Where the Jackals Howl

by Amos Oz

Where the Jackals Howl is prize-winning author Amos Oz's first collection of stories. On publication it received immediate critical acclaim and revealed Oz to be a master craftsman probing the emotional depths of his characters.

The lives of ordinary Israelis are set against the backdrop of community life in a Kibbutz. The fate of these individuals, their drives, ambitions and idiosyncrasies, are grounded by the physical and social structure of their community as Oz portrays their world as a microcosm of the wider world.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Israel, Middle East, Ebooks, Jewish, Modern

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1965

About the author

Amos Oz (Hebrew: עמוס עוז‎; born Amos Klausner) was an Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual. He was also a professor of literature at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba. He was regarded as Israel's most famous living author.

Oz's work has been published in 42 languages in 43 countries, and has received many honours and awards, among them the Legion of Honour of France, the Goethe Prize, the Prince of Asturias Award in Literature, the Heinrich Heine Prize and the Israel Prize. In 2007, a selection from the Chinese translation of A Tale of Love and Darkness was the first work of modern Hebrew literature to appear in an official Chinese textbook.

Since 1967, Oz had been a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.

Reviews

[Semjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

»Und innen, im innersten der Kreise, im Herzen unserer erleuchteten Welt, dort steht Sashkas Schreibtisch. Die Tischlampe spendet ihr kreisrundes Licht und vertreibt die Schatten von den Papierstapeln. Der Stift in seiner Hand bewegt sich hin und her und die Worte nehmen Gestalt an.«

Ich kannte bislang Amos Oz nur durch seinen hervorragenden Roman JUDAS, der erst vor wenigen Jahren entstand. Mich faszinierte an dieser Geschichte, wie er der Dreiecksbeziehung der Protagonisten durch Worte Leben verlieh und Bilder und Gefühle in mir erzeugte. Ich führte diese Art des lebensweisen, kräftigen Schreibstils auch auf die Lebenserfahrung des Autors zurück. Daher war ich gespannt, wie diese frühen Erzählungen mir gefallen würden, die immerhin 50 Jahre vor dem von mir geliebten Roman entstanden.

Wenn ich nicht um die zeitliche Diskrepanz gewusst hätte, wäre es mir nicht aufgefallen, dass hier ein junger Schriftsteller seine ersten Werke veröffentlichte. Natürlich entsteht bei den Kurzgeschichten nicht so eine innige Vertrautheit mit den vielen wechselnden Personen. Manche Geschichten sind auch eindrücklicher und trauriger als Andere, und daher lässt sich ein generelles Urteil nur schwer fällen. Insgesamt hat mir der Einblick in das Leben der einzelnen Personen aus den 60er Jahren in Israel sehr gut gefallen. Es ist wie bei den schelmischen Rabbi-Anekdoten: die Leute haben viel Schlimmes erlebt, einige haben den Holocaust am eigenen Leib gespürt und haben eine lange Reise ins gelobte Land hinter sich. Doch fast alle haben diese innere Ruhe und Unaufgeregtheit, die sich wohltuend durch das ganze Buch zieht. Selbst wenn der Vater, dem es schwer fällt, seine Liebe dem Sohn zu zeigen, unten dem Hochspannungsmast steht, in dem sich der Sohn als Fallschirmjäger verfangen hat, geht es erstaunlich entspannt trotz der harten Worte zu.

Vermisst habe ich allenfalls mehr Einblicke in das Leben in einem Kibbuz. Das wurde auf dem Schutzumschlag angekündigt, spielt aber eigentlich keine Rolle. Es wird nicht das Miteinander beschrieben, sondern vielmehr pickt sich Oz einzelne Bewohner heraus und erzählt ihre Erlebnisse der Vergangenheit. Das Leben im Gestern spielte nach dem schlimmen Erlebnissen halt doch noch eine größere Rolle als das Leben im Jetzt. Ich freue mich auf weitere Bücher von Amos Oz.

