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To the End of the Land

I was not surprised to find out that of the four books President Obama took on his recent vacation, one was by a well known Israeli author David Grossman. To the End of the Land is an emotional, gut wrenching odyssey with beautifully evoked moments of joy and tragedy. The story centers around a love triangle. Ora, the central character, loves two men and marries one but has a child fathered by each man. The emotional trek you undertake with these three protagonists is unforgettable. The knot in your stomach just gets more and more tangled as the plot unravels the strange dynamics of their intricately intimate relationships.

To me the book is a study of life in Israel. In fact it gives meaning to the neurotic, tense, energized haste that living in Israel invokes. Being a parent in a country riddled with hostile neighbors, demands that every child of 18 serve in the army. This creates a fear and a gnawing anxiety that colors every move the child, the family, the country makes as the reality of combat approaches. Every Israeli parent lives daily with nightmarish fears for the precious children they have protected and nurtured for 18 years. The backdrop to everyone's lives is tinged by this terrifying anticipation of the worst. The mechanisms that each individual develops to cope with this very existential Israeli reality is what makes this book so engrossing. We can feel this palpable terror as we vicariously live their lives. It’s the closet to Israeli reality we can come. Through their private lives their loves and fears we learn what being an Israeli really constitutes.

Judy Borejdo, Librarian