A Wall of Light

Tel Aviv Trilogy #3

by Edeet Ravel

“I am Sonya Vronsky, professor of mathematics at Tel Aviv University, and this is the story of a day in late August. On this remarkable day I kissed a student, pursued a lover, found my father, and left my brother.” So begins A Wall of Light, a novel which chronicles a single day in the life of Sonya, a thirty-two-year-old deaf woman about to break out of her predictable routine.
Sonya lives in Tel Aviv with her protective half-brother, Kostya; their household has dwindled from five to two. Anna, their mother, is now in a nursing home and Noah, Kostya’s son, is living in Berlin. Kostya, wracked with guilt for the tragedies that have befallen Sonya, also grapples with the memory of his wife, Iris, a lawyer murdered in the course of a dangerous investigation seventeen years earlier.
As we move through Sonya’s day, Noah and Anna narrate their stories as well. Noah’s journal entries cover the years 1980-1993, and Anna’s letters to Andrei, her married lover in Russia, are written in 1957, after Anna has emigrated to Israel to build a new life for herself and her son, Kostya. While Sonya’s story moves rapidly through the events of a single day, Noah and Anna’s voices take the reader back in time, filling in the circumstances that have led Sonya to this pivotal moment.
We learn that Sonya has already endured two catastrophes. At age twelve, a medical mishap leaves her deaf, and at eighteen, while studying at university in Beersheba, Sonya is assaulted by two hoodlums. Throughout the novel, Sonya’s experiences, instigated by both human error and human evil, are echoed by the larger, political violence that haunts modern Israel.
While Noah’s and Anna’s voices shed light on Sonya’s journey, they also provide insights into the political and cultural fabric of Israel from the mid 1950s to the present. Noah’s journal entries, starting with his tenth birthday and ending shortly after his army service, map his coming of age. We see him wrestling with his sexual identity and first sexual encounters, the fallout from his mother’s leftist politics, and his own conscription to the army. Anna’s secret letters to Andrei offer an outsider’s perspective on the new Israeli state.
The remarkable events of Sonya’s day are set in motion when her brother gives her an antihistamine. Overcome with sleepiness, she dismisses her morning class early, asking only one student, Matar, to stay behind. She wants to understand what lies behind his unusual expression. He answers that he has been involved in war crimes, and surprises Sonya by kissing her.
Sonya feels that she has been roused from a long slumber and as the novel progresses we see the ways in which her awakened desire shapes her choices. She decides to take a taxi home from the university and impulsively invites the taxi driver inside and seduces him. He complies, but when she tells him she’s deaf, he flees in confusion. Sonya is convinced that she has fallen in love with him, and decides to pursue him. She solicits her brother’s help and sets out to find her lover.
Sonya’s search gains in intensity and purpose as she travels to East Jerusalem. There she encounters the walls that prevent Palestinians from moving freely through the West Bank. After an Alice in Wonderland-like journey past numerous obstacles, Sonya finally makes it to her lover’s house. This second encounter leads Sonya to a central revelation: the identity of her father.
As this day of awakened desire and dispelled secrets closes, Sonya is able to step out from under the protective wing of her brother into a life that reflects both the ambiguity and uncertainty of contemporary Israel and her own personal possibilities.


From the Hardcover edition.

Genres: Fiction, Israel, Canada, Middle East, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, Judaica

272 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2005

About the author

Edeet Ravel is the author of sixteen books for children and adults. Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages and have won numerous awards, including the Hugh MacLennan Book Award, the J.I. Segal Award, the Canadian Jewish Book Award (in two categories), the Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and the Snow Willow Award. Edeet's books have also been shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Commonwealth Book Prize, and the Arthur Ellis Crime Award. Edeet was a three-time Governor General's Award finalist in two categories. Her novel The Saver (Groundwood) was adapted into film by Wiebke von Carolsfeld. Her latest (crossover) novels are A Boy Is Not a Bird and A Boy Is Not a Ghost, about a child who is exiled to Siberia in WWII, and Miss Matty, in which a teenager in Montreal of 1942 dreams of being a Hollywood star. In the words of one young reader, "Edeet has a vision where what is strange is loved and what is beautiful -- our planet, our humanity -- is protected." Edeet lives in Montreal, Canada.

Reviews

[Maggie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely book. It’s mostly a first person narrative of a day in the life of an Israeli woman who happens to be deaf. Interspersed are 40 year old letters by her mother to her brother’s father, and 20 year old diary entries by her nephew) who is actually a year or two older than she is.

