The Man From There

by Yitzhak Ben-Ner

English, Hebrew (translation)

182 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Yitzhak Ben-Ner (Hebrew: יצחק בן-נר) was born in Kfar Yehoshua, Israel, in 1937 and studied literature and drama at Tel Aviv University. Ben-Ner is a writer, screenwriter, playwright, journalist and film critic. He also edits and hosts radio and TV programs. He began publishing stories as a young boy, and his first book for adults was published in 1967. Several of his books and stories have been adapted for the screen and stage; his play Ta'atuon received First Prize at the Theatroneto Festival (1990) and was performed at the Royal National Theater, London, in 1998. Ben-Ner has been awarded the prestigious Agnon-Jerusalem Prize (1981), the Bernstein Prize (1981), the Ramat Gan Prize for Literature (1983), the Prime Minister's Prize (2006) and the ACUM Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2008).

Reviews

[yoav · Rating 5 out of 5]

סיפורו של יהודי, שיצא מישראל כדי להלחם בצבא הבריטי (ובמהדורה החדשה הוסף משפט שמרמז שהוא ניצול שואה) איבד את ידו ונתקע במצרים. עוד בטרם הספיק להחלים הוא נשלח ברכבת לישראל אך לפני שהוא מגיע, מוכרזת העצמאות והגבול נסגר והוא נותר בעיירת גבול בין הדיונות ומקבל מחסה בבית ארוסתו של רופא שפגש ברכבת. לאט לאט משתנה האווירה סביב פרוץ מלחמת העצמאות ותוצאותיה.

זהו סיפורם של עקורים חסרי זהות מגובשת שמביטים על המצב מהצד (והזווית של ישראלי שחווה את מלחמת העצמאות מהצד השני מרתקת). לצד גיבור הספר, ישנם שם פליטים שמתאקלמים במקום ומשנים את זהותם לפי שוב הרוחות; גם ה"המקומיים" הם רובם מהגרים או אנשים שברחו מזהותם. כולם נעים ומשנים את מעמדם וזהותם הלאומית עם שינוי המצב - וזאת מראה גם לחברה הישראלית כולה.

למעשה זהו ספרו הראשון של יצחק בן נר, זוהי נובלה הדוקה (ובהמשך הסופר אכן יתפרסם בספרי סיפורים קצרים) הכתובה בשפה על זמנית
וניכר שהוא יודע לספר סיפור טוב.
4.5 כוכבים

[Zek · Rating 5 out of 5]

זהו אחד מספרי המקור המעולים שקראתי ואם ניקח בחשבון שמדובר בספר הביכורים של בן-נר אז הערכתי כלפי כתיבתו רק מתעצמת וזאת אחרי שקראתי את ספרו הנפלא ״שקיעה כפרית״. הספר הזה באמת משהו מיוחד והוא ילווה אותי הרבה זמן. בנערותי אי שם בסבנטיז זכורני שבן-נר היה כוכב ענק בשמי הספרות בישראל והיה מתראיין תדיר ברדיו ובטלוויזיה. אז באותה תקופה, ולמעשה עד לאחרונה, לא קראתי שום ספר שלו אבל אחרי שניים מהם ברור לי שהוא הרוויח את מעמדו דאז ביושר. ברבות השנים הייתה לי תחושה שכאילו הוא נשכח מהתודעה והספר הנפלא שזה עתה סיימתי מקבע אותו, לפחות בתודעתי, כסופר שאסור לי להחמיץ את יתר ספריו.

[Stephan · Rating 4 out of 5]

‘The Man from Over There’ by Yitzhak Ben-Ner:

