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הרומאן המצרי
ל"בת הגדולה", הגיבורה של הרומאן הזה, יש שורשים מצריים מדורי-דורות. מצד האב – עוד מימי גירוש ספרד, אז הגיעו מקסטיליה, לאחר תלאות וטלטלות, שבעה אחים קאשְׂתילים ונחתו בחוף עזה; ומצד האם אפילו 3000 שנה מוקדם יותר, שכן היא נצר לבית-האב היחיד שלא מסופר עליו בתולדות ישראל, אלה שסירבו למשה רבנו ונשארו במצריים. את בני המשפחה העלה ממצריים בשנות החמישים השומר הצעיר. הם היו מאנשי הגרעין המצרי, שנקלט בקיבוץ עין שמר ועד מהרה גורש משם בעוון סטליניזם.
בתערובת של עובדות היסטוריות וביוגרפיות, ואגדות מומצאות, ובדיון והגזמות, ושפע של פרטים ומאורעות שכביכול אינם ממין העניין, כותבת קסטל-בלום בגוף שלישי את הסאגה המשפחתית של משפחת קאשְׂתיל. לראשונה פוגש העולם הספרותי הקסטל-בלומי את העולם ההיסטורי ואת הזיכרונות המשפחתיים, ובמפגש הזה הטון של המספרת חמקמק, מעורר היסוס מתמשך אם הדברים נאמרים ברצינות, בקריצת-עין או בהפלגה גרוטסקית.
עצם הז'אנר של רומאן המשפחה והקונבנציות שלו מאותגרים כאן. "עץ המשפחה" כמו זוכה לגיזום משונה – צמרתו נשלחת בתנופה הצידה. התשובה לשאלה מה שייך ומה לא שייך לסיפורה של הזהות המשפחתית המדומיינת, לאותם מאפיינים מלַכדים העוברים מדור לדור, חדֵלה להיות טבעית ופשוטה.
כמו בסיפורי משפחה אחרים, גם בסיפור של משפחת קאשְׂתיל נמצא ארוחות ומפגשים משפחתיים, מיתות ולוויות, אירועים ופרטים החוזרים באופן מפתיע בדורות שונים של המשפחה, אִמרות וסיפורים משפחתיים, וגם דברים שלא מדברים עליהם, כי הם חרפה למשפחה, או עלבונות ואי-פרגונים, שאף הם דבק משפחתי מאחה. אבל המאפיינים האלה מחליקים הצידה אל עֵבר הפארודיה והאבסורד, או אל הבלתי-שייך לכאורה.
הספר הזה, היודע להפוך שורת מיתות לטקסטים קומיים, הוא בסופו של דבר ספר על כיליון ועל שיברונם של אידיאלים ושל חלומות גדולים; על אי הרלבנטיות של התום לישראל של ימינו. "ייאוש כזה לא נודע במדינה מאז הקמתה". בהעזה רבה מוליכה בו קסטל-בלום את כישרונה האדיר לאזורים חדשים בכתיבתה.
בתערובת של עובדות היסטוריות וביוגרפיות, ואגדות מומצאות, ובדיון והגזמות, ושפע של פרטים ומאורעות שכביכול אינם ממין העניין, כותבת קסטל-בלום בגוף שלישי את הסאגה המשפחתית של משפחת קאשְׂתיל. לראשונה פוגש העולם הספרותי הקסטל-בלומי את העולם ההיסטורי ואת הזיכרונות המשפחתיים, ובמפגש הזה הטון של המספרת חמקמק, מעורר היסוס מתמשך אם הדברים נאמרים ברצינות, בקריצת-עין או בהפלגה גרוטסקית.
עצם הז'אנר של רומאן המשפחה והקונבנציות שלו מאותגרים כאן. "עץ המשפחה" כמו זוכה לגיזום משונה – צמרתו נשלחת בתנופה הצידה. התשובה לשאלה מה שייך ומה לא שייך לסיפורה של הזהות המשפחתית המדומיינת, לאותם מאפיינים מלַכדים העוברים מדור לדור, חדֵלה להיות טבעית ופשוטה.
