Ḥaruze ha-ḥayim ṿeha-maṿet

by עמוס עוז

Reality and fiction blend in an ingenious Rothian short novel from the celebrated author of A Tale of Love and Darkness - witty but elegiac, playful and sexy but somehow deadly serious, it's about a bored writer who goes to a reading and has a brief sexual skirmish with a female reader. Or does he?The novel centres around 8 hours in the life of the Author (unnamed), a literary celebrity in his forties, who is in Tel Aviv on a stifling hot night to give a reading. Bored, he looks for distraction - and finds copy. On the way he stops at a cafe where he 'bumps into' some of his own characters. In his head he conjures up the life stories of the people he meets, not least Ricky, an equally bored but seductive waitress. Later, even as the reading from his new book is underway, and the obligatory inane questions ("Why do you write? Do you write with a pen or on a computer?) have come and gone — he weaves stories round the audience and the panel. Afterwards, the Author invites the professional