שליחותו של הממונה על משאבי אנוש

by A.B. Yehoshua, אברהם ב. יהושע

הכל מתחיל בפיגוע. אשה בשנות הארבעים שלה, בלי שום מסמך מזהה, נפצעה אנושות בשוק הירקות בירושלים, נאבקה במשך יומיים על חייה, ואחרי מותה שכבה אלמונית במדור המדים של בית-החולים, בהמתנה לבירור זהותה. בחיפוש נוסף בסל הקניות שלה התגלה תלוש משכורת של מאפייה גדולה בירושלים, קרוע ובלי שם. אבל העובדים והממונים במאפייה לא הרגישו בהעדרה של שום עובדת. מקומון ירושלמי עומד לתקוף את המאפייה על התנכרותה לעובדת שלה מתוך "חוסר אנושיות מזעזע." אבל הבירור במאפייה מגלה שהעובדת - לא-יהודייה מחבר-המדינות, מהנדסת במקצועה, שעבדה במאפייה כפועלת ניקיון, פוטרה לפני חודש, ורק בגלל תקלה ביורוקרטית המשיכה לקבל משכורת. אברהם ב. יהושע שוב מפתיע אותנו בעוצמת דמיונו, בתפניות הלא-צפויות ככל שמתקמת קריאתנו בספר; ועוד יותר ביכולתו הרעננה להוליך את כתיבתו לטריטוריות חדשות של הנפש ושל המציאות הכי עכשווית, וכל זה בשפע של פרטים דקים ומדויקים. זהו סיפור פותח מחיצות, המחדש את המרופט, תוך שהוא מהבהב בין הפסיכולוגיה האישית לבין האידיאולוגיה הלאומית, בין האינטימי לבין המטפיזי. הסרט שהופק על פי הספר זכה בפרס האוסקר הישראלי ובפרסים רבים בפסטיבלים ברחבי העולם

Genres: Fiction, Israel, Middle East, Jewish, Novels, Literature, Book Club

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

About the author

Abraham B. Yehoshua (Hebrew: א.ב. יהושע also: אברהם ב. יהושע) is one of Israel's preeminent writers. His novels include A Journey to the End of the Millenium, The Liberated Bride, and A Woman in Jerusalem, which was awarded the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in 2007.

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 3 out of 5]

A woman is killed by a suicide bomber in an Israeli market. No one claims her body because, as we learn shortly, although she is not Jewish, she had immigrated to Israel from Russia with her Jewish husband and son. They returned but she stayed. It turns out that Israel has a law that, as a last resort, an employer is responsible for claiming a body and making funeral arrangements. Due to a paperwork mix-up, her employer didn’t claim her. A journalist from a trashy newspaper investigating her death makes a big deal of this in a story. The employer, a bakery, is abjectly sorry and starts to make amends.



The story gets more complicated. As often happens with immigrants, she took a job way below her abilities. She had been trained as an engineer but was cleaning baking pans. Technically she was kind of “on leave” from her job while she looked for new work based on her agreement with her boss who had a crush on her.

The head of human resources at the bakery is told by his boss to take on her burial. Her ex- and son want her brought back for burial in a remote village in Russia where the woman’s mother still lives. The last half of the novel involves the flight to Russia and then the trip in winter across terrible roads. A half dozen people are in the military type vehicle pulling the coffin in a trailer. There are so many complications and side adventures that story turns into a farce, almost a Keystone Cops caper. I didn’t understand the point of all this.



The book is translated from the Hebrew. I like this author, having very much enjoyed his novel A Late Divorce. So this is a decent story but not one of his stronger works.

Photo of east Jerusalem from storage.googleapis.com
Photo of the author from wikipedia commons

[Elyse Walters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Update $2.99 Kindle special today
... I read this years ago. The story still stays with me. An Israeli is found dead - a woman from a suicide bombing
..... it’s the tale that follows about the baker who finds her that kept me intrigued while he wants to do the right thing and get her body sent back home ...
A.B. Yehoshua is a skillful writer. It’s worth reading any one of his books. Some are better than others - but you can feel you’re in great hands when you read his work.

A.B. Yehoshua has a new book — to be released (in the U.S.) in March


Its called "The Retrospective". (looking forward to reading it)

[Yair · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't like AB Yehoshua the man, at least insofar of what I've read of him in articles and in speeches and from quotes. He's not exactly the nicest man or the greatest master of tact (equating Diaspora Judaism to masturbation and apparently returning Saul Bellow's compliment of being a 'world class writer' with 'I wouldn't trade ten Saul Bellows for one William Faulkner'---what an ass) and striking me just a tad as a political hypocrite. And he's certainly not the modern Israeli literary equivalent of William Faulkner despite what he or any of his cheerleaders in Israel and abroad may say or actually believe.

All that being said I hope this properly prefaces this review. This is an excellent book, the best of his I've read since his first book The Lover. It doesn't always skilfully navigate the divide between parable and ostensibly realistic story in Israel, having more than a few noticeable slips and moments of friction between the two, but what Yehoshua does well he does incredibly well. Admittedly the first quarter or so of the book is at times painfully slow. Almost as if Yehoshua doesn't quite know what he wants the story to be or what foundation he wants to lay in terms of character basis and tone of narrative.

But these slips are momentary and only last the first eighty or so pages. Where the story really takes off is when (spoiler) the protagonist and others make it to the eponymous woman's native country and begin their funereal journey. Without giving too much away this is where the story's substantive core is revealed and Yehoshua proves his (sometimes) mastery of exploring the Israeli mental and emotional condition when staged outside of the country of Israel and left to fend for itself in a world that may or not even acknowledge Israel or, possibly even more difficult, acknowledge it but just not care, refusing to glorify or demonize but simply give it (the country) and them (the Israelis) no more than a passing glance.

A great read and well worth the time despite the spoken words of the jackass author himself.

