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"A couple, long married, are spending an unaccustomed week apart. Ya'ari, an engineer, is busy juggling the day-to-day needs of his elderly father, his children, and his grandchildren. His wife, Daniela, flies from Tel Aviv to East Africa to mourn the death of her older sister. There she confronts her anguished brother-in-law, Yirmiyahu, whose soldier son was killed six years earlier in the West Bank by "friendly fire." Yirmiyahu is now managing a team of African researchers digging for the bones of man's primate ancestors as he desperately strives to detach himself from every shred of his identity, Jewish and Israeli." "With great artistry, A. B. Yehoshua has once again written a rich, compassionate, rewarding novel in which sharply rendered details of modern Israeli life and age-old mysteries of human existence echo one another in complex and surprising ways."--BOOK JACKET.… (more)
User reviews
This story develops as a duet by alternating
The tone of the book is melancholy with a few light moments, though those were brief. The saddest part for me was brother-in-law Yirmiyahu's total rejection of all things Jewish and Israeli. Knowing at the beginning of the book that Yirmiyahu's son had been killed by "friendly fire", the details of what really happened were totally disheartening and led to a pregnant Palestinian woman becoming a symbol of despair for Yirmiyahu as well as myself.
I didn't think I was going to like this book as much as I did. The story moved slowly and into many nooks and crannies (as well as an elevator shaft). By the time I finished it, however, I felt very satisfied with the eight days I shared with Daniela and Amotz.
Ya'ari and Daniela each had specific expectations for the week that they were apart. Events, however, overtook each of them and their weeks were nothing like they expected. Ya'ari and Daniela were buffetted by memories, surprises, preconceived ideas, anger and misunderstanding.
Definately worth reading.