Far Away, So Close

AT ONE POINT IN 2002, with the ten-sion between Israel and Palestine at a peak, Palestinian eacute;migreacute; writer Samir El-youssef called up Israeli writer Etgar Keret to talk. Both writers wanted to do something about the violence, but felt that there was no point in customary gestures. So they decided to bring their countries together symbolically in the form of a book. And so Keret, Israel8217;s best-known short-story writer, supplied a sheaf of stories, and El-youssef provided a novella, 8216;The Day The Beast Got Thirsty8217;, for the collaborative venture Gaza Blues.

Although Keret works in the absurdist tra-dition, and El-youssef broadly in the realist, Gaza Blues might be said to possess an un-derlying unity. Even their characters might be said to be like-minded souls, brothers across borders. Although the societies of both writ-ers valorise heroism and sacrifice, the people of Gaza Blues are anti-heroes, engrossed with petty personal problems and with their eyes glazed over with dreams and longings. Both writers are gently subversive of na-tionalist preoccupations, the primacy in life of politics and political rhetoric. Keret8217;s story 8216;Ninety8217; opens with the news that a military court has sentenced an Arab soldier to death. 8220;And because of that the evening news went on till ten-thirty,8221; complains the narrator, 8220;and they didn8217;t show 8216;Moonlighting8217;.8221; El-youssef8217;s narrator, the ineffectual drug addict Bassem, is tired of having everyone talk to him about 8220;the cause8221;, and wants above all a visa for Germany.

Keret8217;s style takes a path radically different from those of the other giants of Israeli litera-ture: Amos Oz, AB Yehoshua, David Gross-man, or Aharon Appelfeld. His silverquick stories are typically no more than two or three pages long, his language is determinedly anti-literary, and his characters all a bit crazy. His work is full of simple patter and zany flights of imagination into which we may or may not read deeper meanings.

In 8220;Vacuum Seal8221;, the incompetent soldier Alon fails a vacuum-sealing test, receives a public dressing-down, and is asked to repeat the exercise. That night Alon vacuum-seals himself, insulating himself from the world, and is greatly excited with the results. Is this a metaphor for the citizen8217;s longing to escape from a traumatic reality, or are we just dealing with a goofy soldier? Keret likes to work on this plane.

Even so, Keret is not represented here by his best stories8212;8220;Shooting Clint8221;, 8220;Pipes8221;. But El-youssef is at the top of his game in his sinuous novella, a tale of bewilderment and gentle pathos. Bassem, who is usually so stoned that 8220;I did not know where I was going to, nor coming from, nor whether, in the first place, I was going or coming8221;, is shown wan-dering in and out across the lines of the four or five characters who comprise his universe. Readers will hear his puzzled voice long after they have shut the pages of Gaza Blues.