[Greta G · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very weird story about a mysterious, lonely foreign woman who dies in a terror attack in the city of Jerusalem. Nobody claims her body and the only thing they know about her is that she worked in a bakery. The bakery's human resources manager sets out on a mission to find out who this woman was in order to ensure the company's good reputation and to prove its old owner's humanity.
Although he only saw a fuzzy picture of her, he becomes obsessed with her beauty and with his mission.
We only get to know the dead woman's name, Yulia, while the other characters are identified with their occupational titles.
The story is intriguing, albeit a bit unbelievable.
An entertaining tragicomedy, but I'm not sure if the author wanted to convey a message, and if so, what this message was exactly.

[robin friedman · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Search For Love And Place

A. B. Yehoshua's novel, "A Woman in Jerusalem" raises a number of difficult themes -- the nature of love, the search for identity, the importance of place -- but explores them unconvincingly. I don't think the novel succeeds.

The story involves a dead non-Jewish woman, Yulia Ragayev,in her late 40s who had immigrated to Jersualem with her Jewish lover and her son from a former marriage. When her lover and son leave, she opts to remain and is killed in an attack by suicide bombers. Although trained as an engineer, Yulia has taken a job as a cleaning woman with a large bakery company, whose parent company also makes newsprint. Upon her death, she is traced to the company, and an opportunistic news reporter, the "weasel", is going to publish an article faulting the company for not showing more compassion towards its employee.

Only Yulia is named in the novel with the other characters identified by their functions, such as the "weasel", the "office manager", and, the chief character "the human resources manager". A theme of the book thus seems to be the anonymity of modern life. The owner of the company, out of a mixture of genuine compassion and self-interest for his business, charges the human resources manager to learn Yulia's story and make appropriate amends on behalf of the company. The human resources manager ultimately travels with Yulia's coffin to an obscure village in Russia in the depth of winter, where he encounters the Israeli counsul, Yulia's ex-husband, her son, and her mother.

The book tells of the outward journey of the human resources manager to secure a proper burial for Yulia and his inward journey to find himself. The human resources manager, in his early 40s, has just been divorced and is living with his mother while he prowls the pubs in the evenings in search of a new relationship. He worries about his teenage daughter. He had interviewed Yulia and given her a job but had no memory of her. In particular, because he was wrapped up in himself and his own troubles, he missed her beauty and her charisma which was apparent to everyone else. But he becomes attracted to her, in her death, in attempting to give her a proper burial, and in the process he tries to understand what he himself wants from life.

There are many threads and evocative moments in the book, but they mostly don't lead anywhere and the story doesn't come together. One of the better moments was a scene near the end of the novel where the human resources manager and the reporter ("weasel") discuss Plato. The two men had been students in philosophy classes at the university. The reporter, for all his cynicism, has been working for years on a dissertation of Plato's Phaedo, a dialogue which discusses the fate of the soul after death. He and the human resources manager have a discussion about Plato's Symposium, and its treatment of human love and its relationship to the eternal. With an ironic wink in his eye, Yehoshua has the weasel say that "Platonic love has been mined to exhaustion." (p. 186). A little later in the conversation, the weasel observes that "that's love's secret. There is no forumla. Each person has to find the secret for himself. That's why Eros is neither god nor man.... yet he links the human to the divine, the temporal to the eternal." (pp 187-188) The theme of the soul's immortality in Plato's Phaedo and of the nature of love and eros in the Symposium capture many of the themes of this novel.

Yehoshua's book reminded me of Jose Saramago's novel "All the Names", in which all the primary characters except for the main character, are, likewise, nameless. In Saramago's book, a lonely and alienated clerk in the General Registry becomes obsessed with and searches for a beautiful woman who has died. Saramago's and Yehosua's books use many of the same devices and, in their pictures of anonymity and loneliness, emphasize the need in human life for connectedness and love. Readers interested in the themes Yehoshua treats may enjoy Saramago's fine novel.

Robin Friedman

[Tittirossa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Muore un'immigrata in un attentato terroristico. Un quotidiano accusa l'azienda presso cui lavorava di disumanità perché nessuno si era accorto della sua assenza.
Il ricco proprietario incarica il responsabile delle risorse umane di scoprire come mai. E qui parte una vicenda "epica" (nello stile fintamente dimesso di Y.) di ricerca del "corpo" (sacro) della donna, del suo passato, delle sue vicende, fino ad un presente altrettanto epico, con un finale di espiazione. fino al colpo di scena finale, quando l'anziana madre della vittima (ritrovata in uno sperduto paesino russo) decide di seppellire quel corpo "girovago" a Gerusalemme.
Perché il senso di colpa di chi strazia e lascia straziare così le vite umane non abbia mai fine.
Una ricerca del Graal al contrario.