[Yair · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been a fan of Amos Oz for a few years now, ever since I took a Hebrew Literature class in college. With each of the stories of his I've read there's always been a different set of similar but distinct sensations and images evoked. He conjures up an Israel at times real and imagined, fantastic and horrible, dream realized and waking disappointment incarnate.

This, his earliest work and a collection of short stories, is a decent book with a few moments of shimmering incandescence. The stories show the promise of the writer to come but, unfortunately, too many of them fall prey to amateur writer syndrome in that Oz tends to OVERwrite with too many overly flowered and almost Steinbeck-like descriptions of naturalistic imagery...save for an emphasis on the growing sinister and the recurring purity as opposed to Steinbeck's biblical grandeur.

Oz, like he said wonderfully in an interview, that (paraphrase) the thing about fighting for and achieving a dream is that it forces you to wake up. That to me is the essence of not only Where the Jackals Howl but much of Oz's oeuvre as a whole. The characters in these stories run the gamut of idealistic to the point of being monuments to denial all the way to the cynical to the point of disappearing whose lack of roots or belief in anything almost makes it seem as though they're soon to be drifting off from the world.

Therein lies one of the central contradictions inherent in Oz's work...he de-romanticizes the tropes of early Zionism (the New Hebrew and his heroic working of the Land of Israel on the kibbutz, in the field of battle, never stopping for the eyes of the enemy never close, all the while building a 'new' image of the tough Israeli superior in all ways to the Exile Jew) while attempting to make Romantic the actual world around him, the one of the day to day, essentially the real world that the Zionist dreamers had to wake up to as soon as statehood was declared. Oz sees the flaws inherent in the old banners and slogans, and is attempting to reap from the land itself a new semblance of meaning. But what he finds isn't always good, sometimes it's even horrifying.

These stories are torn between dreams and reality, and the interplay of the former and latter bleeding into one another while the old posture and peacock as best they can for the young to maintain their glory and legacy, is a sight to behold. Though, again, Oz tries too hard and buries the good of his story beneath a stripling writer's need to scream out everything on his mind and heart and soul on every other damn page.

However, the final story in the collection Upon This Evil Earth, a retelling of the story of the biblical figure Jephthah, is not only the best piece in the collection (it's haunting, horrifying, and even mystifying in its describing of a place and a time not only otherworldly but all too human in its savagery and pitch perfect description of rage and loneliness in a world where god infinitely loves the some and not the all) but may also be one of the best short stories I've read up until this writing. If only for that piece I recommend reading Where the Jackals Howl.

All in all, through every story, I see a writer struggling to dream and have passion for the sweetness of life in a land and among a people that see the only fruitful endeavors as being either work or war, art being frivolous unless approved by majority vote. It's a sad but beautiful struggle, all things considered.

[Daniel Chaikin · Rating 4 out of 5]

26. Where the Jackals Howl and Other Stories by Amos Oz
published: 1965 in Hebrew
translation: 1973, 1976 & 1981 By Nicholas De Lange & Philip Simpson
format: 230-page Mariner Books paperback published 2012
acquired: May 2020 read: May 26-29 time reading: 8:15, 2.2 mpp
rating: 4
genre/style: Israeli short stories theme: TBR
locations: mostly a Kibbutz in Israel, ~1960. Also Jerusalem and a Biblical-era desert.
about the author: 1939-2018, Israeli author born in Jerusalem

This is Amos Oz‘s first book, a strong but mildly difficult collection of short stories mostly on Israeli Kibbutz life. Oz left his home to live permanently on Kibbutz at age 15 (~1954). So he writes from an experienced perspective on years where the Kibbutz was made up of European refugees, the founding philosophers, and their non-refugee children. The stories are a bit brutal, exploring these stoic idealist leader-philosophers working against the raw elements on these new farms; and exploring what this hard life does to people.

This is my fourth book by Oz, and I purchased this one because I wanted to read his first book. The other three, My Michael, Black Box, and his memoir,A Tale of Love and Darkness , were terrific. This was good writing, interesting, but not really fun reading. So only recommended to the really curious.

