80 Friday, September 18, 1981
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Oz Paints Dark Picture of Land of Milk and Honey
By BETTE ROTH
Amos Oz is a brilliant and
disturbing Israeli writer.
For American Jews filled
with spirit and hope, Oz's
portrayal of Israeli society
is most difficult to accept.
But Israel is, after all, a
frontier state trying val-
iantly to become a habitat
for uninterrupted civilized
life. And while Americans
view the frontier with a
romantic eye, Oz sees it as
starkly brutal, an environ-
ment fit for wild beasts.
"'The Jackals Howl and
Other Stories" (Harcourt,
Brace, Jovanovich) is a pro-
vocative and terrifying col-
lection of eight stories writ-
ten between 1962 and 1966.
While locale and time
period differ from story to
story, all share the cry of the
jackal, reminding any who
care to listen how very
fragile is the division be-
tween life and death in the
Israeli experience.
Two devastating mes-
sages come from the pages
of this collection: One, that
somehow, that society
under siege, a witness to
bloodshed and unexpected
violent death for so many
, years, has laid waste the
human soul, leaving a
community of walking
wounded, either physically
or psychicly, bereft of vision
or hope, of intimacy or love.
And two, that this same
society has made predators
of her citizens and soldiers,
not unlike the jackals with
which they share the
stories.
only source of companion-
ship in a Jerusalem he saw
as silent and desolate, the
silence "roaming the streets
outside and plucking nee-
dles from the top of the pine
trees in the garden."
He is described as a grey
man with a grey voice. His
favored son had been
drowned in enemy territory
to be mangled by the jackals
before his brigade had the
chance to recover him:
Jackals as we know, live
on and among the dead:
Slowly, like black-robed
priests in a ceremony of
mourning, they will ap-
proach the young man's
corpse in no man's land.
With agile steps, as if cares-
sing, not treading, the dust
of the earth .. .
Oz endows his jackals
with almost human traits.
They are not pretty beasts;
neither are the central
charr cters in the collection,
more than a few of whom
share the frightening pred-
atory characteristics of the
jackals whose geographical
space they share.
Lily Dannenberg, men-
tioned earlier, is described
as a 42-year-old divorcee on
whose lips "there is a 'per-
manent and fascinating un-
ease . . . A simple modest
ring seems to accentuate
the lonely and pensive qual-
ity of her long fingers.
Lily is, in fact, a predator.
Our first awareness of this
comes when she see an alley
cat one evening. She
strokes the cat, telling it,
"You're happy, now you're
Oz describes the char-
acters in "Strange Fire":
Yosef Yarden is a
widower. Lily Dannenberg
is a divorcee whose ex-
husband died of a broken
heart or jaundice, less than
three months after the di-
vorce. Even Dr. Klein-
berger, Egyptologist and
stoic, a marginal figure, is
an aging bachelor. Needless
to say he has no children. •
Batya Pinski in "A'Hol-
low Stone" has been
widowed for years. She is
called Baba Yaga, the old
witch, by the children of the
kibutz in which she lives,
for she has "gone down hill"
ever since her lover married
another woman. She tends
her aquarium of cold-
blooded fish, her only com-
panions in the kibutz.
Dov Sirkin is described in
"Before His Time" as living
in Jerusalem, old and alone.
He had left his wife and
daughter and the kibutz to
wander first to Haifa and
then into the mines. He
found his final dwelling
place in Jerusalem where
he became increasingly
more ill and increasingly
more alone.
His drawings were his
BETTE ROTH
happy . . . And what's more
you're stupid as well."'
Suddenly, the cat shud-
dered and stirred uneasily.
Perhaps he guessed or only
half-sensed what was com-
ing. A yellow slit opened in
his face, the wink of an eye,
a fleeting glimmer. Then
her fist rose, made a wide
sweep in the air, and struck
a violent blow at the belly of
the cat.. .
Lily walks to the home of
her daughter's fiance and
lures him out into the night.
She seduces him and de-
stroys forever the one hope-
ful relationship in the story.
Oz introduces the reader
to this brutal kind of per-
sonality in the title story.
Matityahu Daniov is a
small man, thin and dark,
all bone and sinew. His eyes
are narrow and sunken, his
cheekbones slightly curved,
his body, "a cunning piece of
craftsmanship." He is ob-
sessed with the jackals
whom he resembles.