It was back in 2007, during my last visit in the Holy Land that I have purchased this book. It was in Naharia, in a store of old books by the railway station; A place which was very familiar to me during my childhood. The store, so I’ve heard, closed shortly after I have returned to Denmark. However, only now, a decade later, when I had the privilege to read this book, I have discovered that the book’s contents overweigh its banal and somewhat silly title. Admittedly, from the very first page I was drawn with great curiosity to the tale. Some authors have the talent to create accelerating curiosity and suspense, hence, Ben-Ner is one of them. I enjoyed the way the hero told the story even though it was not easy to sympathize with his character at the beginning. I should add here, that it is a kind of book that you read only once, because once the end is revealed, one loses interest in the plot. The author constructed the story brilliantly here so that the reader seeks no more conspiracies at the end of the last page. I thought the plot was good but better was the way the hero was telling the story. The realism was somewhat abstract as the hero emits his name and the name of the town by the border where most of the events took place. The assumed town is known to those whom are familiar with the history of the Jewish-Arab wars during that time (1947-1948). However, the very first theme which captured my attention was that of doctors’ oath (The Hippocratic Oath). Doctor Serge Mishel is tested when the hero faints bleeding at the train station of the isolated border town. I’ve come to think here about the story of ‘Doctor Zhivago’ and the role of doctors as a whole, in times of wars. What distinguishes a good doctor from a bad one is adherence to the Hippocratic Oath. Our hero, however, unlike the doctor, had the easier role in the plot, even though he argues otherwise; for he was the weak and wounded that needed help, hence the burden was not on him. In fact he was the burden on all the other characters, a fact which made him somewhat of a menace to all and even to himself. His injury made it easier for him to judge the others from his role as helpless and powerless, and completely marooned to the mercy of everyone around him. During their conversation on the train from Cairo to the border town, at the beginning, Doctor Mishel recited what he learned from other doctors during his studies; something that caught my attention. ‘We must all fight against what is absurd’ he declared. He said it pertaining the political situation and the madness of the rabbles in the Arab world, and generally speaking he implied that war is an absurd. He made, furthermore, a very good case for the educated elite in Arab society. However, his character was a round one, with twists and turns that made the reader likes him at first yet dislikes him at the end. Doctor Mishel criticized the reckless doctor from Cairo who neglected and mistreated our hero, sending him away from his clinic in haste because of the political tension in Egypt at the time. Here, I’ve come to think about modern doctors, who care more for money than for people. Such Mammon worshippers stuff people with pills in order to profit from them. Moreover, they treat a tourist unduly in order to suck money from insurance companies, and mistreat you at your own society in order to save money for society. Many doctors betray humanity for Mammon, so I cannot imagine how many fail and forefeet their humanity in times of wars and atrocities. Morality is not the first priority of all doctors in reality. Doctor Mishel declares himself a man of peace and equality, and he vows for the protection of humanity, and indeed at the beginning before the turn of the dice at the war in Israel, he is faithful to his principles to treat all human beings as equal patients. Superficially though, he tricks the hero and the reader to think that he is subversive to the absurd of patriotism. The roles which change at the end, however, appear in the beginning as if our hero is voicing madness because he wants to go home and misses his people, and the doctor is the voice of reason, but neither of them is the voice of reason; the reader learn as the story unfolds. Both of them, the Israeli hero and the Arab doctor are subjected to prejudice, patriotism, nationalism, territorialism, survivals, and other absurd vanities. The Nuwad family is a very interesting host, for they keep a secret from the hero until the very end. However, their mentally disturbed boy is paradoxically the only voice of reason in the book, which explains why he is demonized by everyone. He eats when he is hungry, not when the family orders him to eat, and he rebels against the madness of his family and against the madness of Arab society. Aziz is very secretive and mysterious, and the hero assumes he provokes him all the time, because of his mental illness, stealthy behavior, and eccentric behavior, but there is more to the boy than meets the eye. Aziz symbolizes peace and truth, honesty and chastity; in fact he stands as a mirror of truth in this story. The doctor dislikes the boy and calls him a monster and antagonizes him without end. Furthermore, Aziz seems egoless, though mysterious. The adults are phony for they hide things and conceal the truth from society from fear to be killed. The adults harbor malice and cultivate bias. They are corrupt with politics and seem all like war and gossip mongers. The adults are dubbed with vanities and lies. Aziz is antagonized like salvation. It is as if he has no conscious, yet he criticizes the hero through silence and observation.
Naifa is the beautiful young Arab woman whom the hero attempts to ensnare for sex and love. She is the symbol of innocence and servitude. I really liked her character. She is the Arab version of the faithful gentle nurse Florence Nightingale, which no man can resist. Her older sister, however, the doctor’s fiancée, Dahina, is quite a treacherous character. She represents intellectual women in Arabs high society, which the doctor also criticize for being hypocritical for imitating their occupiers/colonizers, for adapting French and English names and manners, which are not at all suitable for genuine Arab societies. Dahina is Naifas older sister which the reader admires in the end, for like some other key characters she is going through some kind of transformation. Furthermore, Dahina rebukes the hero for the absurd vanity of Zionism, though there is no indication of whether the hero is a Zionist or not. He is clearly a free spirited and free thought man who seeks love and passion, the warmth of a beautiful woman. He is in fact free from ideologies. He would just love to have Naifa as his lover, but when he tries to come closer he crosses the line of Arab traditions and get into troubles. The same happened to the Jews when they tried to live in peace with the Arabs, which is a great analogy. Our hero seeks a beautiful woman, and he doesn’t care whether she is an Arab or a Jew. The nonsense of nationalism and race do not catch roots with him, for he is faithful for unity with a woman. Dahina rebukes him, dismissing bible prophecies, she recited the Arab media, but out hero points it out that he didn’t read the news in months because he cannot read Arabic. He does not adhere to biblical prophecies or to political or national ideologies, he just wants to go home or at least have sex with one of the beautiful sisters. The father, however, was pitiful and contemptuous at the same time. The round characters gave the story a richer texture despite its abstraction in realism. The hero, just like Naifa and Aziz were not treacherous characters; their motives were undefiled, whereas all the other characters were treacherous, in particularly, Wallad, the mysterious homeless and countryless scurvy knave. As for the pain of the hero in exile, I thought the storyteller was guessing, hence he was only describing the tip of the iceberg of such a pain, empirically speaking. In exile, one does the compare and contrast, and become purged from the brainwash of his own society, but there is also a feeling of an everlasting pain; the pain of detachment, like being sucked into the void. The hero felt like a burden, like a parasite, and he was bored to death. He felt like a captive in the Nuwad family, but he also chose to fall into despair, otherwise