- Hardcover: 576 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt, Inc.; None edition (Nov 15 2003)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0151006539
- ISBN-13: 978-0151006533
- Product Dimensions: 22.6 x 15.5 x 3.8 cm
- Shipping Weight: 862 g
- Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #1,217,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
As he has proved in acclaimed previous novels (Mr. Mani; Open Heart), Yehoshua is a keen observer of social and political realities, and a subtle writer capable of reflecting complex situations in events of daily life. Here, what at first appears to be a bittersweet comedy of domestic manners set in 1990s Israel morphs into a searching exploration of a politically divided society in which decent people, both Jews and Arabs, try to live peaceably with each other. To be sure, this is a small segment of Israeli society: the Israeli intelligentsia, represented by Professor Yochanan Rivlin and his wife, Hagit, a district judge, who live in Haifa, as well as educated Arabs in Galilee villages whose existence is circumscribed by the rules of occupation. Many mysteries shimmer beneath the narrative's surface. Underlying the affectionate domestic banter of Yochanan and Hagit is Yochanan's obsessive quest to discover what went wrong in the short marriage of their son and his wife, a quest complicated by a horrifying secret the sundered couple have vowed not to divulge. Meanwhile, an Arab graduate student of Yochanan's, whose wedding begins the narrative, seeks to earn her degree by translating the works of contemporary Arab poets collected by an Israeli scholar killed in a terrorist bombing. The threat of violence, while acknowledged by everyone, is not in the forefront of the plot, which is more concerned with the complacency of intelligent Israeli Jews in the face of the plight of their Arab neighbors. The grand achievement of this trenchant novel is its quietly provocative and deeply important consideration of how the desire for liberation of various kinds is inescapable in human nature. Although one character speaks in measured terms of "the abyss we are all about to fall into," it is the simple aspirations of ordinary people that illuminate the larger issues.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
PRAISE FOR THE LIBERATED BRIDE "Yehoshua, the most daring of the major Israeli writers, tells a simple story about a region that complicates all it touches . . . [and] remains, somehow, hopeful." (The New Yorker )
"The Liberated Bride is a magnificent, often comic, and humanely inexorable journey among Israel's Jews and their secret and denied sharers: the Arabs. . . .Yehoshua, who is 70 and a dove, has written a novel that incarnates the message to extraordinary literary effect." (The New York Times Book Review )
As he has proved in acclaimed previous novels (Mr. Mani; Open Heart), Yehoshua is a keen observer of social and political realities, and a subtle writer capable of reflecting complex situations in events of daily life. Here, what at first appears to be a bittersweet comedy of domestic manners set in 1990s Israel morphs into a searching exploration of a politically divided society in which decent people, both Jews and Arabs, try to live peaceably with each other. To be sure, this is a small segment of Israeli society: the Israeli intelligentsia, represented by Professor Yochanan Rivlin and his wife, Hagit, a district judge, who live in Haifa, as well as educated Arabs in Galilee villages whose existence is circumscribed by the rules of occupation. Many mysteries shimmer beneath the narrative's surface. Underlying the affectionate domestic banter of Yochanan and Hagit is Yochanan's obsessive quest to discover what went wrong in the short marriage of their son and his wife, a quest complicated by a horrifying secret the sundered couple have vowed not to divulge. Meanwhile, an Arab graduate student of Yochanan's, whose wedding begins the narrative, seeks to earn her degree by translating the works of contemporary Arab poets collected by an Israeli scholar killed in a terrorist bombing. The threat of violence, while acknowledged by everyone, is not in the forefront of the plot, which is more concerned with the complacency of intelligent Israeli Jews in the face of the plight of their Arab neighbors. The grand achievement of this trenchant novel is its quietly provocative and deeply important consideration of how the desire for liberation of various kinds is inescapable in human nature. Although one character speaks in measured terms of "the abyss we are all about to fall into," it is the simple aspirations of ordinary people that illuminate the larger issues.
(Pubishers Weekly ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
"The Liberated Bride is a magnificent, often comic, and humanely inexorable journey among Israel's Jews and their secret and denied sharers: the Arabs. . . .Yehoshua, who is 70 and a dove, has written a novel that incarnates the message to extraordinary literary effect." (The New York Times Book Review )
As he has proved in acclaimed previous novels (Mr. Mani; Open Heart), Yehoshua is a keen observer of social and political realities, and a subtle writer capable of reflecting complex situations in events of daily life. Here, what at first appears to be a bittersweet comedy of domestic manners set in 1990s Israel morphs into a searching exploration of a politically divided society in which decent people, both Jews and Arabs, try to live peaceably with each other. To be sure, this is a small segment of Israeli society: the Israeli intelligentsia, represented by Professor Yochanan Rivlin and his wife, Hagit, a district judge, who live in Haifa, as well as educated Arabs in Galilee villages whose existence is circumscribed by the rules of occupation. Many mysteries shimmer beneath the narrative's surface. Underlying the affectionate domestic banter of Yochanan and Hagit is Yochanan's obsessive quest to discover what went wrong in the short marriage of their son and his wife, a quest complicated by a horrifying secret the sundered couple have vowed not to divulge. Meanwhile, an Arab graduate student of Yochanan's, whose wedding begins the narrative, seeks to earn her degree by translating the works of contemporary Arab poets collected by an Israeli scholar killed in a terrorist bombing. The threat of violence, while acknowledged by everyone, is not in the forefront of the plot, which is more concerned with the complacency of intelligent Israeli Jews in the face of the plight of their Arab neighbors. The grand achievement of this trenchant novel is its quietly provocative and deeply important consideration of how the desire for liberation of various kinds is inescapable in human nature. Although one character speaks in measured terms of "the abyss we are all about to fall into," it is the simple aspirations of ordinary people that illuminate the larger issues.