Galila, a child of the
kibutz, is both nauseated
and amused by Daniov and
is fascinated with his ugli-
ness. But Matityahu is a
predator who "swooped
upon her, clapped his hand
over her mouth, dragged
her back inside the room,"
and told her that he was her
real father. Then he seduced
her.
These two characters are
utterly terrifying and ap-
pear in one form or another
in other works by Oz. We
can only question his seem-
ing obsession with the ex--
treme pathologies of life.
Two of his characters are
predator-warriors, though
one lives in the present, the
other in biblical times.
Itchen, according to Nahum
Hirsch, a medical orderly in
the story entitled "A Trap-
pist Monastery," was the
military unit's pride. He
was "a King." Everyone
loved him and "bore every-
thing in silence." For Itchen
was both a bully and a hero:
In the course of one raid
he leapt alone into a cave
where dozens of enemy
soldiers were entrenched.
He so terrified them with
his ferocious blood-curdling
yells that they melted away
before him as he darted
among the murky rifle pits,
throwing in hand grenades.
Petrified by astonishment
or horror, the enemy troops
gape themselves up as if
mesmerized to the bursts of
fire from his machine gun
above his head.
Itchen let his beard grow
wild. The hair on his head
was thick and matted and
seemingly always to be full
of dust. His beard began at
his temples and almost met
his thick eyebrows, flowing
down over his cheeks and
neck and merging without a
break into the bear's fur
that covered his chest and
arms and perhaps the whole
of his body.
When asked by Nahum if
he planned to be a profes-
sional soldier, Itchen re-
plied that on the contrary,
in another year he would be
discharged, would marry
his sister off, and "live like a
human being at last."
"And you haven't lived
like a human being up to
now?" "Like a dog," said
Itchen with weary anger.
The dogs and the humans
are interchangeable in
these nightmare stories.
Jepthah, the bastard son of
Gilead the Ammonite, ap-
pears in the last story
entitled, "Upon the Evil
Earth." The story is a retel-
ling of the story of Jepthah,
the judge of the ancient Is-
raelites. As will be recalled,
he led Israel into victory
over the Ammonites and
had to sacrifice his daughter
as a consequence.
Jepthah was born facing
the desert. Alone, he
roamed for years and was
finally accepted as a
member of a band of
nomads, "malcontents or
outcasts," in the land of Tob.
When asked whom did he
worship, he replied, "The
Lord of the wolves in the
from- the beginning, as in-
tegral to the geography as
the hamsin (desert wind)
and the sun?
All eight stories end with
no resolution, leaving the
reader with troubling ques-
tions.
Are we witness to the
figments of a morbid, over-
worked imagination, or are
desert at night. In the image
of his hatred am I made."
In the course of time, he
joined these men in fight
"against their attackers and
joined them in several raids
on the settled lands:
They slipped by night
through the fences of the
farms flitting like ghosts
within. The slain died si-
lently and the killers stole
as silently away . . . And
Jepthah rose ever higher
among them because he was
endowed with the.attributes
of lordship. He had the
power to impose his will on
others, without a move-
ment, a voice alone.. -
Jepthah fmally joined the
Israelites against. his
father's tribe and made a
bargain with the Lord that
he would sacrifice the first
person to come to him after
victory. That person was his
daughter, the only woman
he ever really loved. The
story of the sacrifice is, in
effect, the Binding of Isaac
with a grim twist.
When Jepthah had "set
up an altar upon one of the
mountains and the fire and
the knife were in his
hands," he said to the Lord:
You have chosen me of all
my brothers and dedicated
me to your service. You
shall have no other servant
before me. Here is the dark
beauty under my knife: I
have not withheld my only
daughter from you. Grant
me a sign, for surely you are
tempting your servant.
But for Jepthah there was
no mercy; there was no last
moment substitution. He
had to kill his beloved only
child. For six years more
he ruled the Israelites and
then he retreated, alone to
the desert:
Fora whole year Jepthah
dwelt alone in a cave in the
land of Tob. He studied all
the night sounds which
came up from the wilder-
ness inhere the desert bris-
tled, until he could utter
them all themself and then
he decided: enough.