כמו בסיפורי משפחה אחרים, גם בסיפור של משפחת קאשְׂתיל נמצא ארוחות ומפגשים משפחתיים, מיתות ולוויות, אירועים ופרטים החוזרים באופן מפתיע בדורות שונים של המשפחה, אִמרות וסיפורים משפחתיים, וגם דברים שלא מדברים עליהם, כי הם חרפה למשפחה, או עלבונות ואי-פרגונים, שאף הם דבק משפחתי מאחה. אבל המאפיינים האלה מחליקים הצידה אל עֵבר הפארודיה והאבסורד, או אל הבלתי-שייך לכאורה.
הספר הזה, היודע להפוך שורת מיתות לטקסטים קומיים, הוא בסופו של דבר ספר על כיליון ועל שיברונם של אידיאלים ושל חלומות גדולים; על אי הרלבנטיות של התום לישראל של ימינו. "ייאוש כזה לא נודע במדינה מאז הקמתה". בהעזה רבה מוליכה בו קסטל-בלום את כישרונה האדיר לאזורים חדשים בכתיבתה.
180 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2015
About the author
Orly Castel-Bloom
22 books35 followersOrly Castel-Bloom (Hebrew: אורלי קסטל-בלום) is an Israeli author.
Orly Castel-Bloom was born in north Tel Aviv in 1960, to a family of Egyptian Jews. Until the age of three, she had French nannies and spoke only French. She studied film at the Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts in Ramat Gan.
Castel-Bloom lives in Tel Aviv and has two children.
Castel-Bloom's first collection of short stories, Not Far from the Center of Town, was published in 1987 by Am Oved. She is the author of 11 books, including collections of short fiction and novels. Her 1992 novel Dolly City, has been included in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, and in 1999 she was named one of the fifty most influential women in Israel. Dolly City has been performed as a play in Tel Aviv.
In Free Radicals, Castel-Bloom stopped writing in the first-person. In Human Parts (2002) she was the first Israeli novelist to address the subject of Palestinian suicide bombings. Her anthology of short stories You Don't Argue with Rice, was published in 2003. Castel-Bloom has won the Prime Minister's award twice, the Tel Aviv award for fiction and was nominated for the Sapir Prize for Literature.
Israeli literary critic Gershon Shaked called her a postmodern writer who "communicates the despair of a generation which no longer even dreams the dreams of Zionist history."
Orly Castel-Bloom was born in north Tel Aviv in 1960, to a family of Egyptian Jews. Until the age of three, she had French nannies and spoke only French. She studied film at the Beit Zvi School for the Performing Arts in Ramat Gan.
Castel-Bloom lives in Tel Aviv and has two children.
Castel-Bloom's first collection of short stories, Not Far from the Center of Town, was published in 1987 by Am Oved. She is the author of 11 books, including collections of short fiction and novels. Her 1992 novel Dolly City, has been included in the UNESCO Collection of Representative Works, and in 1999 she was named one of the fifty most influential women in Israel. Dolly City has been performed as a play in Tel Aviv.
In Free Radicals, Castel-Bloom stopped writing in the first-person. In Human Parts (2002) she was the first Israeli novelist to address the subject of Palestinian suicide bombings. Her anthology of short stories You Don't Argue with Rice, was published in 2003. Castel-Bloom has won the Prime Minister's award twice, the Tel Aviv award for fiction and was nominated for the Sapir Prize for Literature.
Israeli literary critic Gershon Shaked called her a postmodern writer who "communicates the despair of a generation which no longer even dreams the dreams of Zionist history."
