Quote:
Originally Posted by Bookpossum
I am still getting over the pain of it - as of course is Amos Oz.
|
same here!
I loved this book! I have to admit I had to grind through the first 27 chapters - this were of course very personal memories, but I could not empathize with the long lists of names which were nothing more than lists of names, with I am sure a lot of meaning for Oz, but which left me clueless. It felt like a private diary more than a memoir. Then, more or less coinciding with the end of Aunt Sonia's recollections, something clicked for me, the style changed, we got much more into the tragedy of Oz's family and of the war of independence, and it just grabbed me.
Towards the end I found Oz's opening up on such intimate sorrow almost pornographically obscene: just give me a warning, what if I don't want to know, what if I don't want to watch your personal world disintegrate?! And he is forensic in exploring feelings, but does so in such a beautiful writing, what is there not to like? Wonderful, haunting book.
There is humour, too, and when Amos and his dad go planting on their kriptonite hard "patch" I just could not stop laughing. Yet when I hit the family picture, a lump made itself very comfy in my throat...