Jepthah and lichen are
predator warriors, linked
together by the continuum
of Jewish history. What
message is Oz trying to send
and to whom? Is he suggest-
ing that Israel has always
had to produce predator-
warriors? That the siege we
see in this century has been,
in fact, an indestructible
element of the land's history
AMOS OZ
t.'he stories meant to be used
as a magnifying glass for all
who still believe in the
dream, for those who be-
lieve that Israel is a land of
milk and honey where
kibutzniks dance joyou,sly
arm-in-arm into the
shadows of dawn?
• • •
"SOUMCHI, A NOVEL"
(Harper and Row) is at first
glance, the story of an 11-
year-old boy and his adven-
tures with his bike. But
while it is described by the
publishers as a "warm,
funny story about the real
and imaginary life of an
11-year-old boy" in
Jerusalem just after World
War II, it really isn't warm
and it certainly isn't funny.
-
author's voice, no doubt, an-
swers "politely furious":
It makes' no difference.
Perhaps the Arabs called
themselves Jebusites or
Canaanites in those days
and the British were called
the Philistines. But so
what? Our enemies- may
keep changing their mask
but they keep persecuting
us just thesame. All our fes-
tivals prove it. The same
enemies. The same wars, on
and on. Almost without a
break.
These two statements in
conjunction with Oz's col-
lection of "adult" stories
seem to be telling the same
tale: that for the Israeli,
time since biblical days is
not measured by successful
victories but rather as a
continuous continuity of
sorrow and siege, with_ no
escape in sight, not even for
an 11-year-old boy.
Soumchi dreams of run-
ning away to Africa or to the
Himalayas. He sees his bi-
cycle as the vehicle for es-
cape. But his parents have
confined him to an area
enclosed by five streets. And
he is told to stay away from
Genie Street as well, be-
cause "it is too full of the
comings and goings of the
British drivers . .
whether they are intoxi-
cated or the enemies of Is-
rael, or both, is immate-
ria"
And Soumchi, as all of the
central characters in the
novels of Oz, is utterly
alone. He sees his peers as
enemies and when he tries
to befriend them they trick
him into trading his bike for
a worthless exchange.
Soumchi is a precocious
Soumchi is wise beyond
child whose anger informs his years and exhibits an in-
the tale. He tells us early on trospection not found in an
about his Uncle Zemach . average children's story-.
who gave him a bicycle on Were he a teenager, we
his birthday which falls be-
might expect such state-
tween "two festivals — of ments as "Esthie hates me.
Passover and Shavout." But Perhaps worse than hates,
in Uncle Zemach's eyes:
she never thinks of me at
All festivals are more or
all."
less the same, except for the
But Soumchi is, after all,
Tree Planting 'Festival
only 11-years old and while
we might smile when read-
which he treats with excep-
tional respect. He used to
ing this bit of philosophiz-
ing, it is a bittersweet smile
say, 'At Hanuka we chil-
dren of Israel are taught in
at best: "Everything
school to be angry with the
changes," says Soumchi:
wicked Greeks. At Purim,
it's the Persians; at
Passover we hate Egypt; at-
Lag b'Omer, Rome . . . -
The Tree Planting Festi-
val is the only one where we
haven't quarreled with
anyone and have no griefs to
remember. But it almost
always ruins then — it does
it on purpose.
My friends and acquain-
tances, forexample, change
curtains and professions,
exchange old homes for new
ones, shares for securities,
or vice versa, bicycles for
motor bicycles, motor bicy-'
ties for cars, exchange
stamps, coins, letters, good
mornings, ideas and opin-
ions: some of them ex-
Soumchi and his uncle change smiles.
agree. They seem to see
"Even while we are re-
their existential experience flecting on it, by the way,"
as one uninterrupted his- he continues, -"the world
tory of grief and strife. about us is gradually chang-
ing too." These words open
Soumchi has a conversation
with "Engineer Inbar," the the book. It is closed with a
series of 'whys?':
father of his secret admira-
"Why didEngineer Inbar
tion, Esthie. They are "dis-
fall
ill? Why does every-
cussing the state of the
thing change in the world?
country."
Engineer Inbar tells And why since we happen to
Soumchi that the "Bible be asking questions, why,
promises us the whole land. now that I'm grown up, am I
But the Bible was written at - still here and not among the
one period, whereas we live Himalaya- Mountains and
in quite another." • not in the land of Obangi-
Soumchi, speaking in the - Shari?"