[Andrea Bemporad · Rating 2 out of 5]

primo ed ultimo racconto carini il resto mah, inoltre lui sionista convinto quindi lasciatelo alla Feltrinelli

[Veronica · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5 ⭐

[Merle · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5 Sterne!

[Joey Gold · Rating 4 out of 5]

Israel's consensus writer and thinker Amos Oz could only hold this honorable position in Israel. Not because he lacks talent; because his writing is strange, dark and quietly satirical. America and England's leading men of letters, even at their most profane (think of Phillip Roth or Martin Amis) still rarely reach Oz's darkly-comic bleakness.
The only equivalent I can think of is South Africa's J.M Coetzee, another unintentional leading man of words; the writer people outside Capetown associate with this scarred region. Both write relatively short books (130-180 pages usually, "just over" a novella) and use language that is the impossible oxymoron of "sparsely poetic". The sentences are short and precise, yet full with unusual verbs.
And both seem to be leading a restrained cold-war against melodramatic clichés. In Coetzee's "Disgrace", if you exclude the subtle Apartheid criticism, a man undergoes violently dire circumstances the entire novel. No redeeming points, explanatory flashbacks, merciful epiphanies; sheer grimness, but beautifully painted. In one of Oz's short stories, a son of a masculine army veteran gets tangled in electrical wire while parachuting. Instead of getting help, the veteran mocks his son until the very last spark is shone. In conclusion, pure joy is hard to find in this piece of literature. But if you appreciate the delicate use of language, and strong, uncompromising tales, you will feel satisfied.

[Madeline Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Poetic, full of vibrant and brutal imagery. Uncovering all the symbolism and messages would probably require reading it 100 times through.

[Joe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I confess I couldn't finish this book of short stories. I read about half, but found it difficult to feel any great empathy for the characters or be engaged by any narrative. A real pity as I'd wanted to like this author's work. It will be a while before I attempt to read another of his books.

[Jason · Rating 3 out of 5]

at least the first 4 stories. i liked the language a lot, but not the stories as a whole.

[Chase · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lovely writer who provides an interesting look into pre-67 war Israeli society and culture through a heavy dose of allegory and cynicism.

[Nishant Chandgotia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Haunting, disturbing and enthralling stories. Each story gripped me from the beginning and took me to the very end. The stories are detailed and if you are a watchful reader, it will introduce you to life in Israel/ the Kibbutz/ Jerusalem/ wars during the 1960 like no other. Given how exciting it was for me to read this in English, I can only imagine how it must be in Hebrew.

A note though: I was a little disturbed by the role of women in these stories (quite one-dimensional I would dare say). Should I take it as a reflection of the 'masculinity' in society in those times (1960s-70s)? I am not sure.

[César Torres Hernández · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historias ambientadas en los años posteriores a la creación de Israel y principalmente relacionadas a los kibutz, en general me gustaron todos los relatos, en algunos solo se deja entrever lo que sucede y uno tiene que poner lo que falta. Solo el relato final no me gustó, una historia bíblica pero extendida.

[Gabriela Pistol · Rating 3 out of 5]

Departe de claritatea ideilor și efervescența lingvistică din Poveste despre dragoste și întuneric, Iuda sau din eseuri. Dar nu lipsită de frumusețe.

Se conturează un Israel al începuturilor, aproape mitologic, oarecum confuz și abstract, cu oameni și aici, și încă dincolo, și în kibuț, și în Europa, încă neînrădăcinați. Israelul nou-născut după 1948 sau poate după așezarea triburilor lui Moise, totuna, pare să spună Oz.

[Oana Sastras · Rating 5 out of 5]

Toată cartea putea să fie ultima poveste.

[Laura Boudreau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oz writes in a gruff, intimate manner that makes you feel you are right there in the desert, on the kibbutz. His characters are earthy, imperfect, intense. Some of the stories I found hard to follow.

[yesterday · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wer “Eine Geschichte von Liebe und Finsternis” von Amos Oz gelesen hat, wird manche Begegnungen, Szenen und Charaktere in diesem Buch möglicherweise leichter begreiflich finden als ohne dieses “Vorwissen” um den so eigenen, sehr metaphorischen und dann wieder unverblümten, direkten Stil des Jerusalemer Autors.

