Imperfect and mis-titled yet incisive, Bliss provides a colloquial glimpse at the Israeli social fabric.
A circuitous second novel by Israeli author Matalon (The One Facing Us, 1998), told in flashbacks, follows a soured friendship between two Tel Aviv women during the years of intifada.
Past and present events dart in and out of this many-faceted, frequently ambiguous narrative: By the time narrator Ofra and her best friend from childhood, Sarah, bid goodbye at the Tel Aviv airport (Ofra is boarding her flight to France, where she’ll attend the funeral of her AIDS-stricken cousin), the two 35-year-old friends have already grown estranged over the derailment of Sarah’s marriage after her reckless affair with a young Arab man. Sarah is a political bleeding-heart photographer who champions the Palestinian cause, while Ofra, a plain, selfless graduate student, maintains the academic distance of a wary observer as Sarah throws herself into dramas both domestic and national. Her impulsive marriage to army medic Udi produces her son, Mims, and a seemingly blissful arrangement whereby Ofra contributes equally to the care of the boy; yet Sarah’s ambivalence about motherhood and marriage prompts her to fall for an arrogant Palestinian, Marwan, whose family and social constraints eventually lead him to dump her brutally. Meanwhile, in France, a separate storyline begins, this involving Ofra’s extended French family as they cope with bruised feelings pertaining to the funeral of gay cousin Michel, whose grievance with the French airline he (and his father) worked for remains unclear. It may be that much here suffers in translation—a kind of coy obliqueness, for example, about Arab-Jewish relations (and also Jewish-Gentile dealings in French society) that may not be immediately graspable by the American reader. “Bugs trapped inside a jar, that’s what we are here,” Udi comments, seemingly referring to the Israeli penchant for euphemism and self-deception. Too, the climax involving Sarah’s beating is buried under disorienting layers of narrative back-and-forth, and her erratic behavior in switching between Udi and Marwan appears merely self-serving and unworthy of Ofra’s earnest friendship.
Imperfect and mis-titled yet incisive, Bliss provides a colloquial glimpse at the Israeli social fabric.Pub Date: Aug. 12, 2003
ISBN: 0-8050-6602-0
Page Count: 252
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2003
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: he’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