the other option would be the unthinkable risk of dying, if trying to cross the guarded border. The Nuwad family had a secret which is revealed at the end, thus it explains their strange feeling of obligation, extending their hospitality until the father switches approach to the ugly side of conscience. The symbolism through the Chess game was strong for it was analogous to the Jewish-Arab war. Just like his people the Jews, the hero was naïve at the game of war. He knew nothing about Chess, however, Mishel, who taught him the game, defeated him too easily for the first times. However, as soon as the hero got the hang of it, he improved; thereupon he defeated the doctor time after time until he became invincible. The hero outsmart his doctor the way the Jews outsmart the Arabs at the independence war, a fact which enraged doctor Mishel, as he was very prejudiced about the Jews, deeming them less than the Arabs. The doctor was always projecting and voicing his bias after that turning point both in Chess and at the war in Israel. The Arab doctor was an educated man, whereas the hero Jew was a simpleton, naïve and dumb in the eyes of his doctor. It enraged the doctor that a dumb Jew defeated him in Chess. The Jews were outnumbered during the war and were certain to be slaughtered by the great Arab armies, but it didn’t happen. The Jews were attacked from all sides, yet in their self defense war mechanism they have managed to bounce, thereupon beat their assailants. Doctor Mishel, thus, was torn between his political views and his loyalty to humanity as a doctor. However, there is a twist in the end, which I will not reveal, but suffice to say that the hero wondered about the good Arab family’s hospitality which he received during his stay at the Nuwads, until a certain betrayal which exhibits the contrary, suffice to say that Jews and Arabs are equal in treachery and hospitality, and it depends on the individual whether to be loyal to humanity or to society. The distortion in Aziz external appearance and ugliness were symbolic, as he was the least political in that sense that he didn’t wish wars, he just wanted honesty and peace, and he yearned for freedom of identity and diversity. Unlike Wallad, Aziz did not swing from side to side, for Aziz was faithful to his own identity and rebuked Arab society for its distortions. Clearly the story is subjective of demonizing Jews and Arabs, but there is more to it than just denouncing bigotry. Before I elaborate upon the other messages, I wish to express here my disgust at the worst prejudices voiced against Jews by the doctor. He told the hero at the end that the Jews have rabies which is calamity; a prophetical nightmare for mankind which the Jews carry with them like a shadow of death hovering over them. The Jews here, sadly, were terribly antagonized and demonized, by the Arab media. The doctor, like many other Arabs who were brainwashed by the media, truly believed that the Jews were their sworn enemy. The fear of the Jew on one hand, and awe of the Jew on the other conveyed the mental imbalance of the Arab world. The hero does not hate the Arabs, but he despises their bigotry and intolerance. The paradox here was that our helpless hero was all the opposite of the Jew which the Arab media had depicted. He was neither brave nor powerful; he was neither dominant nor a patriot. When the doctor accuses our hero of being a dumb Jew, one who does not understand that the Jews are a curse, and that their purpose on earth is to fulfill God’s prophecy to afflict others with a disaster, I couldn’t help thinking about the sufferings of the Jews in nearly 2000 years. Yet, despite all the persecutions and genocides, they have managed to preserve their identity, revive their old language and fulfill a biblical prophecy. I could see why the doctor was enraged. He felt discriminated and inferior in the sight of God. It made me ponder about the curse of Ishmael in the bible (Genesis 16:12). It is creepy to think about it, but as a matter of fact, the curse of Ishmael is also a prophecy that has been fulfilled. This is when bias is a fact, because reality does not lie. Both prophecies have been fulfilled. The Jews have returned to their homeland as God promised, and Ishmael is now terrorizing the world. I have been cleaned from religion since 2003 (1998-2003) but still am very much mystified by the power of old biblical prophecies which are taking place during our lifetime. Even though I am not religious I find it hard to dismiss the facts of their fulfillment. I could definitely understand Serge’s source of rage, yet had he embraced his destiny as a doctor, he would have not been bothered by the absurd of politics. The Jews only rebelled against their aggressors in Israel, but not abroad. Outside of Israel, the Jews were like sheep to the slaughter, often criticized for lacking beak and talons and for being too pacifists. I thought about the Great Revolt as analogous to the war of independence, as in both cases the Jews were compelled to defend themselves at all costs. Maybe it is because they felt that their was truly worth fighting for, and once more Jerusalem bled, like it bled 2000 years before. Paradoxically however, when the Jews initiated the war against the Romans, it ended with their demise and deportation, whereas now, the Jews sought peace with the Arabs, yet a war was imposed on them, and they were about to be slaughtered, and yet, against all the odds they became victorious. The Jews’ adherence to peace mystified their aggressors, but enraged them at the same token. Our hero here expresses a very interesting view before the angry humiliated doctor, ‘We wanted to live in peace with you, but you started a war against us’. One cannot argue with the truth, but the question here does the end justifies the means? The Arabs had every right to feel discriminated by the invasion of the Jews to the holy land, but would it justify genocide? I thought it was pretty much the choice between the Dalai Lama and Nelson Mandela, whom proclaim two different approaches in face of oppression. Nelson Mandela claimed that the end justifies the means, whereas the Dalai Lama claims that the means justify the end. Our hero here shares the same view as the Dalai Lama whereas the Arab doctor shares the same view as Nelson Mandela. It is the choice between fairness and equality (Lama) and power and inequality (Mandela) the choice between the sword (Mandela) and the word (Lama). Personally I agreed with the hero, because like the Dalai Lama I do not believe that the end justifies the means of violence. The same was when they played Chess, ‘If you cannot lose in good spirit, then why have you taught me Chess, why play Chess if you don’t know how to lose in dignity?’ the hero would have asked the doctor. The hero makes a good point not for Israel, but for justice. Unlike his host, he is not biased here. Our hero had sustained the prejudices of his people, the Jews, as if he was the devil himself. The Arab media demonized the Jew and depicted him as an invader of land, molester of consciousness, and as wicked violator of Arab rights. The Jew was the imperialist, diseased with territorialism and worse Zionism, yet our hero, like the Jews, was in fact a peace loving man, wounded, vulnerable, helpless, powerless, and outnumbered, he survives attempted murder like his people, and only when he is forced to defend himself that he wins, for he survives the ordeal. Summa summarum it was a great book with great messages and a wonderful transformation of characters, skillfully deployed in mystery and suspense; subversive of power, inequality, wars and intolerance. The hero calls for peace and harmony and dismisses the vanities of nationalism and religion. Furthermore, the atmosphere of wild fear when it comes down to concealing an identity reminded me about the book the ‘Painted bird’ by Jerzy Kosiński. Humans are in that sense, no better than the animals when they kill another species of humans. Thus, Ben-Ner calls are for tolerance and social harmony, diversity and trust, peace, and acceptance of variety. This book is also subversive of antagonism, bias and demonization of other people. Very much down to earth. I really enjoyed it. I have no doubt that this book will be a great asset in the Arab world, for as it is, it’s already a great asset for Israeli literature.