[Blackjessamine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yehoshua ormai sta diventando il mio "scrittore da fine sessione d'esami": compro un suo romanzo dopo un esame, e poi a sessione finita aspetto che arrivi un periodo tranquillo, un finesettimana senza nulla da fare, e mi dedico solo alla lettura. Ci sarebbe da aspettarsi un'abitudine simile con i libri del proprio scrittore preferito, e invece no, io ho scelto Yehoshua: che scrive benissimo, ma mi lascia anche sempre insoddisfatta; che mi fa macinare centinaia di pagine in un giorno, ma non esplode mai; che sembra promettere storie meravigliose, ma che in qualche modo si perdono.
E che scrive libri che in fondo mi piacciono, ma ne riesco a parlare sempre e solo per mezzo di critiche.
Insomma, questo per me è il periodo della contraddizione, e "Il responsabile delle risorse umane"si trova in perfetta armonia con questo stato di cose: m'è piaciuto eppure mi ha delusa, l'ho divorato e mi è sembrato un viaggio lunghissimo, l'ho trovato distaccato eppure attentissimo a tutte le variazioni dell'umano.
E la contraddizione è anche qui, nell'umanità richiamata già nel titolo, nell'umanità di cui si dovrebbe essere responsabili, l'umanità che è la grande assente del romanzo. Non ci sono infatti persone, in questo romanzo, ma solo ruoli, rappresentazioni: la moglie, la figlia, il direttore, l'ex marito, il responsabile delle risorse umane; l'unica ad essere propriamente umana, reale, dotata di un nome, è anche l'unica persona ad aver perso la capacità di agire in modo attivo: Julia, una donna straniera con un taglio degli occhi da tartara, un'ingegnere che a Gerusalemme fa le pulizie durante il turno di notte e che perde tragicamente la vita in un attentato al mercato ortofrutticolo. Nessuno si accorge della sua scomparsa, nessuno reclama il suo corpo in obitorio, e i pezzi del puzzle si ricompongono solo quando ormai è tardi: un giornalista minaccia di scrivere un articolo velenoso sulla mancanza di umanità di un panificio che non si accorge della mancanza di una dipendente, ma anche qui non c'è umanità, non c'è sete di rispetto per la vittima, ma solo voglia di lucrare sulla morte di qualcuno. E così il responsabile delle risorse umane, un uomo non cattivo, ma chiuso come una chiocciola, indifferente alla bellezza che gli passa accanto incapace di sfiorarlo, inizia un viaggio un po' folle per difendere il buon nome del panificio e cercare di scoprire qualcosa sull'identità della donna morta.
E così si incontrano bimbi nascosti sotto la pelliccia della madre, ex mogli infuriate, cinque sorelle estremamente religiose che attraversano i cortili in camicia da notte, medici scorbutici e salme conservate da moltissimo tempo, consoli e militari, figli disperati e madri risolute.
Si parte per un viaggio che sembra rincorrere l'umanità del pentimento e del risarcimento, ma che si rivela mosso soltanto dalla testardaggine e da punti d'orgoglio egoistici. I personaggi si muovono apparentemente spinti dalla devozione e dalla voglia di fare del bene, ma in realtà le loro motivazioni sono basse e inconsciamente incentrate su tutt'altro: la speranza di cogliere il ricordo di una straordinaria bellezza, la voglia di difendere la propria reputazione, la necessità di scattare la foto giusta e di scrivere l'articolo giusto, e la paura di dover salutare un affetto da soli. Solo nelle ultime pagine, con quel finale forse un po' affrettato ma sicuramente appropriato, tornano l'umanità e l'empatia.
È un romanzo che mi ha confusa, mi ha fatto girare in tondo fin quasi ad avere la nausea, mi ha fatto sorridere e mi ha quasi commossa. Ma tutte queste cose non le ha fatte fino in fondo, si è sempre fermato ad un passo dalla meta, sempre senza quel finale più deciso, quella riga più sferzante, quel sentimento più approfondito. È un soffio, un peso minimo, ma basta a lasciarmi con uno spiacevole senso di frustrazione, perché sarebbe bastato così poco a renderlo un libro tanto più forte, tanto più mio .
Mi rassegnerò, prima o poi, al fatto che non devo pretendere da un libro le giustificazioni alle mie motivazioni.

[Maayan K · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is not AB Yehoshua's best work, to put it kindly. The story, about a large bakery's personnel manager tasked with dealing with the body of a foreign worker killed in a suicide bombing, may have been more interesting when it was published in 2003 in the midst of the second intifada, but I doubt it.

The story simply isn't interesting enough. And there are so many things to annoy. like, the fact that none of the characters (except for the dead woman) have names, and are only called by their titles: "the human resources manager", "the night shift supervisor", "the old man", and on and on, over and over again. The slanted eyes and mysterious beauty of the dead woman, which are referred to again and again. I suppose both these things these are supposed to amount to meaningful totemic symbols - the marginalized victim's magnetic beauty and her name restore her humanity, while the more privileged people left alive are also left anonymous. Meh. The entire thing falls flat.

I was really surprised, because some of Yehoshua's other work, "Mr. Mani" and "Journey to the End of the Millennium," are both favorites of mine. Hillel Halkin's translation is great, as always, but the raw materials on this one were simply lacking.

[Hermien · Rating 5 out of 5]

AB Yehoshua is one of my favourite Israeli writers. It was only when I started reading the book I realised I had also seen the film "The Human Resource Manager" which is based on the book. Both are great.

[Madam Bovaread · Rating 4 out of 5]

Am terminat de citit cartea ieri și încă mă gândesc la finalul ei twisted, ceva la care nu te aștepți și nici nu bănuiești. Un roman care schimbă aproape din temelii unele personaje, fiind în același timp tulburător.

Romanul se învârte în jurul Iuliei Ragaiev, singurul personaj ce are un nume în carte, restul fiind descrise doar prin prisma meseriei lor (directorul de resurse umane, patronul, secretara, șeful de tura, ziaristul, consulul, șoferul, etc.). Problema e că Iulia nu mai există printre cei vii, fiind ucisă într-un atentat sinucigaș dintr-un restaurant din Ierusalim, care este și singurul loc numit în carte.

Ea este identificată pe baza unui fluturaș de salariu găsit asupra ei și cum nu e evreică, e o străină, este contactată firma de la care ar fi primit salariul. De aici încep să se precipite lucrurile, fiecare încercând să paseze responsabilitatea identificării și îngropării ei. Dar când în scenă intră și un articol de ziar care condamnă vehement firma pentru nepăsare, patronul o ia razna și îi încredințează directorului de resurse umane sarcina de a se ocupa de "caz" și a spăla reputația companiei.

Directorul de resurse umane intră într-o cursa contra cronometru, pentru că o identifică la morgă, ia câteva lucruri din apartamentul ei și însoțește sicriul în locul ei de origine, un loc nenumit de undeva din Rusia Sovietică, pentru a o încredința familiei și a o înmormânta. La aeroport se întâlnește și cu ziaristul și fotograful care vin cu el ca să se asigure că își duce misiunea până la capat fara mișmașuri.

Când cu greu în sfârșit ajunge la familia decedatei, mama ei le spune că de ce au adus-o aici? Trebuia să o îngroape la Ierusalim, că acolo s-a dus, acolo era locul ei. Na, ia-o pe asta directore! Acesta se gândește și îl sună pe patron ce a hotărât și de ce, pentru ca aceasta calatorie l-a facut sa gandeasca diferit.

