The Hill of Evil Counsel: Three Stories Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange in Collaboration with the Author

Amos Oz tells us 3 simple stories where there is a slight connection, a little boy. That in fact isn't the most important thing in all this. The fact that the first history tell us about the start of the life of a Jew family in Jerusalem in the 40s, the second the beginning of the first signs, very slight, of resistance to the English occupation and the third a story of a sick young man and the organization of the neighbors to the eminent put out of the British. The official life of Israel seems to be their as the little distraction like commercial on the TV but is that that flows all the stories on this three novels.

Amos Oz tells us 3 simple stories where there is a slight connection, a little boy. That in fact isn't the most important thing in all this. The fact that the first history tell us about the start of the life of a Jew family in Jerusalem in the 40s, the second the beginning of the first signs, very slight, of resistance to the English occupation and the third a story of a sick young man and the organization of the neighbors to the eminent put out of the British. The official life of Israel seems to be their as the little distraction like commercial on the TV but is that that flows all the stories on this three novels

This is a series of three stories, all of which share the same time period and location, Jerusalem just prior to the departure of the British in 1948. The characters all encompass the same sense of destiny, fear and the unknown surrounding the birth of the tiny new nation, Israel. The strange small,large boy, Uri, is encircled by a conflicting group of newly arrived immigrants and activists seeking to establish themselves in the forth-coming battle against the British and then the Arabs. This is a grandly-woven tapestry of intricate misfits, humor and history. In wonder, a non-Israeli asks, "How does she (Israel) do it?--How does this worn-out, barren old girl make them all fall madly in love with her? I was once in southern Persia: exactly the same miserable hills, dotted with gray rocks, with a few olive trees and pieces of old pottery. Nobody crossed half the world to conquer them." Told with affection, the question is the very essence of the book.