“Wo die Schakale heulen” entstand vor Oz’ autobiografischem Epos und erschien im Original 1965. Es enthält zehn Kurzgeschichten, fiktive Episoden und Einblicke in das damalige Israel und seine leidgeprüften Einwohner.

Es ist kein Roman, den man so eben nebenbei als leichte Lektüre lesen kann, die Geschichten eint allesamt dass sie kaum, eigentlich gar keine, heitere Momente besitzen. Humor findet sich nur zwischen den Zeilen, in einzelnen Bemerkungen oder Gedanken entweder eines der Personen oder des Erzählers.

Oz beherrscht meisterlich, feinste Stimmungen und Schwingungen zwischen Charakteren entstehen zu lassen, ohne etwas darüber niederzuschreiben. Er lässt das meiste im Kopf des Lesers entstehen, so lange bis man sich fragt, ob man da nicht doch zu viel hineininterpretiert hat?

Und dann wieder, ganz plötzlich, schwenkt die Situation um und er präsentiert mit wenigen Sätzen eine so intensive, überraschend direkte, fast brutal ehrliche Szenerie, die auch so schnell wieder vorbei ist, dass man als Leser kaum Zeit hat, davon abgestoßen zu werden.

Die zehn Geschichten lassen sich zwar auch rein als Einblick in die damalige, uns ferne Welt verstehen, dennoch bieten sie allesamt die Möglichkeit, Gleichnisse zu entdecken, Kritik an Umständen, der Gesellschaft und anderem, die auch heute und auch außerhalb Israels ihre Gültigkeit haben.

Werke von Amos Oz sind jedem zu empfehlen, der Lust auf anspruchsvolle, tiefgehende Literatur hat, aber die “klassische Weltliteratur” schon kennt oder nicht lesen möchte. Es ist nur wichtig, sich auf dieses Abenteuer einzulassen, nicht vom ungewohnten, schwierigen Beginn abschrecken zu lassen, den Oz einem neuen Leser zweifellos bieten kann.

Wer es sich zutraut, sollte meiner Meinung nach gleich mit “Eine Geschichte von Liebe und Finsternis” starten, aber ansonsten ist “Wo die Schakale heulen” ein guter Einstieg und stilistisch sogar der etwas schwierigere. Durch die kurzen Episoden, die über mehrere Jahre entstanden sind, merkt man, dass der Stil noch nicht ganz der ausgereifte ist wie im großen Roman, er schwankt noch stärken zwischen den Extremen.

Dass Amos Oz seine Werke nicht mehr überarbeiten kann (er verstarb 2018), ist einerseits schade, andererseits hat er durch seine erzählerische Gabe Texte geschaffen, die in vielen Aspekten so universell sind, dass sie mehrere Generationen später als Gesamtkomposition nichts an Eindringlichkeit verloren haben. Oz blickt seinen Protagonisten tief in Kopf und Seele und extrahiert mittels weniger Wörter und Sätze ihre ureigenste Menschlichkeit. Und solange es Menschen auf der Erde gibt, ganz egal was und wie wir uns verändern, solange bleibt diese Form der Literatur aktuell.

[Kasey Jueds · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I'd probably give this more stars if I hadn't read Scenes from Village Life, which absolutely blew me away, first. It makes sense to me that Where the Jackals Howl is Oz's first book; it feels like a first book: beautiful but somewhat self-conscious and often over-written, and without the sympathetic view of the flawed-but-lovable characters in Scenes from Village Life. These characters, in Where the Jackals Howl, are fascinating and compelling, but also off-putting: they're often frustrated, furious, disappointed... I felt an intellectual admiration for many of them, but none of the love and compassion I had for the people in SFVL. I'm very glad I read this, though; I certainly learned from it, and it's set in a fascinating time period--the first years after the founding of the state of Israel. As another reviewer pointed out, it's very much about the demystification of those years, that time; it's a hard look at kibbutz life and the dreams of the early settlers. I'm embarrassingly ignorant about that history, and this book did teach me... and it certainly hasn't put me off reading more Amos Oz, though I think I will stick with his more recent books (luckily, there are many of those) for a while.