Shalom/Salaam

[Nati Korn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was part of my wife's library that had blended into mine when we started living together. There it stood on the shelf, a first edition from 1967 worn out by time and water not bearing any mark that someone has actually read it. The title intrigued me, but it had been waiting a long time till I finally made up my mind and started reading it.

Prior to that I could not find much about it on the internet. But just as I have started it, by some weird "Murphy's Law" of literature, Am-Oved had announced that a new revised and redited edition had been printed. What changes have been made? Since I only read the old original it is hard for me to say. I hope nothing substantial has been changed, after such a long time I tend to find this disrespectful of the book and the readers (both old and new), even if the author himself has approved this. In an interview I have found some changes to the "high" language of te dialoges is mentioned. I must admit I found part of the book's magic to be this "high" language, so personally I resent changes to this also.

As for the edition I did read. This book managed to suprise (me), and this is something wonderfull as literature is concerned. The setting and the dealing with the apparent subject matter (The Zionist state war of independence and Jews and Arabs relationship) is highlly original and not tipical compared to other novels of the same years. Sure, the book is very allegorical (bible, etc...), and philosophises (somethimes the views expressed are naive, regarding it from present time point of view) about what it means to be a Zionist and an Israeli.

Puting that aside it is written very well. Suprisinglly the story is very surreal (and I do love surreal literature), and I think not tipical of Israeli literature of that era. It is almost like that TV serie of the sixties "The Prisoner" in some respects. A man is unable to leave a small village (on the wrong side of the border - an inverted reality to what we expect of an Israeli "war story") into wich he arrived in a dream like journey, after being drugged. In a way this dream like feeling continues throughout the whole story.

I enjoyed this book very much.