The Same Sea (Paperback)

Outwardly, the book concerns itself with the very lonely life of Albert Danon, an Israeli tax accountant whose wife, Nadia has died from ovarian cancer. Albert does have a son, Rico, but rather than turn to his father for comfort, Rico sets off on a self-imposed exile to Tibet where his mother (Nadia), often speaks to him in dreams. In the meantime, Rico's girlfriend (or is she now an ex-girlfriend), Dita, moves in with Albert and sets about attempting to seduce him. Then there is Bettine, a widow close to Albert's age who is able to express genuine affection, especially for Albert, but finds no one willing to receive it, except for her grandchildren, perhaps.

All of the characters in this book are starving for affection and human interaction, yet none of them seem able to express it themselves or accept it from others. Their attempts are awkward, at best. Oz is telling us, in this book, that human communication, on all but the most superficial of levels, is very rare and is rarely, if ever, found. He seems to think that, hard as we try, it is simply impossible for one human being to know another at the very deepest level.

Why do we find it so difficult to let another human being know how much we love him or her? Why is it so hard to say, "I miss you?" Why do we enclose ourselves is a shroud of loneliness rather than reaching out to other lonely souls in need of comfort and love? The author's answer seems to be: because that is simply the nature of things. Oz seems to think it is far easier for us to sublimate our loneliness in intellectual or business pursuits than to interact with our fellow human beings...and I'm not sure he's not correct.

The sea is used as a metaphor for life in this book. Just as the sea in constantly in motion and flux, so is life. And, just as the sea carries in bits of flotsam and jetsam and then carries them out to sea again, so does life. Nothing is permanent; little or nothing remains behind of what went before.

The prose in this book is quite spare and pared down to the bone, though at times it can be quite lyrical (the book is a prose poem rather than a straight narrative). This book is impressionistic, meditative and reflective...not choppy. Oz's poetic ism often infuses the book with a richness many other authors lack and, at other times, the short and to-the-point sentences evoke the inherent emptiness in human existence.

THE SAME SEA is a book filled with biblical allusions that run the gamut of Ecclesiastes to Job to the Song or Solomon. I thought these biblical allusions only added to the richness and timelessness of the thoughts expressed in the book. It doesn't matter if you're Orthodox, agnostic or atheist...these allusions are simply beautiful and help to cement a connection from the present to the past. "All the rivers flow to the sea," yet even so, says Oz we cannot or will not connect with our fellow human beings.

Is there any optimism at all in this very melancholy book? Is there any hope that man will learn how to communicate and connect with others? A little. But only a little. Oz's vision remains, almost totally, pessimistic. We can make gestures, Oz says, but that is all they are...gestures...and at their most basic, gestures end up being as futile as not even trying.

I didn't find any of the characters interesting, whether good or bad. They just ruminate about their problems, but there's not really a plot or some interaction that becomes appealing, at least for this reader. I'm not a prude at all, but a story that centers on the sexual lust of an old widow for his son's girlfriend is not terribly interesting (maybe Nabokov could have made it so). She's kind of cruel walking around the house with a towel for all clothes, as well as giving him glimpses of young flesh. Naughty girl and dirty old man. The son's reflections on his travels weren't much illuminating either. He made me remember the main character in Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge", but without the vitality and passion for knowledge that characterized him. All in all, a disappointment of a book.