Romanul prezintă o realitate dură - imigranții care, asenenea cetățenilor israelieni, pot fi afectați de efectele terorismului, și ce se întâmplă cu ei, cine e responsabil? De asemenea, această "misiune" îl schimbă mult și pe directorul de resurse umane, fiindcă de multe ori lumea nu apare doar în alb sau negru, ci poate fi în multe nuanțe de gri.

[Gauss74 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anche se è una tematica assai ricorrente nella narrativa contemporanea, in questa storia Yehoshua decrive la spersonalzzazione degli uomini con grande ed immediata aggressività.
Un dirigente giovane ed ambizioso, ha tutti i numeri per fare strada all'interno di una grande azienda produttrice di pane, ma non ne ha affatto per farne nella vita. A tal punto è emotivamente immaturo che tutte le sue relazioni umane sfociano nel nulla della mediocrità. Il suo matrimonio è andato in malora e l'ex moglie non trova di meglio che guardarlo con compassione, cosi come compassionevole ed amaro è lo sguardo della madre che vede il figlio fallire qualsiasi relazione con gli altri. Dal caratere estremamente debole ed insicuro, questo ragazzo incapace di compiere scelte vere si trova paradossalmente ad occupare il posto che meno di tutti si confà alla sua aerea ed infantile inconsistenza, il responsabile delle risorse umane.
Oppure no? Se da un lato proprio una persona incapace di stabilire rapporti umani (al punto da non meritare neppure un nome) diventa "responsabile delle risorse umane", questo riflette in fondo molto bene il grigio mondo della produzione aziendale, che parallelamente riduce l'uomo a "risorsa".

Le cose sembrano infatti funzionare, ma il mondo non permette a nessuno di vivere senza fare i conti con la responsabilità, con scelte dolorose e con la fatica di vedere gli altri come uomini e donne "altri" e "pari" a noi. La tragica morte di una sventurata dipendente dell'azienda, povera immigrata costretta ad un lavoro infimo, passa sotto ilenzio ed ignorata dal meccanismo di funzionamento dell'azienda: lo scandalo che ne cosegue costringe il protagonista a fronteggiare l'enorme responsabilità che si era sempre nascosto, e dalla quale all'inizio tenta di sfuggire con patetica goffaggine.
E' l'inizio di un faticoso percorso di consapevolezza e di maturazione, che al termine di un lungo viaggio in un paese straniero condurrà il protagonista a vedere gli altri con occhi diversi, ad un maggiore spirito di iniziativa ed ad avere il coraggio di fare scelte che possano avere delle conseguenze. Si finisce il romanzo col pensiero che anche se arte da una morte, la storia sia in realtà una pacata celebrazione della vita.

La scrittura di Yehoshua mi affascina sempre perchè riesce ad essere semplice e chiara senza mai essere superficiale, e nessuna parola sembra mai essere scelta a caso. Una storia che contiene elementi drammatici ambientata all'interno di un paese che del dramma fa la sua ragione d'essere come Israele, volta le spalle all'effetto facile e procede con grande umanità e semplicità, tale da far apparire tutti i personaggi (dal sergente russo che presidia una base militare al giornalista che ha diffuso la notizia dello scandalo) come piacevoli a conoscersi, con le loro positività e le loro debolezze.

Che differenza con il pesante cinismo di Philip Roth, sempre alla ricerca di uno sfogo alla rabbia ed ll'angoscia di una vita che si nega da sè! Anche al termine di storia breve, lineare e forse troppo didascalica come "il responsabile delle risorse umane" non si riesce a finire l'ultima pagina senza la piacevole sensazione che, dopotutto, l'umanità ha ancora speranza.
Anche questa capacità che ha Yehoshua di considerare i problemi degli ebrei e dell'ebraismo come problemi "umani" e non "ebraici" è peculiare e preziosa, e mi fa pensare che se questa sensibilità fosse più diffusa quegli stessi problemi sarebbero più facili a risolversi.

Forse non sarà il libro più bello di Abraham Yehoshua ma la capacità di vedere la fatica della responsabilità e dele scelte con semplicità e sicurezza, la possibilità che dà alla vita di essere vissuta guardando alle cose semplici, unita ad una prosa parimenti sicura e piacevole lo rendolno godibile ed assolutamente consigliato.

[Marcello S · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una tragedia intrisa di lati comici.
Il viaggio come processo di purificazione.
Personaggi senza nome che rappresentano categorie umane.
Trama circolare.

Niente male.
Forse non così sorprendente dal punto di vista stilistico ma Yehoshua per me è una bella scoperta. [74/100]

[Jan Rice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read one of A. B. Yehoshua's books previously, The Tunnel, and had found it somewhat impenetrable, but maybe that was because it was his last book; so, I thought, he may not have been at his height. This one was not like that, I thought early on; he was sharp and funny.

Soon enough, though, that changed. The humorous barbs remained, but I developed a sense of foreboding, as the protagonist, never named, repeatedly behaved unwisely -- a set-up, or so I thought, for one of those downhill-course stories like Atonement or The Bonfire of the Vanities.

But that's not the way it happened.

The protagonist, a 38 year-old veteran in Israel, has been a salesman for a large bakery/bread company, but when the story opens, he's its human-resource manager, a change of position occasioned when his marriage was on the rocks due to his traveling, or so it was thought, but, now, whether he's on the road or not, his marriage is defunct.

The wealthy old owner, his boss, calls him in and tells him what's up: a local journalist is getting ready to call out the company and shame the boss publicly because a low-level woman employee has been killed in a terrorist attack yet remained unmissed and unidentified for days, presumably because of her low status. She is Yulia Ragayev, a Russian with engineer training who, after coming to Israel with her Jewish then-boyfriend, took what work she could after he elected to get out of Dodge -- the intifada was happening -- and, at her wish, leave her in Jerusalem, where she met her fate.

The first step is to discover that's who she is, which takes some doing -- if indeed it's ever actually established -- and then to do right by her before the weaselly, small-time journalist can do his thing.

