Open Heart (review)

Book Reviews 145 Open Heart, by A. B. Yehoshua. New York: Doubleday, 1996. 498 pp. $24.95. For ten years, from the beginning of the 60s until the mid 70s, A. B. Yehoshua wrote short stories (some claim short novels). It was 1963 when his haunting story The Death ofthe Old Man was published, and it was clear that a new generation, a new promising author was on the horizon of modem Hebrew literature in Israel. In the mid 70s, Yehoshua put aside the genre of the short story and began his literary endeavor writing novels. Since then, he has written five long novels (the fifth one has just been published in Hebrew titled Voyage to the End ofthe Millennium).1 The first one was The Lover, a complicated reaction to the Jewish-Arab relationship and, probably, a reaction to the Yom Kippur War. Late Divorce and Five Seasons (Molkho) could be defined as a new observation and, let us even say, a harsh criticism of the Zionist movement. The fourth novel, Mr. Mani, is a journey from one generation to another, five generations along the many events of Jewish history. In the first three novels, the readers meet three characters, intellectuals with deep roots in Western culture. In The Lover, we fmd Adam, in Late Divorce Karninka, and in Five Seasons the dying old woman. In contrast to these characters, we fmd Asia in The Lover, Naomi Kaminka in Late Divorce, and in Five Seasons we fmd Molkho, a very pragmatic character. Molkho is also the transition in Yehoshua's literary endeavor. During his career, he refused to identify himself as a Sephardi author but rather as an Israeli author with no adjectives. Only when he established himself as such and became the leading author and intellectual in Israel did he let himself accentuate his origin. In these three novels we also fmd Yehoshua's objection to war. Whether it is the Yom Kippur War or the War in Lebanon, or the war or struggle ofYehoshua against anything which endangers the existence of Israel, each novel contains its own story of war. In a deeper layer ofthis literary work, we can also fmd his criticism of the leaders of the Zionist movement. The question is: Does he want to divorce from the Zionist ideology? This interpretation is possible. Through examination ofthe relations between Asia and Adam, the attempts ofKarninka to divorce his "oriental" woman, and Molkho, who "liberated" himself from the "Western" lifestyle he adopted while his wife was alive, we are able to answer that question with a yes. In Mr. Mani, the reader participates in the journey ofa Jewish family, a journey of two centuries, from 1848 to 1982. Even here, Yehoshua continues to struggle with the "Westernization" of the Zionism. Open Heart (The Returnfrom India in Hebrew) is different. Here in this novel his writing has a new "texture." He is the only author I know of in Israel each of whose works is written in a new style, demanding a new comprehen11 would rather translate the Hebrew title into A Journey to the End ofthe Millennium, since journey also has a meaning ofpassage from one step to another. 146 SHOFAR Fall 1997 Vol. 16, No. I sion on the part ofhis readers. The reader faces two characters and is to fmd the connection between the two. The plot is very complicated: on one hand a story and on the other a deep philosophical contemplation. The story is told in the voice of Dr. Benji, who is about to finish his surgical internship. At one point he is challenged by his superior, Professor Dr. Hishin, to accompany Lazar, the director ofthe hospital, to retrieve his seriously ill daughter, Einat, from India. This is the "external" story. The "inner" story is Dr. Benji's relentless pursuit of his passionate dream of becoming a surgeon. Through Yehoshua's unique incantatory power, the reader is led to perceive the sexual and the spiritual awakening of Dr. Benji and to answer the questions in his story. One of these is his extramarital affair with Dori and her rejection of him after the death of her husband Lazar. Psychological interpretations are...