[Toby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some gems here but, as I always find with anthologies of short stories, it's a bit hit-and-miss. The last, and longest story, certainly fell into the latter category for me and was decidedly a "miss"; defeated, I gave up after 15 or so pages.

The majority of the stories were fascinating and evocative, capturing the zeitgeist clearly and bravely.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klimat gęsty jak smoła i choćby dlatego warto, choć obok opowiadań wybitnych są też tutaj trochę takie upychacze, ale może to tylko moje głupie wrażenie.

[Ana Flores · Rating 3 out of 5]

A veces un hombre pasa por la vida como un desterrado en una tierra extraña a la que no quería ir y de la que no sabe cómo salir.
EN ESTA MALA TIERRA

Suele haber en las historias de Amos Oz personajes con comportamientos extraños, o personajes extraños, extravagantes, chocantes o de plano desconcertantes, o que en un principio lo parecen, tanto al lector que desde fuera del texto los mira como a los ojos de los demás personajes de la historia, si bien, al menos para nosotros que leemos, poco a poco, conforme se va desarrollando la narración, esa extrañeza va tornándose, si no en familiaridad, al menos sí en algo más comprensible, explicable o hasta justificado, una introspección o iluminación por empatía que resulta uno de los puntos más destacados de la entrañable narrativa de Oz, y que aquí, en esta su opera prima comienza ya a asomarse, si bien no acaba de cuajar o madurar hasta mediados del libro, en los últimos cuentos, en que el escritor aún inexperto va aprendiendo a escribir mientras escribe.

En los cuentos de la primera mitad del libro esa extrañeza o extravagancia es sólo eso, y de ahí que resulte sólo desconcertante, si bien la narración en general es ya de excelente manufactura, dulce, fluida, de tranquila emotividad, con atisbos de genialidad descriptiva aquí y allá y que, como lo será toda la producción posterior del escritor, no necesita para mantener una trama interesante de grandes o muy dramáticos acontecimientos; salvo el relato último sobre la figura del Jefté bíblico, todos los personajes aquí son personas comunes y corrientes, o lo son en ese mundo de kibutz en el que habitan, un espacio habitacional comunal y cerrado rodeado por todas partes por el desierto, un sol quemante y luego una noche negra, en que los chacales aúllan sin parar, crispando los nervios de todos esos kibutzianos, jerosolimitanos y telavivenses ya de por sí crispados, tan alienados algunos de los otros pese a la cercada comunidad.

A diferencia de otros libros de relatos de Oz, estos no están relacionados unos con otros ni siquiera en cuanto localización, pues sólo algunos transcurren en algún kibutz ficticio, y hay que decir también que uno que otro no es muy interesante, el autor aún se extravía un poco en descripciones irrelevantes o tan sólo demasiado largas, sin que la gracia o elegancia de la prosa ya madura del autor les brinde peso o simple belleza.

Para alguien acostumbrado (y quizás enamorado) de la narrativa de Amos Oz, estos cuentos son sin duda una lectura disfrutable, interesante, tal vez curiosa al ser el primer trabajo publicado del autor (con todo y haber sido reeditados algunos años más tarde), y sin ser tampoco nada que quite el aliento o entusiasme particularmente se ve ya en ellos la clara impronta de Oz, su forma tan peculiar de resaltar o hasta elevar lo simple cotidiano a nivel de arte, y que ha hecho de él mi escritor contemporáneo predilecto.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have read many of the Israeli Amos Oz’s works, but this book has been following me around from bookshelf to bookshelf for many, many years. One of these days, I figured that I would get to it, and I have finally.

This is Oz’s first book, a collection of eight stories. It does not read like an early work, an apprentice work, for Amos Oz is in full control of his craft. I have always liked him for his mastery of details. Either the narrators and/or the characters of Oz’s novels are keen observers of the world around them, and out of those details Oz builds character, setting, and plot. Moreover, the stories in this volume are fully developed. Characters, settings, and plots are not traced and limned in storytelling shorthand, but are satisfyingly complete despite, I would say, their compactness.

