A Tale of Love and Darkness

This book is intelligent, witty, heartfelt, appealing, and troubling. The author touches on many simple things of everyday life that make his life story unique and have affected his writing. With his superb prose, he puts readers in his own situation thereby giving a sense of what it must have felt like to live the life of Amos Oz. There are precious reminiscences, my favorite being his parents and himself on the one phone line from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv simply giving a weekly hello to relatives. He relates his deep shame at having inadvertently harmed a young Arab boy, what it was like to celebrate the night of Israel's Independence, his experience of being ushered out of an auditorium after laughing at Menachem Begin's use of the word "to arm", how in awe he felt in the presence of David Ben Gurion, how he became aware of his own political leanings, and the difficulty of carving out his own place in kibbutz life. He also opened his soul in revealing the anguish of his mother's illness and the pain of her death. I love Oz's writing. It's very passionate, but often in an understated way. This is a truly special book. Enjoy it.

As I wrote yesterday, but deleted because I don't use my real name, this book is everything the news and customers have posted. I will only add this WARNING. Those of you, who, like myself, read about this book as the story of his mother's suicide, have been given a slanted idea about " A Tale of Love and Darkness." Yes, his mother's suicide is here, but far more than that. As others have said better than I: It's a history of Palestine (pre-Israel), the autobiography of a writer, the way that European Jews experienced lower class/lower middle class life Palestine in the late 30's, early 40's, and all the myriad influences and people that created the great Amos Oz, who is surprisingly modest throughout. REALLY modest. Yes, as others have said, Oz is my favorite author. BUT, no one should imagine that this will be an easy read, because it is not. It isn't written to excite;is not plot-driven but meditative and far-ranging, as well as non-linear. It differs from Oz' other work, both novels and non-fiction, in that way. It is a long march and the reader must do some hard work to keep up with chronology and mostly to keep one's interest going. Do not buy this because of a few sensationalist views. Buy this, and yes, I too believe it is a MASTERPIECE, truly AMAZING-- if you are interested in: writing, Israel, Kibbutz life, in exile and hope, in situational despair, in character portraits, and in Oz himself. His mother's death IS utterly wrenching but hardly the main story and his father comes to life through Oz' genius, as well as his unhappy O how unhappy mom. Also, beware that because he meanders hither and yon, when her death happens it hurts, man o does it! During the second section and esp on the last pages I was sobbing, as her life's end is overwhelmingly sad. But whoever I first read claiming this is the story of his mother, I believe was wrong. It is a HUGE travel and the reader needs energy to keep going, to keep interested until at some point, one is simply hooked. I recommend this book highly but for experienced readers only, not looking for a quick fix, nor a page turner. For those who want a panoramtic and highly detailed tale, yes buy this and work it. I'm so glad Amos Oz dared to write a book so different from his other ones as he is a private man, a great one, and he got so much right here. Dig in and don't expect to love it all, not at the beginning. I remember almost every vignette now but it took three tries to get 'in'.

This is one of the best modern works, that I have picked up in a while. Well written (Oz writes with his soul), a true tale of love, growing up & developing. Oz is a real master. Do not hesitate, pick this one up and enjoy. This book flows like water, it is a great story told by a great man!

The child of Ashkenazi Jews who escaped to Jerusalem just before the outbreak of World War II, Amos Klausner (the author's original name) grew up in a scholarly family which encouraged his precocity. His great uncle Joseph was Chair of Jewish History at Hebrew University of Jerusalem and wrote his magnum opus about Jesus of Nazareth. His father read sixteen or seventeen languages, wrote poetry, and had an enormous library, while his mother spoke four or five languages, could read seven or eight, and told elaborate stories. Amos grew up a solitary child, encouraged to entertain himself while his parents worked. Always a writer at heart, he believed that "it was not enough for me to be intelligent, rational, good, sensitive, creative." He often felt he was a "one-child show...a non-stop performance," always on display to the relatives, his accomplishments never seeming to be enough. In this elaborate, non-linear autobiography, Oz and his family are seen as archetypal immigrants to Jerusalem, people who arrived when the land was still under British rule and who helped create a new homeland, arguing ferociously about the direction the country should take and the leaders who should lead it. The history of Jerusalem combines with the author's own genealogical records and his memories about his early family life to create a broad picture of the society in which he grew up and in which his writing talent took root. Detailed, highly descriptive, and filled with introspection about his unusual life, the book shows the tensions within the society and within his family. After his mother's suicide when he was twelve, he broke with his father, joined a kibbutz, and, at fifteen changed his name. His observations about himself in relation to his peers and in relation to the outside world, even at that young age, show his inner turmoil and determination to discover a personal identity. As the book moves back and forth in time, the author comments about his writing, the people who influenced him, and his "pickpocketing," his "stealing" of the lives of real people in order to invent stories about them. His observations about Israel, its leaders, its never-ending wars with the Arabs, and his experience as a resident of a kibbutz for more than thirty years broaden the scope and provide insight into one man's life in this developing country. Obviously a huge achievement for Oz personally, this is also a huge contribution to the understanding of the growth of a Jewish homeland and to an understanding of how Oz became the writer he is. Much more detailed and leisurely than Oz's novels, this is slow but satisfying reading for those who admire his novels. Mary Whipple

A number of long- time readers of Amos Oz have said that this is by far his greatest work and a true masterpiece. They say his evocation of the Jerusalem world of the thirties and forties is unmatched. That his description of his problematic and tremendously interesting intellectually overcharged family is done with dignity and distance which is nonetheless heartwarming. They say that Oz born to the right and having lived his political life largely as champion of the left provides a balanced picture of the fundamental political argument which has divided the Israeli public for years. They say that this story of a family is also one of the most convincing evocations of the early years of Israel . They speak of it as a gripping, moving read from start to finish. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------