Israeli writer Amos Oz has been so thoughtful and unflinching in bearing witness to his countrys political evolution that there is always the danger of over-investing his fiction with symbolism. The remarkable cover of this collection of loosely connected short stories,therefore,sparks a wild idea: why not read it as if its the first book by a new writer,why not pretend that I know nothing about Oz,about his gritty engagement with the rights and wrongs of Israelis as well as Palestinians,his large body of fiction,his relentless ambition to understand the conflict by imagining the other? Why not push away that back-story and pick up,with a clear slate,this book with a warm,inviting cover of a plate of ripe plums on table set with a blue-and-white tablecloth beyond which we just imagine a Mediterranean idyll? The conceit in that plan of action is put in embarrassing relief very soon. Oz is the kind of writer who makes you wary of being presumptuous about his message and intent,but he does not let you alone either to read his fiction in isolation. As the seven stories set in the presumably fictional village of Tel Illan unfold,Oz teases the reader into recalling all that she knows about him,his writing and his political views,and into constantly searching for that always elusive optimum between this backgrounder and the fictional autonomy of his characters. Tel Illan is a village founded by the pioneers a century ago its as idyllic and as guilt-free,if one can put it like that,as it can get. Its founding needed no Palestinians to be displaced,and it has been prettified in recent years. The new generation is more invested in the knowledge economy,and those who do farm can afford hired foreign labour this is not a place where they worry about money or security. By all accounts,its now a high-end resort town,a place of retirement homes and holiday villas. On weekends,visitors drop by to shop in its boutiques,for furniture,wine,cheese,olives,art. In a walk around the village,and we take many with the characters,one can take in views of tall cypresses shrouded in mist,village folk sitting on their verandas sipping lemonade,jasmine and asparagus growing in gardens. In other words,the kind of life we can recklessly fantasise about. Yet,this perfection is unsettling,not just for the reader but also the characters. In story after story,they worry that there is something that they need to be worrying about,if only they could get a grip on that thought. And just so we know that this worrying ticks to an interior dialogue,a character who is consumed by anxiety is seen by another character in another story looking all normal and affable. Two short stories stand out not only for Ozs mastery of his craft,but also for larger parallels they provoke you to draw about Israel. In Digging,Pesach Kedem,a former member of the Knesset,lives a cantankerous and largely self-contained retired life,along with daughter Rachel. She is a forty-something widow,her husband,who kept the farm running,having died of a cardiac arrest. Her daughters live overseas and whatever upkeep of the acres there is happens because of Adel,a young Arab who is living on the property for the quiet it affords him to pursue his writing. Pesach is determined to be distant from the world outside but he cant stop himself from ranting against the fissures that came in the labour movement. And in this life of healthy abundance,he is also wracked by fears about others selfish agenda. The Arab is an obvious target of his suspicions. Rachels resolute disdain for this talk doesnt deter him one bit: They all hate us. How could they not? If I were them Id hate us too. In fact,Id hate us even without being them. Uncannily,Adel and Pesach both claim to hear sounds of digging underground in the deep of every night. And its,you just know,a matter of time before Rachel,with her fantasies of fleeing Tel Illan,too hears the sound. If the point appears to be that isolation and self-containment cannot keep away the regions unsettledness,in the penultimate story,Singing,a community gathering determinedly tries to drown out the sounds of fighter aircraft. It is a contrived sense of community that is sought to be fostered in the home of a couple trying to move past grieving for their dead son,and you know that all that the singing has done is to drive deeper into their beings the arguments on the mission of the air force planes that had suddenly bubbled up.
