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Product Description
Review
"Very rarely, a few times in a lifetime, you open a book and when you close it again nothing can ever be the same. To the End of the Land is a book of this magnitude. David Grossman may be the most gifted writer I've ever read.... Powerful, shattering, and unflinching. To read it is to have yourself taken apart, undone, touched at the place of your own essence."
— Nicole Krauss
"This is a book of overwhelming power and intensity, David Grossman's masterpiece. Flaubert created his Emma, Tolstoy made his Anna, and now we have Grossman's Ora — as fully alive, as fully embodied, as any character in recent fiction. I devoured this long novel in a feverish trance. Wrenching, beautiful, unforgettable."
— Paul Auster
"There are some writers in whose words one recognizes the texture of life. David Grossman is such a writer. His characters don’t so much lie on the page as rise before the reader’s eyes, in three dimensions, their skin covered in prose that both stabs with insight and shines with compassion."
— Yann Martel
From the Hardcover edition.
— Nicole Krauss
"This is a book of overwhelming power and intensity, David Grossman's masterpiece. Flaubert created his Emma, Tolstoy made his Anna, and now we have Grossman's Ora — as fully alive, as fully embodied, as any character in recent fiction. I devoured this long novel in a feverish trance. Wrenching, beautiful, unforgettable."
— Paul Auster
"There are some writers in whose words one recognizes the texture of life. David Grossman is such a writer. His characters don’t so much lie on the page as rise before the reader’s eyes, in three dimensions, their skin covered in prose that both stabs with insight and shines with compassion."
— Yann Martel
From the Hardcover edition.
Product Description
Now in paperback -- A major, internationally bestselling novel of extraordinary power about the costs of war from one of Israel's greatest writers, now longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
Set in Israel in recent times, this epic yet intimate novel places side by side the trials of war and the challenges of everyday life. Through a series of powerful, overlapping circles backward in time, it tells the story of Ora's relationship with her husband, from whom she is now separated, as well as the tragedy of their best friend Avram, a former soldier — and her son's biological father. When her son Ofer rejoins the army for a major offensive, Ora is devastated and decides to hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the "notifiers" who might deliver the worst news a parent can hear. She phones Avram, whom she has not seen in 21 years, and convinces him to go with her. As they journey together, Ora unfurls the story of her family, and gives Avram the gift of his son — a telling that keeps the boy alive for both his mother and the reader.
Never have we seen so vividly the surreality of daily life in Israel, the consequences of living in a society where the burden of war falls on each generation anew. David Grossman's rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great anti-war novels of our time.
Set in Israel in recent times, this epic yet intimate novel places side by side the trials of war and the challenges of everyday life. Through a series of powerful, overlapping circles backward in time, it tells the story of Ora's relationship with her husband, from whom she is now separated, as well as the tragedy of their best friend Avram, a former soldier — and her son's biological father. When her son Ofer rejoins the army for a major offensive, Ora is devastated and decides to hike in the Galilee, leaving no forwarding information for the "notifiers" who might deliver the worst news a parent can hear. She phones Avram, whom she has not seen in 21 years, and convinces him to go with her. As they journey together, Ora unfurls the story of her family, and gives Avram the gift of his son — a telling that keeps the boy alive for both his mother and the reader.
Never have we seen so vividly the surreality of daily life in Israel, the consequences of living in a society where the burden of war falls on each generation anew. David Grossman's rich imagining of a family in love and crisis makes for one of the great anti-war novels of our time.
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Most helpful customer reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Magnificent portrayals,
By reuben poupko (cote st. luc, quebec Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: To the End of the Land (Hardcover)
There are five main characters in David Grossman's new novel that accompany us along our physical journey through half of Israel. Grossman has captured the deep essence of parenthood, loyalty, friendship amongst siblings and friends. I was so engrossed by Ora, the narrator thatI felt her pain, despair and longing. To be a mother of two sons in Israel carries it's own weight. This book allows us to not only feel that weight, but to measure our own loyalties and ties against it. It captures the essence of Israel society today, it's glories and turmoils. Loved it.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
`Had you known what would happen, which name would you have wanted to pick?',
By J. Cameron-Smith "Expect the Unexpected" (ACT, Australia) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)
This review is from: To the End of the Land (Hardcover)
The novel opens in 1967 with a lengthy prologue set in the isolation ward of a Tel Aviv hospital during the Six Day War. Three sick teenagers: the girl Ora, and the two boys Avram and Ilan, are terrified that Israel has already fallen to the Egyptians. They try to comfort each other: Ora is already falling in love with the artistic and romantic Avram; it seems possible that Ilan may not survive.But forty years later, just as another war is beginning, we meet Ora again. She is the mother of two sons and is separated from her husband, Ilan. Her younger son, Ofer, has just finished his military service but has volunteered to serve for a further period during a major offensive. Ofer is taken to the base by the family's long-standing taxi driver, Sami, a Palestinian Israeli who is aware that Ofer will be waging war on his people. This early part of the novel is full of the contrasts between the lives and realities of the different occupants of Israel. Ora decides that she will not return home. She does not want to be there if there is a knock on the door, and in her anxiety, magical thinking leads her to conclude that there cannot be bad news if it cannot be delivered. Ora decides instead to undertake the hiking trip that she and Ofer had planned and further decides that she will share the journey with Avram. Avram is now a haunted man, physically ill and emotionally detached but he is an important part of Ora's past. Just how important becomes clear as the story unfolds. During the course of their hike through Israel, Ora and Avram revisit their lives including their tangled relationships with Ilan and each other. Their history and their memories become part of the present as they travel through their lives as well as through the land. Avram's past has anesthetised him and Ora's attempts to share Ofer's life with him need to break through the barriers he has erected around his feelings. This is a long and at times convoluted story. The imagery - of the uncertainty of life, the injustices of occupation - and the monuments to fallen soldiers, haunt Avram and Ora's present as it has shaped their past. Lives shaped by a continuing battle for survival in every sense, especially for Avram. I found the novel easy to read, but difficult to warm to. Part of this was because of its length but I also found that I did not care for Ora and this impacted on my capacity to feel sympathetic towards her. And because Ora is so central to this story, I could not re-focus easily on the other elements which potentially interested me more. The story of Avram, for example, the challenges faced by Sami, the lives of Ofer, of his elder brother Adam and of Ilan - each of these elements was important but was subsumed into Ora's musings, actions and reactions. Ora's story was simultaneously not enough, and far too much. `When had she learned these movements and these looks?' Jennifer Cameron-Smith
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
It is about life,
By
This review is from: To the End of the Land (Hardcover)
It is not easy to write about this book. It is above all a book to be felt; it forces the reader to connect viscerally with the characters' innermost feelings, fears, hopes and guts. Although one could praise the structure, the narrative, or the prose of Grossman, this is a novel that does not appeal to your intellect to entice your love, hate, like or dislike of the characters. They are who they are. You just cannot ignore them, or their lives. You will feel, hurt, rejoice, ache, despair and hope with them. This is a book about life, as it can only be lived in Israel. Read it, you will not regret it.
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