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
March 4, 2016
סיפורה של משפחת קשתיאל שהומרה לנצרות ב 1492 , תקופת גירוש ספרד, וחלק מהמשפחה מצא עצמו במצריים. ממצריים הגיעו לקיבוץ השומר הצעיר במסגרת הגרעין המצרי ומשם התפזרו במרכז הארץ לאחר שנכשלו בהצבעה נכונה בתקופת המשפטים הצ'כים (שנות ה 50).
הסיפור נע בין העבר להווה והפרקים מתארים את קורותיהן של דמויות רבות ומגוונות ובעיקר את משפחתם של וויואן, צ'רלי והאחות הגדולה.
הסיפור מערב את המציאות במידה מספקת שהקורא ירגיש מחובר לאירועים שקרו אבל ברור שיש בו קמצוץ של אמת והמון בדיה.
מאוד קשה להתמצא בכל הדמויות ובקורותיהן אם כי הפרק על המרת הדת בספרד של איזבלה, הוא הפרק הטוב והחזק ביותר בספר.
בין לבין הדמויות מתחתנות, מתגרשות, חלק מהדמויות מתות חלק נולדות, דרמות ואירועים רודפים אחד את השני.
מומלץ לקריאה. אם כי בסופה בשל עומס האירועים והדמויות אני לא זוכרת את הדמויות השונות בפירוט על קורותיהן ולא מצאתי קו עלילה אחד.
הסיפור נע בין העבר להווה והפרקים מתארים את קורותיהן של דמויות רבות ומגוונות ובעיקר את משפחתם של וויואן, צ'רלי והאחות הגדולה.
הסיפור מערב את המציאות במידה מספקת שהקורא ירגיש מחובר לאירועים שקרו אבל ברור שיש בו קמצוץ של אמת והמון בדיה.
מאוד קשה להתמצא בכל הדמויות ובקורותיהן אם כי הפרק על המרת הדת בספרד של איזבלה, הוא הפרק הטוב והחזק ביותר בספר.
בין לבין הדמויות מתחתנות, מתגרשות, חלק מהדמויות מתות חלק נולדות, דרמות ואירועים רודפים אחד את השני.
מומלץ לקריאה. אם כי בסופה בשל עומס האירועים והדמויות אני לא זוכרת את הדמויות השונות בפירוט על קורותיהן ולא מצאתי קו עלילה אחד.
June 21, 2019
סאגה קצרה או רומאן של סיפורים קצרים עם חוט דקיק שמקשר, אולי זו ביוגרפיה משפחתית שהיא בעצם אוטוביוגרפיה חופשית ומשוחררת על "הבת הגדולה" ומקומה בעולם. בלגן מאורגן מעין קולאז' חצי בדיוני, לעיתים מצחיק, מלא תובנות שמתגנבות בדרך אגב:
"מוטב לכתוב על חפיסת סיגריות שהסיגריות גורמות לייאוש, ולא שהסיגריות גורמות למחלות ומוות. אנשים מפחדים יותר מייאוש מאשר ממוות. מוות כבר לא עושה להם את זה, וייאוש כן"
זה הספר הראשון של הסופרת שאני קורא ואחותי שאלה אותי אם אהבתי ואחרי פאוזה אמרתי שכן, והיא אמרה: ככה זה עם אורלי קסטל בלום, תמיד צריך איזה פאוזה להחליט.
...
[פאוזה]
בהחלט נהניתי 4.5 כוכבים.
"מוטב לכתוב על חפיסת סיגריות שהסיגריות גורמות לייאוש, ולא שהסיגריות גורמות למחלות ומוות. אנשים מפחדים יותר מייאוש מאשר ממוות. מוות כבר לא עושה להם את זה, וייאוש כן"
זה הספר הראשון של הסופרת שאני קורא ואחותי שאלה אותי אם אהבתי ואחרי פאוזה אמרתי שכן, והיא אמרה: ככה זה עם אורלי קסטל בלום, תמיד צריך איזה פאוזה להחליט.
...
[פאוזה]
בהחלט נהניתי 4.5 כוכבים.