This book was written in 2002-2003, published 2004, and translated into English in 2006. To position us in time, note that So You've Been Publicly Shamed wasn't published until 2015. So the author is prescient; ahead of his time. Sort of. Instead of what would occur nowadays, a wild goose chase of sorts commences. For starters, the owner pins the blame for their predicament on the human resources manager.

He, the human resources manager, has a case of loose lips. He talks about sensitive subject matter in all the wrong places. That's just one of his unfortunate qualities, and those qualities were why I was routinely waiting for the other shoe to drop. But as to that I was in the wrong story. This story ends in a way akin to Stephen King's The Dark Tower series, another sort of ending I dislike. Instead, the human resources manager unaccountably keeps garnering praise and appreciation.

Suffice it to say that this is a very strange book. After my double-time sprint through the galvanizing denouement, I imagined the author gleefully chortling over how he'd gotten another sucker to read it.

At that point I had to pull myself together and focus. My conclusion so far is that at that early date Yehoshua was at least in part satirizing a state of affairs he saw coming but that as yet hadn't fully developed.

Wish he'd been able to nip it in the bud!

And this is only what I have been able to intuit. I bet others have had other takes!

Any difficulties are not due to the translator, the respected Hillel Halkin, who is also an author in his own right.

Thanks to my local public library which has this book in its collection.

3 1/2 stars

[Arwen56 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un insolito Yehoshua, questo, perché è pervaso di una lieve vena di umorismo.
In questa Gerusalemme in cui ci conduce l’autore, nessuno ha un nome proprio, bensì sono tutti indicati tramite il proprio ruolo o la propria funzione (il responsabile delle risorse umane, la segretaria, il figlio, il medico, ecc.), ad accezione dell’unica persona morta, Julia Regajev, vittima di un attentato, la cui salma deve essere ricondotta nello sperduto paesino in cui è nata.

Mi ha fatto tornare alla mente Tutti i nomi, di Saramago. Là, il signor José, oscuro impiegato della Conservatoria Generale dell’Anagrafe, che conosce tutti i nomi, ma nessuna persona, all’improvviso sente il desiderio di uscire dalla sua solitudine e avvicinarne almeno una, per riuscire a capire davvero chi è. E così comincia la sua ricerca.
Qui, il responsabile delle risorse umane non avrebbe in realtà proprio nessuna voglia di conoscere questa Julia Regajev, ma è costretto a farlo dalle circostanze. E così comincia anche la sua ricerca.

Pur nell’assoluta diversità dei tempi, dei luoghi e delle situazioni, per entrambi sarà una sorta di viaggio soprattutto alla ricerca di se stessi.

Niente male anche il film che ne è stato tratto.

[paper0r0ss0 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un lungo apologo sulla responsabilita' e sulla colpa. Nella Gerusalemme degli attentati suicidi, una emigrata da un non meglio precisato paese dell'est, rimane uccisa da un'esplosione. Il cadavere per lunghi giorni non viene ne' identificato ne' reclamato. E' il responsabile delle risorse umane dell'azienda presso cui la donna lavorava con un'umile mansione, dopo una singolare modalita' di ingaggio, a occuparsi della questione. Arriva a provare un tale senso di colpa per il destino crudele e beffardo della vittima da prendere su di se' la responsabilita' del periglioso rimpatrio della salma. Aveva assunto a suo tempo la donna, ha convissuto nella stessa azienda, ma di lei nulla sa realmente e nulla si ricorda. La morte, tanto piu' se improvvisa e ingiusta, diventa cosi' responsabilita' collettiva, tutti sono chiamati a rendere testimonianza. Le colpe e le omissioni non sono mai troppo piccole o trascurabili e le occasioni di riscatto troppo difficili. Appare chiaro che tutta l'attenzione posta nel romanzo per la carita' verso la defunta, sottinde la necessita' della cura per il prossimo, per il vicino, quale che sia la distanza sociale, culturare o religiosa.

[Elspa1973 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Come una storia trasmetta sensazioni diverse a seconda di come la si racconta, senza l'ausilio dell'intonazione della voce, ma solo con un incedere ben meditato dei periodi. Perchè il racconto è pungente, a tratti quasi divertente, ci si riesce ad immagine il responsabile delle r.u. in gita fuori porta con compagni improvvisati tra foreste e neve, ma la storia è drammatica, in quella che è ormai diventata la quotidianità di Israele. E il protagonista, mai nominato, ma solo definito, trasporta una bara con la stessa leggerezza con la quale trasporta pani e focacce. Non c'è indifferenza ma assurda routine: perchè in Israele morire vittima di un attentato terroristico rientra tra le morti naturali e l'uomo si adatta all'assurdo e vive nell'assurdo e consegna bare come se consegnasse fiori. E' il finale che scompiglia le carte e il tavolo: è nel finale che irrompe la compassione e la coscienza dell'assurdo.

[Ugnė · Rating 4 out of 5]

Man sunku iki galo pamėgti knygas, kurių pagrindiniai veikėjai daro kažką, ko daryti nenori, ir vis tiek daro, nes kažkas jiems liepė taisyti ne jų pačių klaidas. Tai todėl 4 žvaigždutės, nes kitais atžvilgiais puikus kūrinys apie susvetimėjimą.

[SirJo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Romanzo che si dipana prima in una Gerusalemme cupa e piovosa, poi in territorio di una fredda ex repubblica sovietica. Un viaggio dietro a un feretro che diventa un viaggio del protagonista nel ritrovare un significato di vita.
Il feretro, che nessuno reclama, è quello di una donna che formalmente aveva un lavoro come addetta alle pulizie in un panificio di Gerusalemme. Il responsabile delle risorse umane viene mandato in missione dal proprietario del panificio per rimediare a un danno di immagine compromessa da un articolo giornalistico.
Yehoshua, come sempre, ha la capacità di raccontare i viaggi dell'animo umano in maniera coinvolgente e con escamotage narrativi interessanti. La sorpresa finale poi fa sorridere e pensare.

