Le troisième jour by Chochana Boukhobza (review)

de ses représentations, fut aussi celle d’une génération de survivants de la Shoah, hantés par le souvenir de parents disparus qui ne laissèrent d’eux que des images éternellement figées. Western Washington University Cécile Hanania BOUKHOBZA, CHOCHANA. Le troisième jour. Paris: Denoël, 2010. ISBN 978-2-207101568 . Pp. 411. 20 a. Chochana Boukhobza’s most recent novel depicts the violence and beauty of politically charged Israel at the height of the first Intifada in 1990. In Le troisième jour, Jerusalem’s intense and persistent heat becomes symbolic of the complex and fiery relationships existing between the religious and ethnic groups struggling to survive in a world where tradition is strongly present. The area’s history and its geography combine into a powerful backdrop for Boukhobza’s exploration of the determination of Israel’s inhabitants, which she illustrates through the personal stories of two women. Rachel and her impresario Elisheva, two Jewish cellists of different generations and origins, return together to Jerusalem after five years to give a concert. However, the impending performance and the protagonists’ love of music is not each woman’s true motivation for the visit. Rachel hopes her return to Jerusalem will reconnect her with her orthodox parents whom she loves but whose ideologies she cannot always comprehend. She would also like to feel the sheltering presence of her childhood friends, and resolve her relationship with her former fiancé, whom she still loves years after their separation. But reality is a reminder of the irreparable cultural and temporal rift between Rachel and her past. Elisheva, a Polish war refugee, lost her family in the Majdanek concentration camp during World War II. Although she has cultivated deep friendships since then, memories of this past haunt her. She returns to Jerusalem to carry out a plan of vengeance: to assassinate the former Nazi torturer of the camp who has escaped justice, and who plans to visit Jerusalem on the same day as the women’s concert. During three critical days, the two women journey through different parts of the city. Boukhobza’s vivid sensory descriptions combine with the thoughts and conversations of a variety of characters to recreate Jerusalem. Boukhobza explores the generation gap between parents and children, as well as the ethnic and political divisions of the inhabitants, while remaining sympathetic towards all of her characters. Both Palestinians and Israeli Jews have experienced hardship, exile, and wartime loss. Their present is marred by memories relived as nightmares , frustration, and madness. Despite their differences, the ethnic groups share certain similarities; both the Arab and Jewish women of the area feel a constant pressure to marry. The universal need for human companionship, however tenuous , crosses political and ethnic boundaries. As Boukhobza’s novel examines themes that bridge past and present, it illustrates the interweaving of personal and collective memory that constitutes Jerusalem’s identity. The landscape itself is molded by superimposed layers of experience. Among Jerusalem’s six million trees planted in memory of the victims of the Nazis rest abandoned and rusted tanks from the 1948 war of independence . As Rachel gazes upon this, she sees the ghosts of her adolescence there, Reviews 391 walking in solidarity in the annual march before the Tishri festival and recalls biblical verses of the coming of the Messiah. Le troisième jour is an intriguing story rendered in a poetic prose in which Arabic and Hebrew mix with the French narration to bring present day Jerusalem to life. Music and language shape the form and content of the novel. Rachel’s concert features the music Dvorak wrote during his foreign travels, a metaphor for the characters’ existences. The Hebrew vav, which fascinated Rachel’s father, when placed before some verbs in the Bible, alters the verb tense from future to past and from past to future. Likewise, Boukhobza suggests that the past, however painful, does not disappear, but rather forms the future: “Le bonheur n’efface pas le désespoir. Il s’écrit dessus. Il s’écrit avec les histoires du passé” (199). Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Nathalie G. Cornelius CARTANO, TONY. Des gifles au vinaigre. Paris: Albin Michel, 2010. ISBN...