In A Tale Of Love And Darkness Amos Oz writes an
autobiography of his early years. Though written from a much later perspective,
this memoir effectively lives entirely in the first years of the author’s life,
covering birth to the age of twelve, when his mother died in 1952. There is
also much in the book that is drawn from his adolescence and his work in a
kibbutz after leaving home, but these remain like visions of an only partially
real future when the narrative returns, often abruptly to those earlier years
when his mother was still alive. There are detailed stories of schooling,
discovery of literature and a little of his coming of age and his first
experiences of an adult life of love and affection. There is much more about
his father and his only partially successful life as a writer and academic,
plus some other things for which he displayed equally unrecognized talent.
There is also a good deal of Jewish history, especially that related to the
post-World War II diaspora from Europe to British-controlled Palestine.
But at its core this book is essentially about
the relationship between Amos Oz and his mother. It starts with her giving
birth to him and ends with her death, just twelve years later, an event that
left the author with deep feelings of guilt and loss, of course. But there is
more, in that one also feels there has been a lasting psychological scar that
has marked much of the author´s work.
A Tale Of Love And Darkness succeeds in many
ways – too many for a cursory review as this to list, let alone describe. Its
description of family life in the 1940s in Jerusalem must head the list. This
was no rip-roaring, unpredictable household. The father was bookish, a man who
yearned to be an academic, to feel the social respect that would be conferred
with authorship and recognition. Much is made by Amos Oz of his father’s
unrecognized talent and, one feels, the son was perhaps prouder than the father
when the latter eventually gained his doctorate from the University of London.
Both much had passed by before then.
Despite the book’s vivid portrayal of his own
and his relatives’ families, Amos Oz seems almost to freeze in mid-sentence
when he describes his mother. She was clearly an immense, if rather distant
influence on him. She was domestically inclined, very attractive, perhaps aloof
and certainly long suffering, as her husband pursued his private dreams in his
even more private study amongst his books and papers. She was probably not
alone in this situation, but perhaps more alone than she herself or especially others
were willing to admit.
These families’ origins where in the Baltic
states, Poland, Russia and other parts of Europe. They left for Palestine,
pushed by the hardening fist of fascism and, elsewhere, mere intolerance. Most
who stayed behind perished. They were greeted by a British administration in
the Middle East that was never clear in its priorities and where policy was
made on the roof. Nothing much changes, it seems. Calls for Jewish statehood
were pursued alongside direct action and this era of tension and privation
forms the backdrop for the early years of the author’s life. Aged eighteen, he
would eventually meet Ben-Gurion, an encounter where the nervous tension, pride
and awe jump from the page only to evaporate as quickly.
Amos Oz had relatives who were writers and
academics, but they generally did not use their influence to foster his
father’s ambitions, though this did not seem to generate tensions. His father’s
stoicism would probably not have tolerated comment. Language was always at the
core in the home, however, with his father‘s command of Hebrew, Polish,
Yiddish, Lithuanian and Russian allowing etymology to become breakfast talk.
A Tale Of Love And Darkness is especially
memorable for its description of the author´s education. He attended all kinds
of establishment, private and public, with both classroom and personal
settings. He becomes infatuated with one teacher and certainly educated
purposefully by another later on. It becomes an experience powerful enough to
live on through a lifetime.
Eventually Amos Oz decided to adopt kibbutz
life. This seems to come as a surprise, as much to Amos has his family, we
feel. But he embraces the new challenges, appearing to relish the directness of
physical work. Perhaps this was a psychological reaction to the face that his
father’s rather withdrawn bookishness might have alienated his mother in the
household. This is something that is alluded to in the book, but only via the
opinions of the author’s relatives. It is certainly not stressed. But through
kibbutz life, Amos Oz learns that the most effective way to become a writer is
to live life and observe it. The writer then may interpret it.
But there is darkness here as well, a personal
darkness that the author regularly alludes to and then quickly avoids. We feel
it is surely the memory of his mother’s death which is resurfacing. If there is
guilt involved, then its source is surely the perceived inability to influence
events, to go back and change the circumstances that gave rise to tragedy. If
only…
In the final pages, the author is again just
twelve years old. He watches as his mother falls into the sleep that is the end
of her life, a memory relived from the distance of middle age, but the memory
remains as vivid as it was on the day it happened, illustrating that a silence
of sleep, when eternal, is more powerful than any words can describe.
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