(Pubishers Weekly ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
HAD HE KNOWN that on this evening, on the hill where the village held its celebrations, an evening suffused by the scent of a fig tree bent over the table like another, venerable guest, he would again be struck-but powerfully-by a sense of failure and missed opportunity, he might have more decisively made his excuses to Samaher, his annoyingly ambitious M.A. student, who, not content with sending him an invitation by mail and then repeating it to his face, had gone and chartered a minibus, after first urging the new department head to make sure the faculty attended her wedding. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
HAD HE KNOWN that on this evening, on the hill where the village held its celebrations, an evening suffused by the scent of a fig tree bent over the table like another, venerable guest, he would again be struck-but powerfully-by a sense of failure and missed opportunity, he might have more decisively made his excuses to Samaher, his annoyingly ambitious M.A. student, who, not content with sending him an invitation by mail and then repeating it to his face, had gone and chartered a minibus, after first urging the new department head to make sure the faculty attended her wedding. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
A deeply moving story,
By Mikhail "mike" (Raleigh, NC USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Liberated Bride: A Novel (Paperback)
Yehoshua's "The Liberated Bride" is an insightful story of the lives of a modern Israeli family in the North of the country. By exploring a new dimension involving the intertwined lives of Israel's Jews and its Arab citizens or Palestinians/Arabs, Yehoshua created a wonderful plot, amazing characters and fantastic setting that left me awed. He successful penetrated the soul of the political and social issues of the Middle East through characters with motivations that are so simple. The unique writing style by the author made this fast paced novel a first rate page-turner. I recommend this book to readers who might want to learn or know about those Jews and Arabs who are living amicably with one another.Also recommended: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, THE MITLA PASS, TRIPLE AGENT DOUBLE CROSS
2.0 out of 5 stars
Interesting story but problems in execution,
By
This review is from: The Liberated Bride (Hardcover)
I found there was much to like and much to dislike about this book. The story of Rivlin, a Middle East scholar whom we follow as he embarks on several related quests - first, to understand the breakup of his son's marriage, second, to understand how the history of Algeria is related to the current violence in that country, and third, to explore the relationship of Jews and Arabs in Israel - is interesting and thoughtful, and all the players in all the relationships are treated with respect and empathy. Having lived in Israel for several years in the mid-80's, I enjoyed the descriptions of daily living, the sights, sound, and style of the place. I also liked the fact that the title of the book could apply to almost all of the women in the novel - Galya, the ex-daughter in law, Samaher, Rivlin's long-time Arab student pursuing her M.A., Hannah Tedeschi, the wife of Rivlin's former teacher, as well as many others.That being said, I found the writing itself stylistically intolerable in many places to the point where I almost couldn't finish the book - though I'm glad I did, since I liked the story. . The writer goes through all kinds of contortions in order to refer to his characters as something other than their names, and uses these same designations over and over again to the point of absurdity. Examples are - Rivlin is referred to constantly as "the Orientalist", and sometimes, for a change, as "the middle-aged Orientalist", "the elderly Orientalist", or "the Jewish Orientalist". Rivlin's wife Hagit is "the judge", his former teacher Tedeschi is "the Jerusalem polymath", and Tedeschi's wife is, awkwardly, "the translatoress". There are a handful of unexplained shifts into the second person, and one first person passage, sprinkled through the novel. The passages in the second person don't have any kind of unifying theme to them, and so appear random and jarring - more as though the writer wanted to try something interesting as a change of pace for a few pages than anything else. Other examples - in the first part of the book, Rivlin embarks on an Alice-in-Wonderland like journey to the Arab side of the region following his student's cousin, Rashid, who is referred to as a "sable-skinned young man", "[Samaher's] jet-colored intercessor", "the sable-skinned impresario", "the jet-colored messenger", "the displaced and irreplaceable messenger with the coal-black eyes", "the coal-eyed messenger"... you get the idea. The "coal eyes" metaphor is used so many times in this passage that I actually started to keep count (I think I reached 6) - an obvious distraction to the novel. And one last sentence that I simply have to cite for its awkwardness - "Indeed, had Rivlin surmised that the empty-handed Arab had come not to deliver but to fetch - ... he would never have risen in the end to throw out the love baby of sleep with the golden bathwater rippling in the early-morning light by running to the front door, dripping wet and blind, and petitioning abjectly from his side of it:" This being the first A.B. Yehoshua book I've read, I wasn't sure if this was the fault of the writing or of the translation, and am interested to hear insights about this from any other readers.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Contrived and lengthy,
By Gidon "gidons" (Seattle, WA United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Liberated Bride (Hardcover)
While Yehoshua has proven himself to be an excellent writer in the past, his latest does not measure up to his standards. Not that it's a bad book: it's definitely readable and somewhat enjoyable. However, its basic premise - which is the engine that drives most of the story - feels very contrived, and the story itself is at times slow, not to say boring. The political aspect, as always a major facet of Yehoshua's work, feels tacked on to the story instead of being an essential part of it. And all in all, there is just too little story here to support such a long book.In summary - not bad, but I wouldn't make this my first Yehoshua.
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