In the single day, she “kissed a student, pursued a lover, found her father, and left her brother.”

“All that mattered was knowing. You could deal with something you knew, find a place for it in your world, even if it was only a shed in the backyard. But if you didn’t know, a ghostly absence accompanied you everywhere you went.” (p. 213)

[Jessica Attas · Rating 3 out of 5]

i would give this book three and a half if possible, for i did end up enjoying it! it was an unlikely candidate for being a book i became immersed in, but i thought it would be decent at least, and when one lives far from any good collection of english language books, you just aren´t that picky! but while it was slow picking up, at about the halfway point, i found that i was engaged both by the characters/the story and the lovely writing. interweaving the stories of three generations of a tel aviv family, ravel takes a look at the nature of families and the unifying humanity that transcends time or place or ethnicity or circumstance. a good read...

[Peter B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was not aware this was the third book in a trilogy until after reading it but I did not find that lessened my enjoyment. In fact, it has resulted in my searching out the first two novels to explore more of Ravel’s exposition of the social dynamic of Israeli life.
The novel is a day in the life of Sonya, a professor of mathematics. It is a very full day, not only for Sonya but for those following her through the day as we are made aware that she is deaf as the result of a medical mishap at age 12, and carries the memory of being sexually assaulted at age 18. We also learn the back stories of her family.
The stories are told through letters and diary entries and narration and at times I had to refer back to keep things straight.
However, I was totally engaged throughout the novel.

[Crabbygirl · Rating 1 out of 5]

what an opaque, useless novel.... so much philosophizing on the part of the characters (who all, tediously, had the same voice). I only noticed at the three-quarters point that this was the last of a trilogy, and there are characters that have obvious meaning to people who read the other books. I think that it may have helped if I had a more detailed understanding of the history of Israel and Palestine - there seemed to be real events referenced that meant nothing to me. lastly, I never really connected or cared about any of the characters. I never saw the point of the novel.

[Chantal · Rating 1 out of 5]

I disliked this book in so many ways!! Nothing at all happens! Nothing!! It follows the story of 3 people at different time periods, which is usually a great formula for an interesting story. Did I mention though that nothing at all happens?? This book is literally about 3 people whining for 300 pages!!

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A day in the life of... A character: intriguing, surprising, both vulnerable and powerful, well worth the time spent discovering her... A setting so chaotic and hopeless that the only possible plot is Irony. But rather than the surreal rambling of Estragon and Vladimir, glimmers of hope against a darkening background.

[Ann Halligan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting read. Written from the eyes of a mother, daughter and nephew...using letters, diary and narrative to move the story forward.

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting premise, but I found the ending anti-climatic. I preferred one of her earlier books, namely Ten Thousand Lovers.

[Nora · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite of the trilogy. Very interesting stories and played with time really well.

[Amira Chatti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Surreal, yet amazing!

[Cindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Side stories seem to have been created to "fill out" a poorly written book...more time should have been spent on win story developing it into a real novel....lazy girl!

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Picked this up used and it looked interesting. I didn't realize that it was the third of a trilogy but do t let that stop you... The three books are all about Different aspects of Israeli life but are stand alone stories. I read this on the plane tonight coming to CA and enjoyed it. It's a small but complex family and I needed to keep reviewing the family tree at first, especially since the story is told from different characters' perspectives from different time periods. The author cleverly intermingles a boy's diary entries over twelve years with an elderly woman's love letters from her youth and the exploits and discoveries of a deaf math professor in a single day told in the first person to give you insight into the history and complexities of life in Israel. There are new settler stories from the 1950's, a coming of age story, several love stories and much about the Palestinian Israeli conflict and the pain caused every day to the people living on both sides. I recommend this book - good writing, complex characters and insight into day to day lives in a war torn, tired culture.

[Peggy Walt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Glad I finally finished Edeet Ravel's trilogy (a $4 find from the Women for Music book sale!). As always, I enjoy her writing, and I found the story of three generations of Israelis compelling - the older immigrant Russian grandmother, the young army-serving Israeli grandson, and the memorable character of Sonya, doubly impacted by tragic events in her young life, including deafness caused by a hospital accident. The short chapters in the voices of the three main characters work well and keep the interest high. Ravel is well-known to be on the far left and critical of Israel (her partial home - she also lived in Montreal where she went to school), and her politics are obvious in this novel, occasionally becoming a bit preachy. So be warned, she's got a definite viewpoint and there are not that many shades of grey presented. But overall, she does a good job of portraying this complex, intense place and balancing the impact that life under siege makes on both "sides."

