Life on Sandpaper (review)

"There had been a war and I was wounded," is how Yoram Kaniuk opens his novel that follows his Palmach soldier protagonist's search for identity, career, and the meaning of life. In the course of this bildungsroman, Kaniuk takes his protagonist through an exploration of the self in a series of encounters with Americans and Europeans. It is in America in particular where he learns that even in the Golden Land its citizens cannot always realize their dreams. The choice of America is meaningful, more than merely an occasion to fictionalize a chapter in his own experiences as an Israeli in America of the 1950s. Following the Holocaust America has become the alternative to Israel as a haven, and it is this that the author tacitly weighs as the story-behind-the-story in this long and multi-faceted work. The novel, which the author himself proclaims at the opening as "not entirely incorrect to call . . . a work of fiction," is a sophisticated molding of his experiences following Israel's War of Independence when he spent the 1950s in America, until his return to his home, which, significantly, is also the novel's last word.

This novel is, in many ways, a literal and a spiritual journey of self-discovery. Indeed, for readers of Kaniuk's previous writings, Life on Sandpaper is another encounter with the same exploits his heroes have experienced in previous novels—The Acrophile (Ha-Yored le-Ma'alah), Rockinghorse (Susetz)—as well as a number of short stories, among which "Hamesibah shel Charlie Parker" ("Charlie Parker's Party"), "Leni Tristano Ha-'iver" (The Blind Lenny Tristano), and "Timber" are most characteristic of his America-centered tales. And while his writing spans numerous geographical and thematic spheres, Kaniuk's fiction may be viewed as a single whole, telling and retelling events from several vantage points. It is through the prism of these works that this novel is read most productively.

Kaniuk is among those writers popularly labeled the Palmach Generation, or "Dor ba'aretz" ("the generation in the land") as termed by Gershon Shaked, a reference to those who were of (or near) military age in 1948 and who experienced the war directly (in most cases) as soldiers. They represent, and have internalized, this event in their art and as a significant component of their protagonists' outlook in their transition into citizens of the new state. Other notable members of this group are Moshe Shamir, S. Yizhar, B. Tammuz, and Y. Amichai. For that reason, an alternate way of reading Kaniuk's work is by juxtaposing it with the work of his fellow writers of the same generation. Unlike most, though, Kaniuk is labeled a modernist by virtue of his analogical technique, one that resembles free-association of plot and character, with a loose plot whose causal links are not always comprehensible.

Unlike the characters of most of his fellow writers, Kaniuk's chief protagonist in this work as in others is educated by exposure to the world beyond Israel, sometimes against the backdrop of America. As he witnesses the grinding harshness of life's experiences in the Land of the Free, as the title indicates, the protagonist, who had thought of himself as an omnipotent and heroic Palmachnik, becomes able to see himself more realistically, a process that facilitates his reintegration as a "normal" citizen in the new land where he can now lead a normal, less-than-heroic existence in Israel.

After being wounded, a theme central in a number of works, particularly the short piece, "Eytim" (Vultures) and the novel Himmo Melekh Yerushalayim (Himmo King of Jerusalem), Kaniuk's protagonist leaves the country in quest of healing (literal and metaphoric) on a slow boat headed west. His impressions of post-war Naples and Paris are of devastated lands that do not offer any resolution to his problem, except in the matter of women, who gravitate to his deep sadness. Going further, he finds his macho Israeli identity serves him [End...