[Tor Gar · Rating 1 out of 5]

No le he pillado el punto en ningún momento. No he entrado en la historia ni en los personajes. En algunos aspectos me recuerda a libros ambientados en Japón que tengo más leídos por lo del machismo, religiosidad y tradición.

Y tenía pensado ponerle dos estrellas pero que en el último cuarto se ponga místico con un sueño ha hecho que estuviera a puntito de abandonarlo. Aunque me quedase una sola página. Unas ganas de mandarlo todo a la mierda. Al final lo he acabado para poder marcar una casilla mental y no volver al autor jamás. No me interesa lo que cuenta, o yo no he sabido entenderlo, o lo que cuenta no sabe hacerlo interesante.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Halfway through, I'm adding this one to my DNF shelf. Realized I didn't care about the main character, or the deceased employee, enough to keep going. I've read a couple of other books by the author which were interesting, but would strongly advise against starting here if you're new to him!

[Talia Carner · Rating 5 out of 5]

The journey of the Human Resource Man...

The original name of the novel in its Hebrew version is "The Mission of the Human Resource Man." And indeed, the journey is more of the nameless Human Resource director at a Jerusalem bakery than that of a woman killed during a Palestinian suicide bombing and becomes the focus of the Human Resource director's investigation.

The owner of the bakery is a retired, rich man who is sensitive to public criticism when it is discovered that the deceased woman was being paid her salary after she had left her job as a member of the night cleaning crew. He wants to do the right thing, and compels the Human Resource director to take upon himself not only the responsibility, but also the blame for the negligence in noticing her absence.

And so begins a journey for the Human Resource director, a journey that changes him as he becomes enmeshed in the dead woman's life--and death.

In comparing the English text to the original Hebrew version, it is clear that the editor had made a crucial decision (which must have been imposed upon the translator) to forgo the present-tense fluid, free-association narration of A. B. Yehoshua in favor of standard, commercial syntax in which the English version is written in the past tense, with the dialogue lines set apart in quotes. This major decision has decapitated the beauty of the A. B. Yehoshua's lyrical prose, stripping the novel from its fast-moving, seamless style into more of a plot-driven story than a character-driven story.

Nevertheless, this is a story worth reading as, in some interpretation, A Woman in Jerusalem parallels the capitulation of the Human Resource director to that of the State of Israel taking blame to placate public opinion even when there is no fault on her part.

[Ram · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this a few years ago....I don't remember too much

[Marina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ho letto questo libro in inglese perché c’era un’offerta sul Kindle store e costava una sciocchezza, ma il libro esiste anche in italiano e si intitola Il responsabile delle risorse umane, rimanendo fedele al titolo originale ebraico.

Ci ho messo 5 giorni a leggerlo, il che per me non è normale, per un libro di 237 pagine. È vero che l’ho alternato alla lettura di Il cigno nero: Come l'improbabile governa la nostra vita di Nassim Nicholas Taleb, di cui vi parlerò a tempo debito, ma resta il fatto che ci ho messo più tempo del mio solito. Infatti il romanzo non mi ha entusiasmato. Di Yehoshua avevo letto Un divorzio tardivo, che mi era piaciuto tantissimo, per cui mi aspettavo di più.

Intendiamoci, è un bel romanzo, ma la storia è troppo surreale per i miei gusti e mi ha fatto perdere di vista quello che poteva essere l’intento dell’autore. Perché, come ho letto in alcune recensioni, Yehoshua voleva probabilmente parlare del senso di colpa. E ci riesce benissimo, solo che a me questo romanzo ha fatto ridere e il messaggio è inevitabilmente scivolato in secondo piano. E non sono nemmeno tanto sicura che volesse far ridere. Ma mi è sembrata una storia da commedia dell’assurdo e in certi frangenti non ho proprio potuto fare a meno di ridere.

A Gerusalemme avviene uno dei tanti attentati suicidi, esplode una bomba al mercato e fra le vittime c’è una donna senza nome, che tale resterà per una settimana. Non ha con sé documenti, ma solo la busta paga dell’azienda per cui lavora, una nota panetteria di Gerusalemme. Dopo una settimana dall’attentato, il proprietario del panificio riceve una telefonata in cui gli viene spiegato che sta per uscire un articolo su un settimanale locale che accusa l’azienda di insensibilità, in quanto dopo sette giorni non si è ancora accorta della morte di una propria dipendente. Il motivo è presto detto: la donna in realtà non è più una dipendente dell’azienda da un mese, ma per una serie di questioni è ancora a libro paga. Il responsabile delle risorse umane verrà incaricato dall’anziano proprietario di occuparsi della faccenda, quindi per rispondere alle accuse di insensibilità dovrà accompagnare la salma nel paesino russo di cui la donna è originaria. Ne nasce una vicenda che secondo me è davvero surreale e degna del miglior Beckett o Ionesco, ma forse sono io che sono insensibile e non capisco.

Una recensione fa notare che la parola “responsabile” è molto importante in Yehoshua e significa portare attivamente il peso di un imperativo morale. Ora, tutto questo si perde nella traduzione inglese, perché il responsabile delle risorse umane è semplicemente lo human resources manager, e sarei davvero curiosa di sapere se anche l’ebraico ha la doppia accezione tipica dell’italiano. Sarebbe molto interessante, perché quello che dice la recensione non è sbagliato, senonché non tiene conto che l’opera è in traduzione. Se qualcuno dei miei lettori conosce l’ebraico mi farebbe piacere avere un parere.

[yolliuś · Rating 1 out of 5]

Julija Ragajev - kilusi, iš vienos iš Tarybų Sąjungos valstybių, moteris. Ieškodama geresnio gyvenimo, moteris persikelė gyventi kartu su vyru į Jeruzalę. Turėdama inžinieriaus išsilavinimą dirbo valytoja vienoje iš miesto kepyklų. Vieną dieną jos gyvybė nutrūksta, kai moteris atsiduria vietiniame turguje, kur įvyksta savižudžio susprogdinimas. Niekas Julija nesidomi, niekas jos neieško ir niekas nesirūpina jos "keistu" dingimu. Jos kūnas savaitėmis guli miesto lavoninėje ir vienintelis dalykas, kuris leidžia nustatyti jos bent kokią "tapatybę" yra darbo užmokesčio lapelis.