[Miranda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The abrupt endings of Ms. Ravel's books in the Tel Aviv trilogy leave you thirsting for more. However it adds to the realism with things not all being tied up in a neat little package at the end. This particular story resonated with me because the main female character was deaf, as I am, and I found myself relating. Of course there were the odd wee details pertaining to her hearing impairment which were unrealistic but I didn't mind them much.
Like her previous two books in this trilogy, I am left with knowing how woefully ignorant I am about the issues in the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict and the desire to learn more.

The realism I mentioned earlier is what I enjoy most about Ms. Ravel's books followed closely with the portrayal of each character with their individual traits and motivations.

[Kelly McCloskey-Romero · Rating 5 out of 5]

There were so many fascinating elements of immersing myself in this story. It's set in Israel and told from the perspective of three different narrators - the main one, protagonist Sonya, in modern day, her nephew, in the 80s and 90s, and her mother, in 1957. Between the three of them, we see Israel at various stages of its development. I loved learning about this frontier world. The characters themselves were lovable (as she refers to them in the reading group notes at the end), and the plot was unpredictable and suspenseful. This is the last book in a trilogy, and I'm excited to read the other two books.

[Sonia Reppe · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked her book Ten Thousand Lovers, but this one seems emotionless and stiff. The scene of the kiss with her student that was set up to be passionate made me cringe, (his tongue moved back and forth in my mouth). She has sex for the first in her thirties—with a stranger—and the first one she tells is her brother? Did anyone else not buy that, or the brother's tepid reaction? And when, immediately after, she analyzes her sexual experience to herself, it was excruciatingly clinical, like she was recalling her trip to the dentist. I'm sorry, I couldn't get past these things.

[Neena · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the final book in a trilogy where the characters are loosely connected but divided by experiencing Israeli life in different decades and through opposing viewpoints. Ravel, the author, is politically left and it shows via her telling. I admire her attempts at balance as she works to show her readers how Israeli/Jewish contemporary history formed the people and the problems of today. At her best Ravel is fair-minded and introspective, rarely out and out accusing. Nothing, she seems to tell us occurs in a vacuum.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

A hauntingly beautiful love story, a poignant introduction to the realities of life in modern-day Israel, and so much more. The only reason I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 is because my interest waned in the last 50 pages or so. I’m not sure if it was the story, the writing, or simply my mood. Still, all in all, a well-written and enjoyable book.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read in 2015: 5 stars
Reread 2019: 3.5 stars

I think the first time I found the descriptions of Israeli life somewhat captivating, having read more about Israel and having read several other Israeli authors in the intervening time the book held less interest for me this time around. Still a solid read, but not the favorite it was the first time around.

[Hara · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quirky but compelling story of a woman relcaiming her life. Told by three narrators at different moments in a family's history, all set in Tel Aviv against the backdrop of Israeli politics from the 50's to the present day.

[Colleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of a deaf woman in Tel Aviv who in one day “kissed a student, pursued a lover, found my father, and left my brother”. It was interesting and I’m glad I read it, but I don’t think I’d necessarily recommend it to anyone.

[Tabitha · Rating 5 out of 5]

A poignant exploration of life in Tel Aviv from 1957 to 2000, following the lives of three generations: a mother, her children, and her grandson. It illustrates how war changes everything and nothing.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

A meditation on Israel's past and present. Toronto Star: Shimmers with suspense, mystery and wit. The third in the Tel Aviv trilogy. The confusing interweaving of 1957 and 1982 left me less inspired than the first and second books.

[Ms. G]

Stopped cleaning my apartment and finally found the time to read more. Finished. Would like to read the other two in the trilogy now...

[Natalie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knowing so little about social Isreal this was a fun little read. Interesting way of looking at isolation ans shelter.

[Shannon Stamp]

I loved this book. It was a little hard to follow sometimes because it jumped back and forth from person to person but it was very good.

[Tina Siegel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it, but had to get myself into the headspace of reading a fairy tale. Otherwise the whole thing is unbelievable. Very engaging characters, though.

[Lynn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and lovely. Not crazy about her other books though...

[Carly]

good

[Joanne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sorry, but this one wasn't one of my favourites and I probably won't bother with others by this author.