To the End of the Land by David Grossman
| To the End of the Land by David Grossman | |
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| Category: Literary Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Louise Laurie
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| Summary: To the End of the Land is a serious work of literature about serious issues written with feeling and depth. A profoundly moving read. Recommended. | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 592 | Date: September 2010 |
| Publisher: Jonathan Cape | |
| External links: Author's website | |
| ISBN: 978-0224089999 | |
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This is a sweeping narrative about one Jewish family and how the various members deal with the ongoing Arab-Israeli war. The mother, Ora, is the lynch-pin of the family, but her resolve is tested to the limit when her younger son is about to be released from his stint in the army.
The jacket cover is in striking black and white which fits in with the serious nature of the novel. Although fiction, we're all too aware, I'm sure, of the facts concerning the whole Lebanon/Jerusalem/Gaza strip situation as it is played out on our television screens on a regular basis. Not yet resolved. Will it ever be? Grossman's novel (translated from the Hebrew) is a bit of a slow burner. At 592 pages he can afford to take his time, introduce us gently to his characters. The prologue is set in the 1960s where we meet the central characters: Ora, Ilan and Avram and find out that they all have a bit of baggage already, a bit of history which will shape their future lives.
Then suddenly we jump to 2000 and to the crux of the book - the walk. By now, Ora and Ilan are married and have two sons. They seem to lead a fairly normal, middle-class life (well, as normal as an ongoing conflict allows) with both holding down jobs etc. But things change quickly and Ora finds herself alone. One minute she's at the centre of a bustling household and the next she can almost hear her heart beating, everything is so quiet.
In order to remain sane, she makes a sudden, out-of-character decision, enlisting her old friend Avram. Together they set out on a long walk in the Galilee area. Ora feels that she has to do something, anything, to stop her thinking about the current situation that she finds herself in. It would be easier to be dead, in truth. And if she thinks about things too much she'll probably go mad. Grossman painstakingly details exactly why this might happen.
And throughout this epic walk, Ora fills in Avram on her life over the past 20 years or so. There is an important reason for this as the reader discovers. Avram has been 'absent' and once again Grossman informs the reader in his beautiful prose where Avram has been and why. Tension and the threat of violence is present in great, big dollops all over this novel, as you might expect. I could almost feel it seeping out of the pages as Grossman has done such as excellent job.
And it didn't take me long to acknowledge that Ora is a devoted mother. She absolutely dotes on her two boys, even although they are now young men. Ora herself is now middle-aged and a shadow of her former, bubbly self. And as she tells various stories of family life to Avram, she wonders, perhaps for the very first time, where did the playful, optimistic Ora go. The poignancy of all of this is very strong indeed. I could have wept for Ora at times, I really could. She is present on almost every single page of this book and gradually she got under my skin. Even when I wasn't reading the book, I would find myself thinking about her; such was the power of Grossman's writing. He is poetic and moving in equal measure. In fact, I wondered how he could almost inhabit the characters and right at the end of the novel, in A Note About The Author my question was answered.
This is a serious work of literature about serious issues written with feeling and depth. A profoundly moving read. Recommended.
If you enjoyed To the End of the Land, you'll also love The Butterfly Mosque by G Willow Wilson and Psalm 119 by Heather McRobie.
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