October 21, 2018
Orly Castel-Bloom's DOLLY CITY is one of my very favourite books encountered this decade. Everybody who comments on it seems compelled to call it postmodern (shorthand for experimental, fanciful, non-realist, and kinda deliciously outré?) and I suppose it is ultimately hard to argue w/ that, but more than anything else it is probably my favourite novel about motherhood. AN EGYPTIAN NOVEL on the face of it would seem altogether more realist, and it is indeed stylistically very staid, but in its situation of identity around the construction of narrative and its insistence on the fragmentation of identity-narrative as fundamentally emblematic of the human condition, it is certainly a postmodern novel w/ poststructuralist resonances. Had Castel-Bloom not directed us in the very title of the book to approach the work as a novel, we may well have failed to do so. The interrelated (to one extent or another) chapters feels very much like autonomous pieces. By insisting that the work is a novel (a topos), Castel-Bloom is suggesting that any sense of wholeness much necessarily be open-ended, fragmented, and resistant to the fallacy of the 'master narrative.' If the form of the novel speaks to fragmentation, dislocation, and displacement, so too do the enmeshed lives and histories w/ which it grapples (history definitively being plural in this context). This is a novel in which the concerns of the Egyptian diaspora in Israel speak to the difficulty of finding fixity or harmony in this world. Perhaps this world is not our home. Perhaps our lives are protracted exodus (speaking explicitly to the Jewish context). Castel-Bloom cleverly depersonalizes the connected/disconnected web in which she is situated by writing herself into the novel in the third person. She is called "the Older Daughter," and this reader at least only gradually became aware of the fact of this fundamental correlation. If our identities are a matter of the narratives we establish to make ourselves intelligible to ourselves in the world, then those narratives must contain a great deal more indeed than just ourselves. Perhaps the novel's most remarkable sections are those that push the fragmentation and dislocation beyond the arena of basically contemporaneous family relations deeper into history (as in the chapter "Year of the Pig") or into adjacent environments (as in the final two brilliantly placed chapters). AN EGYPTIAN NOVEL is a work of quiet profundity. It will appeal to those who prefer genuine wisdom to pomp and flash. It is a very personal novel that is more about history in the most expansive sense than it is about any kind of self-reflection or direct personal reckoning (not that there is none of that woven into the fabric of the thing). Anyone w/ a halfway refined sensibility will be aware of the control Castel-Bloom has over what she has embarked upon to do and the grace w/ which she pulls it off. It is not dedicated to wowing you (DOLLY CITY kind of was), but it certainly wowed me nevertheless.
December 8, 2019
לא מאוד נהניתי מצורת הסיפור הקטועה
October 26, 2017
My review appears in New York Journal of Books.
September 4, 2023
In order to make this more fun for myself, I’ll be referencing David Cooper’s review in The New York Journal of Books. Because otherwise, I feel very meh about this novel.
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
Orly Castel-Bloom is a very famous novelist in her home country. In fact, this book won her the Israeli Sapir Prize. I read it for Women in Translation Month, and I’m reminded that the intricacies of cultural expression cannot always easily be expressed in a new tongue. Either that, or I’m just not much of a fan of post-modernist autofiction. :P
This series of vignettes follow Castel-Bloom’s family out of Egypt and into Israel. Many of them are based in reality, except that she refers to her generation vaguely; she herself is “Oldest Daughter.” A completely fictional component comes in when she tries to imagine a branch of her family that forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition, and later she writes a story for the last Jewish woman living in Cairo during the Arab Spring. Her own family has strong Egyptian roots, going back to the Inquisition on her father’s side, and the days of Moses on her mother’s. Regardless the veracity of that claim, there’s no reason to doubt we’re talking countless generations.