Vienas iš Jeruzalės laikraščio žurnalistas susidomi įvykusiu teroristiniu išpuoliu ir parengia straipsnį savaitraščiui apie didžiosios kepyklos, kurioje dirbo moteris, abejingumą bei nenorėjimą prisiimti atsakomybės už tragiškai žuvusį darbuotoją.

Kepyklos direktorius norėdamas išgelbėti savo įmonės vardą bei reputaciją paveda žmogiškųjų išteklių vadovui išsiaiškinti žuvusios moters tapatybę bei tinkamai ją palaiduoti, negailint tam skirtų piniginių lėšų.

Žmogiškųjų išteklių vadovas - 40 metų, išsiskyręs vyras gyvenantis su savo motina ir kovojantis su buvusia žmona dėl bendravimo tvarkos su dukra. Labai sausas, nepatenkintas gyvenimu vyras. Nesupranta, kodėl būtent jis turi domėtis mirusios moters gyvenimu, aiškinti visas aplinkybes ir lydėti jos karstą skrendant į jos gimtinę. Palaipsniui jo požiūris į Juliją Ragajev ir į jam pavestą misiją pasikeičia. Jis įsigilina į mirusios moters gyvenimą, jos santykius su motina, sūnumi bei buvusiu vyru ir apskritai apie įvykusią tragediją. Susiklosčiusi situacija pakeičia vadovą, jis tampa atlaidesnis, pastabesnis ir sprendimus pradeda priimti pats, o ne paklusniai pildyti visus kepyklos direktoriaus nurodymus.

A. B. Yehoshua romanas atspindi ne tik Jeruzalės bet ir daugelis kitų šalių realijas, t.y. dauguma asmenų, kurie tampa teroristiniu ar kitu išpuoliu aukomis yra paliekami likimo valiai, jie yra palaidojami kaip nežinomi asmenys, o jų mirtis yra registruojama tiesiog kaip statistika. Žmogus yra traktuojamas kaip darbo priemonė, ypač gražiai tai atspindi miesto kepykloje, kurioje darbuotojas buvo varomoji jėga, įrankis dėka kurio įmonė uždirbdavo daug pinigų. Ne veltui knygoje visi veikėjai yra nuasmeninti, t.y. yra nurodomi tik šeimyniniai ryšiai arba veikėjų pareigos, pvz. žmogiškųjų išteklių vadovas, konsulė, direktorius, pamainos viršininkas, sekretorė, administratorė ir panašiai ir tik moteris, kuri tragiškai žuvo per teroristinį išpuolį specialiai yra vadinama vardu ir pavarde. Tokiu būdu siekiama pabrėžti moters individualumą, jos asmenybę bei skaudžią gyvenimo istoriją. Kiekvienas miręs žmogus nusipelno, kad jis būtų išlydėtas su meile bei pagarba.

Negalėčiau tvirtinti, kad pati knyga buvo labai įdomiai parašyta, momentais monotiniškumas buvo tikrai per daug užsitęsęs, truko veiksmo, siužetas buvo lėtas ir ištemptas, labai daug buvo nereikalingų aprašymų. Sudėtingai buvo sudėti patys sakiniai, gal dėl vertimo iš hebrajų kalbos, o gal tiesiog dėl savo struktūros. Siužetas manęs nesužavėjo, pabaigoje norėjau knygą išmesti pro langą, kas būna labai retai.

Beje, kam įdomu originalus knygos pavadinimas yra "Žmogiškųjų išteklių vadovo misija", taipogi romanas yra ekranizuotas.

[Susan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fast-paced, plot dominated novel that rings lots of bells and leaves the reader at the end laughing out loud but also seriously exploring the issues it raises.
The main character is “the human resources manager” of a large Jerusalem bakery. He used to be the top salesman but was transferred when extensive travel interfered with his home life. His wife divorced him anyway. The main focus of the novel is a corpse—and oddly the only character with a name—Yulia Ragayev, a non-Jewish immigrant from an unnamed Slavic country who came to Jerusalem with a Jewish lover who abandoned her. Her son went back to his father but Yulia remained, employed as a cleaner (though she a trained engineer) at the bakery. She comes to the human resources manager’s attention when a weekly scandal rag accuses the company of “gross negligence” in not caring what happened to her. Her body has been in the morgue, unidentified, a week after she was killed in a terrorist attack. The reporter found a pay stub from the bakery in her possession.
Other main characters include the owner of the bakery who wants his human resources manager to turn around the negative publicity the company will get from the reporter’s soon-to-be-published article, the human resources manager’s assistant (with her husband and baby to say nothing of the human resources manager’s daughter and ex-wife) as well as the owner’s assistant and a night manager who was Yulia’s boss, and who, it turns out, is “responsible” for the fact that Yulia had a pay stub but was not in fact working at the bakery. There’s the reporter and the photographer and eventually the honorary consul (located in the unnamed Slavic country) and her husband. Oh, yes, Yulia’s son and her ex-husband.
The situation escalates as the investigation progresses. It turns out that Yulia was beautiful, fair with unusual Tartar eyes. The night manager had let her go because he’d become obsessed with her and the human resources manager, even though he refuses to look at her corpse, becomes similarly obsessed. He is “blamed” for the situation—he is after all the human resources manager and as such responsible for any irregularities connected with personnel. And it also turns out that he interviewed Yulia—he has his notes on what she told him—without remembering either her person or her plight. The escalating situation raises touchy issues connected with what happens to immigrants and the effects of living with terrorism as well as nationality and what that means. Even more it raises issues of responsibility for what happens to individuals in a complex society.
I won’t give you any more of the plot—you need to read it for yourself. It’s a quick read, but one that will stick with you.

