Nevo's "The Last Interview" (הראיון האחרון) crafts an intricate tapestry of confession, recollection, and moral reckoning disguised as a questionnaire. The interviewee, a celebrated author, transforms what should be a simple magazine interview into a profound examination of life's pivotal moments—his divorce, his father's Alzheimer's, his daughter's adolescent rebellion, and the weight of literary success in a country perpetually on the brink.
Nevo brilliantly employs the interview format to peel away layers of pretense, allowing his character to admit truths he'd never spoken aloud: "Sometimes I think all my books are just elaborate excuses to say the things I couldn't say to the people I love when they were still willing to listen."
The book captures the extraordinary within the ordinary—a child's first steps coinciding with a terrorist attack, the protagonist's comical attempts to dispose of his father's pornography collection before his mother discovers it, the humiliating dinner party where he realizes his ex-wife has moved on. Nevo embeds these moments within Israel's complex social landscape, where military service, political tensions, and the perpetual shadow of conflict shape even the most intimate experiences.
The novelist's relationships with his children emerge as the emotional core, particularly in passages where he confronts his parental failures: "My daughter stopped speaking to me on a Tuesday. I remember because I was working on chapter seven, and suddenly realized I'd forgotten to pick her up from dance class—again." His literary fame becomes both shield and burden, complicating his attempts at authentic connection and redemption.
Each question in this faux interview serves as a portal to a different slice of Israeli life—from the sun-drenched beaches of Tel Aviv to the claustrophobic bomb shelters during rocket attacks, from the intellectual cafés where literary reputations are made to the quiet suburban homes where families fracture and heal. Nevo's protagonist articulates the peculiar contradiction of Israeli identity when he reflects, "We live in a country where you can see five archaeological layers of civilization from your bathroom window, yet we can't seem to remember what happened last week."
In the pantheon of contemporary literature, Nevo occupies a unique intersection where several influential traditions converge. His confessional intimacy echoes Karl Ove Knausgård's "My Struggle", yet without the Norwegian's exhaustive granularity. The magical realist touches that appear at unexpected moments (the ghost of his grandmother commenting on his life choices, time seeming to stop during moments of crisis) reveal García Márquez's influence, though transplanted from Macondo's humid jungles to Haifa's urban bustle. Like David Grossman's "A Horse Walks Into a Bar," Nevo employs a structural conceit—the interview rather than the stand-up set—to excavate personal and national trauma simultaneously, creating a stage for confession where humor serves as both shield and weapon.
Meir Shalev's pastoral lyricism emerges in Nevo's descriptions of childhood landscapes, particularly in passages depicting the protagonist's early years where political idealism collides with human frailty. The book's treatment of fatherhood—both as a son and as a father—bears the influence of Philip Roth's examinations of Jewish masculine identity, though with less rage and more melancholy. Nevo's protagonist suffers from similar anxieties about legacy, potency, and meaning, but expresses them through self-deprecation rather than self-aggrandizement. The disorienting structure recalls Julian Barnes' "A History of the World in 10½ Chapters," using discrete units that initially seem disconnected but gradually reveal their intricate relationship to one another.
What distinguishes Nevo from these influences is his distinctly Israeli literary metabolism—the rapid shifts between comedy and tragedy, the collapse of public and private spheres, and the constant awareness of history's weight upon the present moment. His prose occupies a middle ground where the extraordinary nature of ordinary life requires neither embellishment nor dispassionate recording, only honest attention. The interview format itself becomes a metaphor for the Israeli condition—always being asked to explain oneself, always aware of being observed, always caught between authentic expression and the performance of identity for an audience that may not truly understand.
הראיון האחרון של אשכול נבו הוא יצירה ספרותית מורכבת המשלבת הומור, כאב, ואמת אישית בפורמט ייחודי של ראיון. הספר מציג אדם שבור המנסה לתקן את עצמו דרך כתיבה, ובדרך חושף את המתחים בחברה הישראלית המודרנית. נבו מצליח לשזור את הפוליטי באישי, את הטראגי בקומי, ויוצר דיוקן מדויק של גבר בן זמננו המתמודד עם כישלונותיו האישיים אל מול הציפיות החברתיות. הפורמט של ראיון גרם לספר לנוח שנתיים על המדף, לא היה לי כוח לקרוא ראיון, רציתי ספר. אולם אל תעשו את אותה הטעות. אף על פי שספר זה מאוד שונה מהאחרים שלו הוא מאוד דומה לסיפורים הקצרים והשפה היא מאוד אשכולית. עם זאת העלילה מתגבשת בצורה נפלאה והאפיזודות מתחברות לכלל שמתעלה על ספרים אחרים שלו ואולי אפילו ליצירה שהיא הטובה בכתביו. כן, כן!