Journey to the End of the Millennium

I read "A Journey to the End of the Millenium" several months ago and even now it still sits clearly etched in my mind as one of the most enjoyable and astounding reads in recent memory. I recommended it to one very special friend and she too felt that way. Yehoshua's gift is to take us back to a time and a place so different than our modern times and gently and humorously and with vivid detail lead us into this world. Nothing is taken for granted and we are introduced to the smells, sights, winds, nature, food,travel and people's attitudes about love, health, death, sex, spirituality, clothes, justice, kindness and everything else that is of importance now and 1,000 years ago. NOthing is omitted. It is so well "painted" that it almost feels as if he was there or at least was talking to his very real characters over time. Yehoshua deals with such spiritual themes as "loshon hora" or evil tongue both between Jews and Jews and Jews and Gentiles, treating one's spouse(s), fair business dealings, Jewish ritual, and justice both religous and civil. He deals with the Ashkenazic/Sephardic relationship in a way that illustrates the deep rootededness of some of the differences. All of this takes place over the course of a trip from the Sephardic regions of North Africa through Spain, France and into Eastern Europe. Of course, it is at the eve of the Crusades and arguably a dark age so the story is fraught with a real sense of danger and adventure. There is also, as I experienced it, a continual dichotomy between the forces of enlightenment and darkness in the story. It is unusual to read a book with enough "soul" to make you feel persoanlly uplifted all wrapped up in a hugely entertaining story. One of the best historical novels I've ever had the pleasure of reading. Obviously the author's humor, style and skill came through the translator perfectly. I wholeheartedly recommend this book and it has started me on a journey of Mr. Yehoshua's work.

Many of the other reviewers here must be too young to understand the important topics at hand. There are too many of them to be discussed here, but let me give you one, just for instance.Why are the names of the wives not revealed? As you get deeper into the novel you realize that the two wives are the same wife, the only wife. A man who truly loves a woman loves her for what she truly is, her essence.If you are an older woman, you will know that you are not just who you are now, but also who you were then, a younger woman still existing in the old, despite appearences. And the carnal and the spiritual exist together in the essence. Also, on another level, this is an historic tale of 999, when many Christians predicted the end of the world and an extermination of non-believers, when many held to the letter of the Holy Scripture as a justification of owning slaves and multiple wives. This book takes a sharp look at the conflict between tradition and the evolution of law, and helps us bring current conflicts into focus.Yehoshua is a something of a magician, a master of misdirection who hides the duality of his intent until the reader is ready. Then everything clicks into place. This is a novel you'll want to read again just to see how he does it.

This novel is one of rich prose, beautifully drawn characters and exotic images. In it, the Yehoshua presents a view of 10th century Europe and the interaction of people unexpectedly flung about by the interactions of their cultural points of view. The sensations are strong: exotic scenes of African culture being transported to Europe, sensual couplings, inter- and intra religious conflict, the destruction of close relationships. In the novel, a Morrocan Jewish merchant, Ben Attar, travels with his two wives to Paris intent on salvaging his personal and business relationship with his nephew, Abulafia, now a resident of Paris and recently married to a Jewess from what is now Germany. Because Ben Attar is a bigamist, Abulafia's wife insists that their business and personal relationship be ended. During the sea voyage to Europe, Yehoshua eloquently describes the culture of the Morrocan Jew: flexible, tolerant and richly sensual. However, when the African and European cultures meet face to face, there are profound and sometimes terrible consequences, some of them never to be reversed. Throughout, the the writing is subtle and elegant, and the book has layer upon layer of meaning which the author leaves to the reader to interpret. Although the book has specific Jewish content, the ideas and story are also secular. It was a treat to read and I was left wanting more. Serious and thought-provoking writing.

Some members of my book group found the language and complex sentence structure challenging or even slow going at first. But my own reaction was that the writing was both beautiful and (presumably) intended to evoke to some degree the profoundly different pace and feeling of life in the 10th century -- and it seems to do so. There is, I think, a subtle strain of humor that challenges a reader to discover it. Note: it is interesting to consider some of the evocations of events that were to occur in the 20th century, particularly the two great wars, and some similarities between this book and Auden's poem "Musee des Beaux Arts", written on the eve of the second World War. The ambiguity of the ending stimulated much discussion. I found it more bleak than others wanted to acknowledge.

This is a wonderful novel by one of the worlds best novelists. Though he is a past master of dialogue of all sorts, here he abandons it to filter everything through the mind of the storyteller. It has the flavor of a romance and through the quixotic main character makes us see how close comedy and tragedy are and how a tiny change of perspective could make a Captain Ahab into a Don Quixote and vice versa. Though it takes place 1000 years ago in the Middle Ages, it is full of implications about the whole nature of identity and the present relations between East and West, law and desire, sexuality and religion, and so on, but all the ideological concerns are presented gracefully and subtly, so that we remain fascinated, surprised, and delighted by the adventure itself.