Cooper compares this Egypt expulsion to Israel novel to THE SOUND OF OUR STEPS by Ronit Matalon, which I read last year. There’s intriguing differences at play. Matalon’s family followed the Mizrahi experience of being shunted into poverty in their new home. They missed Egypt, and had understandable beef with the Ashkenazi establishment in Israel.
Castel-Bloom’s family also had beef with an Ashkenazi establishment—specifically the kibbutz establishment. Her family were radical socialists who moved to a kibbutz in the 1950s. But they were expelled for not toeing the movement’s bottom line as it gravitated away from communism. Castel-Bloom wrote about this in regards to changing political mores. The specific incident, arguably, made her family and the Egyptian kibbutzniks who followed them out of the movement, a little less sympathetic. They voted in favor of a show trial in Prague, where 13 Communist members, mostly Jews, were charged with conspiracy. Most of the men hanged. (See the Slansky trial.)
Already, my interest is straying away from the narrative on the page! :P Except in what I think are the most fictional aspects of this book—the Spanish conversos chapter, and the last Jewish woman in Cairo. Eschewing some of the vagueness and obscurity of her immediate family plot, she wrote something akin to traditional storytelling. It’s the type of realism with specific details that can actually grab at the heartstrings. Or, at the very least, succeeded the most closely with me.
In his review, Cooper likened the vignette style here to Amos Oz’s short stories collections, SCENES OF A VILLAGE LIFE and BETWEEN FRIENDS. It’s a paltry comparison at best, because Oz stuck to realism, with gripping characters and situations. I think I first heard about Orly Castel-Bloom when a Jewish podcaster was deriding Oz and saying we should read her instead. But for my money, Oz remains the superior writer. I’d rather go back to him, Women in Translation parameters notwithstanding. :P There’s some skill in Castel-Bloom’s writing, or the translation of her writing, anyway. But it’s not enough to carry me.
https://www.nyjournalofbooks.com/book...
Orly Castel-Bloom is a very famous novelist in her home country. In fact, this book won her the Israeli Sapir Prize. I read it for Women in Translation Month, and I’m reminded that the intricacies of cultural expression cannot always easily be expressed in a new tongue. Either that, or I’m just not much of a fan of post-modernist autofiction. :P
This series of vignettes follow Castel-Bloom’s family out of Egypt and into Israel. Many of them are based in reality, except that she refers to her generation vaguely; she herself is “Oldest Daughter.” A completely fictional component comes in when she tries to imagine a branch of her family that forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition, and later she writes a story for the last Jewish woman living in Cairo during the Arab Spring. Her own family has strong Egyptian roots, going back to the Inquisition on her father’s side, and the days of Moses on her mother’s. Regardless the veracity of that claim, there’s no reason to doubt we’re talking countless generations.
Cooper compares this Egypt expulsion to Israel novel to THE SOUND OF OUR STEPS by Ronit Matalon, which I read last year. There’s intriguing differences at play. Matalon’s family followed the Mizrahi experience of being shunted into poverty in their new home. They missed Egypt, and had understandable beef with the Ashkenazi establishment in Israel.
Castel-Bloom’s family also had beef with an Ashkenazi establishment—specifically the kibbutz establishment. Her family were radical socialists who moved to a kibbutz in the 1950s. But they were expelled for not toeing the movement’s bottom line as it gravitated away from communism. Castel-Bloom wrote about this in regards to changing political mores. The specific incident, arguably, made her family and the Egyptian kibbutzniks who followed them out of the movement, a little less sympathetic. They voted in favor of a show trial in Prague, where 13 Communist members, mostly Jews, were charged with conspiracy. Most of the men hanged. (See the Slansky trial.)
Already, my interest is straying away from the narrative on the page! :P Except in what I think are the most fictional aspects of this book—the Spanish conversos chapter, and the last Jewish woman in Cairo. Eschewing some of the vagueness and obscurity of her immediate family plot, she wrote something akin to traditional storytelling. It’s the type of realism with specific details that can actually grab at the heartstrings. Or, at the very least, succeeded the most closely with me.
