.
It is actually what goes on in our heads most of the time. I don’t know
any writer who has transcribed this phenomenon so economically.’
Victoria Glendinning, The
Sunday Times
‘The originality
of these stories, their characters, and the emotions they express so
precisely and movingly have remained so clearly in my mind that I feel
justified in taking risks. I was as moved and impressed by them as when I
read Mann’s Death in Venice and some of Chekhov.’
Susan
Hill, New Statesman
‘It seems typical of this highly talented Israeli writer that we are
left with more questions than answers after reading what he has to tell us
and that the most urgent and disturbing questions are always more
suggested by his work than stated in it.’
Robert
Nye, The Guardian
‘Yehoshua himself
emerges through the collection as a writer of borderline states: he
describes near—madness, near-death, near-sadism. People living under
continual threat of war toy with their fantasies until they bring them to
life. They succumb to a detachment that verges on cruelty or to a love
that verges on masochism. They regard their lives with restrained despair,
while secretly longing for tragedy and resolution. Yehoshua explores all
this with understated formality and a difficult and moving honesty.’
Nicci
Gerard, The Observer
‘Yehoshua . . .
is very much the enfant terrible whose stories evoke the dreadful
silence of a people who live on the edge of destruction. Paradoxically,
Yehoshua — like his literary Doppelgänger Amos Oz —is today a
Grand Old Man of Israeli letters.’
Bryan
Cheyette, The Times
Literary Supplement
‘…a
considerable œuvre.’
Andrew
Sinclair, The Times
‘Even at his most
prosaic, Yehoshua’s vision remains dark and menacing but this can be
conveyed to powerful and haunting effect, as in ‘The Last Commander’,
an offering to rank with the greatest of war stories. A welcome and far
from silent collection.’
Seamus
Finnegan, The Jewish
Chronicle
‘Yehoshua makes
great art out of seemingly unpromising characters and situations.’
David
Aberbach, The Jewish Quarterly
Read
an article about A. B. Yehoshua from The Guardian
Read
an article about A. B. Yehoshua from The Independent
Read
an article about Yehoshua's life and fiction from The Jewish Quarterly
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titles by A .B. Yehoshua