The collection is anchored by a set of kibbutz stories (Oz grew up and lived much of his life on a kibbutz) and is completed by a war story, a story set in Jerusalem, and a telling of the biblical story of Jephthah. Oz regularly turns to intergenerational conflict, the threat of the other, and belonging/alienation in his takes on modern and ancient Israel. Within the kibbutz, the community is defined in part by the tension by the first generation emigres who imagined, idealized, theorized and created the kibbutzes and the subsequent generations who have more practical concerns and whose identity issues are not those of their forefathers. Outside the boundaries of the kibbutz, there is the outsider threat (nomads, jackals), which often equates the strange, violent, and noisy jackal with the Arab bedouins (Palestinians). Interestingly, just as Oz equates the Arab bedouins with jackals, so does Palestinian novelist Yaya Yakhlif in A Lake Beyond the Wind link Jewish settlers with jackals. Jackals are a regional metaphor for threatening, incomprehensible other. The question is how to respond to that other: engage with it, invite it in, or fight with and kill it (and risk being killed by it). Oz explores the three options, making clear how difficult the first two are and how problematic the third is. Oz’s telling of the Jephthah story may be the most interesting in the volume, because of the focus on the power of the outsider/outcast, who rejects belonging–becoming an insider–and the weakness inherent in such a position. Instead, in Oz’s political economy, the outsider unites, however ephemerally, turning the insides and insiders out.

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 3 out of 5]

După mine, Amos Oz e mai bun în ipostaza de romancier. Proza scurtă, cu care debuta la 26 de ani chia prin acest volum, e interesantă dar parcă-i lipsește acea exactitate și claritate cu care populează spațiul romanului. Finalul povestirilor e întotdeauna ezitant și aproximativ, ca un semn de întrebare. Asta să-i fi fost intenția?

Șacalii urlă (râd, plâng) disciplinat în fiecare povestire și din refrenul lor se desprinde o temă: cea a unui cămin care nu e același cu locul în care te-ai născut. Care trebuie recucerit, reclădit, apărat, protejat. E Israelul începuturilor, cu kibbuznici și poeți, dar, în același timp, e un Israel reclamat de timpurile biblice. De la întemeiere țara a fost un Pământ al Făgăduinței, nicidecum un teritoriu moștenit.

Disputat și astăzi, poftim. De parcă această soartă îl va urmări o veșnicie.

[Eva Rodríguez · Rating 1 out of 5]

Está formada por 8 cuentos, de los que me han gustado 3, como mucho.

Son historias centradas en la vida en el kibutz, escenario familiar del autor durante la época de la fundación de Israel. Sin embargo, he visto más lenguaje enrevesado y metafórico entre sus páginas, que verdaderas historias personales.

Se tocan muchos temas: la política, el conflicto entre árabes y judíos, relatos de amor, de odio y de pasiones. Pero no he logrado empatizar con ninguno.

[richard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The stillness of the night descended on the plain. Soon the crickets and the jackal packs returned to their evil ways." This collection is filled with this kind of imagery, often repeated, sometimes quite deliberately. One man is described as 'parched, dirty, and overflowing with husky elation'. These observations are distant, but effective. My first read of Amos Oz, won't be my last.

[Florin Murarașu-Catană · Rating 5 out of 5]

An amazing, direct and uncompromising collection of short tales with a common theme: the desert. Its ominous silence pierced by mocking and malevolent jackal howls proves to be the perfect setting for all these short stories which made want to discover more and more of what Amos Oz has written.

[Christel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brillante stories, und gut übersetzt.

[Sara · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn’t finish it. The style of writing is very interesting and I appreciated it but the content is unnecessarily gruesome. I love novels about Kibbutzim & Israeli life but these stories felt more like they were out to shock more than anything else. Shame bcs the writing was good.

[Gaby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Son varios cuentos, pero son tristes, desesperanzadores hasta cierto punto. Definitivamente un tipo de lectura distinto al que estoy acostumbrada, pero muy lúgubres.