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February 28, 2003/Adar1 26 5763, Vol. 55, No. 27
Art as life - or life as art
VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor
A novelist's deft hand can often plait the complex skeins of life into a cohesive whole, not unlike the baker who braids together strands of yeasty dough into a satisfying loaf.
So journalist Germaine K. Shames takes the multifaceted situation in the Middle East and turns it into a compelling read that gives voice to a variety of characters and viewpoints, capturing in its very in-congruity its very essence.
The Arizona-based writer, who was recognized by the Arizona Commission on the Arts for an early version of her novel, "Between Two Deserts," (MacAdam/Cage, $24 hardcover), turned to fiction when she found her journalistic instincts over-whelmed by the complexities of Middle East politics.
"I went to Jerusalem a journalist and came back a novelist," she writes. "Sometime between the stabbings of old people on Jaffa Road and demise of the militant rabbi, Meir Kahane, I cut my press card to shreds with a pair of cuticle scissors. My carefully measured column inches, aptly called 'hard news,' had failed miserably to capture the region's complex moral climate, the questions posed in equal parts by its beauty and brutality."
So readers are introduced to an intriguing cast of characters, beginning with the mysterious Eve Cavell, a young American poet, drawn to Jerusalem by memories of her beloved grandfather, a fervent Zionist who had entranced his granddaughter with stories of the holy city. There she meets Mozes Koenig, an aging novelist, a Holocaust survivor, who processes life as he creates it in his fictional accounts. And she is invited to dinner at the home of Koenig's friend, Leah Halevi, whose marriage is unraveling as her sons, Amnon and Dov, both Israel Defense Force soldiers, are trying to reconcile their moral idealism with the pressing political realities. And she is beguiled by Salim Mahmoud, a handsome young Palestinian, and is introduced to his sister, Amal, who works at a Palestinian orphanage and dreams of a Palestine that she believes once was.
Shames weaves together their stories with a series of convergences, drawing the reader into their world. Her journalistic objectivity assures the sympathetic nature of her characters and her obvious intent to balance one off the other.
The writing is rudimentary, the story line simple, yet Shames takes the reader into the hearts and minds of those who are not simply observing or writing about the conflict but living it each and every day. It is not great literature, but a worthwhile read and insightful account of a devastating situation.
June Leavitt takes a different tack, writing a searing first person account of everyday life in Israel that begs for disbelief. Could life be this dangerous, this difficult, this sad? Leavitt, an American who made aliyah with her husband more than 20 years ago and lives with her family in the West Bank city of Kiryat Arba, paints an exceedingly distressing portrait.
In "Storm of Terror, A Hebron Mother's Diary," (Ivan R. Dee, $22.50 hard- cover) Leavitt makes her first journal entry on Rosh Hashana, September 2000, when the second Intifada begins. She chronicles the events of the ensuing two and a half years with faultless accuracy, her keen writer's ear and eye recording each horrendous detail.
"On Monday, a 120-mm mortar shell exploded just as two buses went by taking the children of Kfar Drom to school. Three children from one family, the Cohen family, lost their limbs. Orit, 12 years old, had a foot amputated; Israel, 10 years old, lost one leg; Tehilla, 8, lost both legs."
And then, "The next morning, when Ittamar, an 18-year-old boy from a nearby settlement, came to help the people of Kfar Drom put up a security fence, Arab snipers shot off his head."
And later, "Gadi Maresha is dead of bullet wounds." Or, "Arieh Orlanda was murdered in the middle of the night, not far from where Yossi's (Yossi is one of Leavitt's five children) wife and baby lay sleeping."
And on and on.
Leavitt intertwines the stories of her five children in her account, each responding in his or her own way to the escalating violence. One becomes more fervently religious, another more disillusioned, another more ardently Zionistic.
"All people want to do the right thing," she writes in her journal. "But how are we to know what that is? There is such darkness; we live in a fog."
And beyond the un-certainty, moral and other-wise, there is the overwhelm-ing fear.
Phones ring, people jump. Is it a call to report for army duty, or a report of yet another friend or relative injured or dead?
"Even with my angel on my shoulder, I feel fear creeping in," writes Leavitt on Feb. 15, 2002. "Is there anyone, no matter how much faith she has, who doesn't worry about her loved ones? Whoever says they are not frightened is telling a lie. Whoever says they are not deeply concerned for their family is not telling the truth."
Leavitt, a teacher and author of four novels, takes our understanding of the last two and a half years to a new level in her disturbing account. Read it.
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