In his review, Cooper likened the vignette style here to Amos Oz’s short stories collections, SCENES OF A VILLAGE LIFE and BETWEEN FRIENDS. It’s a paltry comparison at best, because Oz stuck to realism, with gripping characters and situations. I think I first heard about Orly Castel-Bloom when a Jewish podcaster was deriding Oz and saying we should read her instead. But for my money, Oz remains the superior writer. I’d rather go back to him, Women in Translation parameters notwithstanding. :P There’s some skill in Castel-Bloom’s writing, or the translation of her writing, anyway. But it’s not enough to carry me.
Read
July 9, 2026Purportedly a novel, but it reads more like a series of interconnected stories throughout which Castel-Bloom displays a seemingly limitless talent for storytelling that reminded me of Balzac, even when drawing from her own life. I think this comparison is strengthened by the way Castel-Bloom handles time, which generally moves in leaps of slightly tongue-in-cheek imprecision: “After many months, who knows how many…” “Many days like this and others passed…” Etc. These exaggerated constructions are easy to gloss over, but they’re entertaining in and of themselves when paid attention to and counterintuitively display a high degree of deliberateness. And they’re just part of the casing for the understated personal tragedies that are the key to the emotional effectiveness of this book. Castel-Bloom likes to do this by infusing certain sentences with a careful mixture of humor and grief.
Some favorite examples:
(Kafka would be jealous of that one)
Some favorite examples:
But in recent months Uncle Vita’s eyes grew more and more cloudy, and the difference between the white of the eye and the corona was as if subject to negotiation.
Despair like this has not been seen in the country since its establishment.
She developed a fear of dealing with bureaucracy, and this piled up on itself.
(Kafka would be jealous of that one)
September 23, 2017
This was rather confusing, in part because of the title. Rather than a novel with a plot, it is a series of vignettes not in chronological order. I couldn't keep the characters straight because while some are named others are referred to as The Only Daughter, The Oldest Daughter and the Younger Daughter. The last two chapters didn't seem to be about any of the characters in the rest of the book.
The main characters are Egyptian Jews who have migrated to Israel and lived on a kibbutz for several years before being expelled because of differing political views. In some episodes there is a reference to the "Egyptian garin but for the most part their Egyptian background doesn't seem relevant. As a North American, I couldn't see anything that would distinguish them culturally from Jews/Israelis of European background. The exception is the penultimate story, which is set in Egypt.
The main characters are Egyptian Jews who have migrated to Israel and lived on a kibbutz for several years before being expelled because of differing political views. In some episodes there is a reference to the "Egyptian garin but for the most part their Egyptian background doesn't seem relevant. As a North American, I couldn't see anything that would distinguish them culturally from Jews/Israelis of European background. The exception is the penultimate story, which is set in Egypt.
December 18, 2017
This was a very frustrating book, because there were moments of excellence in it - particularly the chapter about Esther and the pigs, and the chapter about the zookeeper. But other than those two chapters, this book was hard to follow, and I couldn't understand what the author was trying to say. It read like a set of short stories (the two chapters I mentioned don't really related to any of the rest of the book), and didn't ever coalesce into a whole. I barely kept the characters straight, much less cared about them. And the edition I read had lots of typos. So I am left wondering if (a) this is a poor translation, perhaps rushed through due to the book winning the Sapir prize or (b) if I am just missing large swaths of nuance here because I am neither Israeli nor Egyptian. Perhaps it is both. The book was easy to get through, because it is short, but it left me confused and frustrated.
February 19, 2019
Had very high hopes. My first foray into the author’s work, which I chose for an Israeli lit class that I teach. Have to spend some time letting it settle into my consciousness before passing final judgment, but initially I’m feeling disappointed. Style and structure both somewhat disjointed and jarring. Translation not amazing, from what I can discern. Awkward syntax, inconsistencies, etc. Thinking of re-reading in Hebrew as I have a feeling much of the acclaim must be related to the beauty of her prose, which doesn’t come through in translation. Themes are pretty morose but do give insight into the travails of the Egyptian-Jewish immigrant community and the dysfunction within the transported families.