[Rick · Rating 4 out of 5]

A woman is killed in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem. She has no ID and no relative or friend comes to claim her body at the morgue in the days following the incident. Then a reporter learns that she had a paystub from a large and famous bakery in her pocket and prepares to write a blistering article on the company’s insensitivity. His editor reaches out to the bakery’s owner for a comment and the owner orders his HR manager to investigate and make things right. From this not very compelling plot comes a very compelling reading experience.

A. B. Yehoshua is a very fine writer and A Woman in Jerusalem has won all kinds of international prizes and accolades since it was first published in Israel in 2004 and in English in 2006. What begins as an end of day work assignment that forces the manager to miss his night with his daughter (he is recently divorced, a fact that makes it into the article, much to his aggravation) soon becomes an odyssey of futile pursuit and ambiguous return (if you can mix Homer and Kafka, as Yehoshua seems to be able to nimbly do, and find redemption into the bargain). Yehoshua uses the circumstances to explore identity, individual and corporate and national responsibility, the media, the mysteries of love, and the complications that make graceful humanity a challenge in the twitching face of adversity.

In A Woman in Jerusalem people act well and ill with a mishmash of intentions both noble and self-serving. The reporter is something of an intolerant weasel, more moved by how a story fits his assumptions than the reality underneath it. The manager just wants to get on with his life, connect with his daughter, find a place of his own. The owner is obsessed with his company’s, which is his, identity. The night shift bakery manager fired the victim so she could find a better job and so he wouldn’t be tempted by her mysterious beauty but didn’t report the termination so she could continue to be paid. The bus bombing ruins his plan and sets everything in motion. Yehoshua brings a deeply perceptive imagination to his tale, capturing small moments with a clarity and level of truth that makes the small cast long and precise shadows of meaning. The fact that the manager struggles to put the strange assignment to bed reflects the Sisyphean reality of life and its obligations. The fact that the struggle lends a compassionate, if perplexing, nobility to the manager and the others engaged in the story of the Israeli immigrant’s tragically short stay in Jerusalem reflects the grace possible for us for behaving with humanity regardless of our weaknesses and complicated lives. It’s a subtle and moving story, brilliantly told.

[Elizabeth (Alaska) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think the GR description provides more information about the plot than I normally like to see. However, it does indicate - to me, at least - that the action would probably take place in Israel. I had thought when it says A. B. Yehoshua astonishes us with his masterly, often unexpected turns in the story and with his ability to get under the skin and into the soul of Israel today that there would be more, and more general, action in Israel. But the novel is more than 10 years old, and certainly we have learned something. Perhaps I was expecting too much.

One of the very interesting things is that only the woman killed in the attack has a name. Everyone else is referred to by either job title or relationship. The primary protagonist is the human resources manager, who has a daughter. He works for the owner. He has to interview the night supervisor, and so on.

Sometimes there are a few paragraphs by unnamed observers (usually in the first person plural, and their roles are various); those observations are always in italics. All other action is in regular typeface and involves the human resources manager, and is in the third person. It was an interesting device, because sometimes that meant we saw an event from two perspectives, sometimes one foretold a coming event.

Three stars only - I wished for more.

[jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A woman is murdered in a terrorist attack in Jerusalem, her body long unclaimed, a journalist traces her to a bakery where she once worked and was not in death missed. The burial of this woman, Yulia Ragayev, the only person in this wonderful novel to have a name, launches the tale. The Bakery's Human Resource Director must find out who she was and what was her relationship to the bakery, in the process becoming emotionally attached to her. Indeed, it is a testament to Yehoshua's skills how well he brings this dead woman to life as a character in the story without using flashbacks or others recounting long memories of her.

To tell much more would give to much away about this engaging humorous story. A note should be said about those reviewers who complain that "A Woman in Jerusalem" lacked subtlety or depth. To say that this story is simple would be akin to saying that Carver's "What We Talk About when We Talk about Love" is about two couples having a drink or "Ulysses" is about a day in Dublin. The subtle layers of Yehoshua's novel contain much richness and thought, along with a great deal of pathos. Indeed, one must be impressed at the humanity and humor he brings to a subject as overwhelming as terrorism. Serious readers will not be disappointed.

[Rachel Stroup · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was quite a unique read. Only one of the characters in the story is mentioned by name throughout the entire novel. The other characters are all described by their titles, such as "the resource manager", "the owner", etc. It is set in Jerusalem, and there has been a recent terrorist bombing of a local market. The book follows the story of a temporary employee of a bakery killed in the bombing, and the journey taken by the human resources manager at the bakery where she worked from her identification in the morgue to her final resting place. It is a story of her journey to Jerusalem and also the resource manager's journey to discover her homeland and the village where she grew up. The story is mostly told from the point of view of the human resources manager, and reflects his feelings towards the entire process, which ultimately becomes his mission. It is at times a classic "traveler's tale" of seeking adventure with an ultimate end result, a love story, a discussion of the current state of affairs in Israel, as well as a brief look at the former Soviet Union (although not specifically mentioned by name in the book). It is also at times witty and humorous. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something a little different to read.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quickly realized I had to take any preconceptions about this book and throw them out the window. I’ve never read anything like it and I was pleasantly surprised by the distinct narrative style that conjured one word: ambiguity. That could be applied to any number of devices used to tell this story: all of the characters are nameless, the title character is a voiceless corpse, and there is a journey to an unidentified country.

But what is it about? When a temporary immigrant worker is killed by a terrorist bomb in a Jerusalem market, an article is printed accusing her employers of being negligent of the fate of one of its staff. The human resources manager is first tasked with identifying the woman, then denying any wrongdoing on behalf of his company, only to submit an apology and assume responsibility, eventually going so far as to settle her affairs. By restoring his company’s reputation, the human resources manager undergoes his own pilgrimage and discovers his own humanity. The whole plot kept escalating beyond anything I could have imagined, almost becoming absurd, but still maintaining a semblance of dignity. It was very philosophic, occasionally humorous, and undoubtedly unique, though it might not appeal to everyone.