“Motti” by Asaf Schurr (Dalkey Archives, 2011) $13.95
“Heatwave and Crazy Birds” by Gabriela Avigur-Rotem, 2011) $15.95
Two new novels by Israeli authors have recently been published in the Dalkey Archive Press Hebrew Literature Series. The first, “Motti” by Asaf Schurr is a low-key tale of a stereotypical loser. Motti, an elementary school teacher, lives alone with his dog, Laika. The only excitement in his life comes from his daydreams about falling in love with his neighbor and his regular Wednesday night outings with his friend Menachem. Menachem, on the other hand, is a boisterous drinker with a wife and two children. When, on the way home from the café, Menachem hits and kills a woman, Motti doesn’t think twice about claiming responsibility for the accident. After all, Menachem has a family to support. Motti has nothing.
Sentenced to prison, Motti misses his dog but continues to dream about his neighbor, listen to the stories of one of the prison guards and receive visits from Menachem for a while. Prison, it seems, is very similar to Motti’s life in the outside world in its lack of excitement. Schurr’s gentle depiction of a gentle man gives the reader a very different picture of a passive Israeli who does a good deed for which he is severely punished.
In Gabriela Avigur-Rotem’s “Heatwave and Crazy Birds,” a not-so-young woman is returning to Israel more than 25 years after she ran away. Loya Kaplan has inherited from her father’s colleague and friend the house in which she grew up. And it appears that most of her school friends are still living in the same neighborhood — some married, some divorced, and all curious about where she has been for 25 years. As the novel unfolds, the reader learns of Loya’s complicated relationships with her father, his friend Davidi, and Davidi’s son Nahum.
This is the story of a woman trying to recover her life, discovering the history of her parents during the Holocaust, reconnecting with her best friend, Ora. This is not an easy book. The author’s prose is beautiful and beautifully translated by Dalia Bilu, one of Israel’s preeminent translators of Hebrew to English. However, Loya’s story is revealed in fits and starts, interspersed with her memories of archaeology, which her father taught her, and intertwined with the birds that come to her house. This novel of a woman whose roots have withered will, however, reward the patient reader; and what Loya eventually discovers will make the reading journey worth the time it takes.
Andrea Kempf, a librarian at the Billington Library at Johnson County Community College, has reviewed books for many publications, including Library Journal and The Jewish Chronicle.