November 21, 2017
L'histoire romancé de la famille séfarade d'Orly Castel-Bloom en quinze tableaux non linéaires est un vrai bonheur. L'acidité de l'autrice et l'absurdité des exodes et expulsions de sa famille forment un mélange savoureux, plein de nostalgie pour l'Égypte et l'Espagne, d'amertume vis-à-vis du sionisme socialiste sans pour autant pouvoir vivre ailleurs qu'à Tel Aviv.
Le roman est très bien servi par la traduction en français de Rosie Pinhas Delpuech, toujours très proche du texte et très fidèle.
Plusieurs lien, dont ma critique sur Parutions.com sont disponibles sur mon blog :
https://sipourimveshirim.wordpress.co...
Le roman est très bien servi par la traduction en français de Rosie Pinhas Delpuech, toujours très proche du texte et très fidèle.
Plusieurs lien, dont ma critique sur Parutions.com sont disponibles sur mon blog :
https://sipourimveshirim.wordpress.co...
February 14, 2022
3.45 - I enjoyed listening to it for most part. The ironic tune of the novel was noticeable in the audio readers voice' but on its last third it dropped to faults of many Israeli's novels of : life is meaningless and people are petty and meaningless and it lost me.
The chapter about the 8th Castilian son was great and thus was the opening chapter and the one with the long hair.
Its the second Israeli novel i read this year dealing with the Egyptian Jews migration to Israel in the in the 50s.
Will be interesting to read more about that Aliya.
Its the first Castel-bloom i read and with my misgivings ill still want to taste at least one of her other books.
The chapter about the 8th Castilian son was great and thus was the opening chapter and the one with the long hair.
Its the second Israeli novel i read this year dealing with the Egyptian Jews migration to Israel in the in the 50s.
Will be interesting to read more about that Aliya.
Its the first Castel-bloom i read and with my misgivings ill still want to taste at least one of her other books.
October 25, 2017
Whenever I read a book in translation, I worry about what is lost in translation. I knew nothing about Egyptian Jews, how and why they came to be in Egypt, how and why they came to be in Israel, how they integrated themselves into Israeli society. This novel offered me their past and present story. After five trips to Israel, I am familiar with the streets, the neighborhoods, the cities Castel-Bloom alludes to in the novel, and her references to them made me feel considerable nostalgia.
November 6, 2022
Echoing what everyone else has said, this hardly feels like anything more than a collection of vignettes that don’t add to each other in a particularly meaningful way. Also suffers from a very mediocre translation. My life would be no different if I had not read this book.
March 6, 2026
sometimes you read excerpts from something and wonder about what you just read, only to realise there can be no straightforward answers, an intentional choice of the writer
for this book, this is neither a compliment nor an insult
for this book, this is neither a compliment nor an insult
February 19, 2018
See my review at http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...
March 14, 2020
Very disjointed. Waiting to great what bookclub has to say.
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April 16, 2025מוצלח עד נקודה מסוימת, ומשם רק הולך ונעשה יותר ויותר לא ברור, לא קשור וחסר את השנינות והחדות שכל כך אופיינית לה. בקיצור, חבל על הקריאה
December 14, 2018
I've heard this is a really rich book in Hebrew full of humor and word play, but I think a lot of that was lost in this at-times-awkward translation. Castel-Bloom still does really interesting and experimental things here and there are beautiful moments, but I didn't get that much out of reading the translation.
March 4, 2024
Il trauma della cacciata dalla Spagna e delle conversioni forzate rivive generazione dopo generazione in una famiglia di ebrei sefarditi.
Una frase: “Questo è il tuo Everest”
Una frase: “Questo è il tuo Everest”
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews