Shattered Vessels , livre ebook

204

pages

English

Ebooks

2012

Écrit par
Michal Peled Ginsburg , Moshe Ron

Publié par
State University of New York Press

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204

pages

English

Ebooks

2012

Lire un extrait

Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus

Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

01 février 2012

EAN13

9780791486009

Langue

English

David Shahar (1926–1997), author of the seven-novel sequence The Palace of Shattered Vessels, occupies an ambiguous position in the Israeli literary canon. Often compared to Proust, Shahar produced a body of work that offers a fascinating poetic and ideological alternative to the dominant models of Amos Oz and A. B. Yehoshua. This book, the first full-length study of this fascinating author, takes a fresh look at the uniqueness of his literary achievement in both poetic and ideological terms. In addition to situating Shahar within the European literary tradition, the book reads Shahar's representation of Jerusalem in his multi-volume novel as a "heterotopia"—an actual space where society's unconscious (what does not fit on its ideological map) is materially present—and argues for the relevance of Shahar's work to the critical discussion of the Arab question in Israeli culture.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Flirting with the Uncanny

Narrative Organization
Chronology
Identities
Uncanny Photo

2. The Eyes of a Woman in (and out of) Love: Creation, Painting, and Betrayal in Shahar's Fiction

"Of Shadows and the Image"
"Of Dreams"
"First Lesson"
His Majesty's Agent
Of Candles and Winds

3. Shahar's Jerusalem

Small World/Liminal Space
Space and Plot
Heterotopia
An Urban Idyll

4. Otherness, Identity, and Place

Fluid Identities and Violent Mobs
The Portrait of the Narrator as an Arab Chauffeur
Exchanging Clothes, Exchanging Places
Canaanite, Hebrew, Jew
A Cautionary Tale

5. Remembering Proust

Similes of Memory
Metaphor and Metonymy
Autobiographical Narration
Apprenticeship
Artists

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Voir

Publié par

State University of New York Press

Date de parution

01 février 2012

EAN13

9780791486009

Langue

English

Middle East

Shattered Vessels

SUNY Series in Modern Jewish Literature and Culture Sarah Blacher Cohen, editor

Shattered Vessels

Memory, Identity, and Creation in the Work of David Shahar

Michal Peled Ginsburg and Moshe Ron

State University of New York Press

The Northwestern University Research Grants Committee has provided partial support for the publication of this book. We gratefully acknowledge this assistance.

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

Printed in the United States of America

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

For information, address State University of New York Press, 90 State Street, Suite 700, Albany, NY 12207

Production by Michael Haggett Marketing by Fran Keneston

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Ginsburg, Michal Peled, 1947– Shattered vessles : memory, identity, and creation in the work of David Shahar / Michal Peled Ginsburg and Moshe Ron p. cm. — (SUNY series in modern Jewish literature and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-5919-5 (alk. paper) — ISBN 0-7914-5920-9 (pbk. alk. paper) 1. Shahar, David, 1926—Criticism and interpretation. I. Ron, Moshe. II. Title. III. Series.

PJ5054.S33Z67 2004 892.4’36—dc22

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

2003069328

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER1

CHAPTER2

CHAPTER3

Contents

FLIRTING WITH THEUNCANNY Narrative Organization Chronology Identities Uncanny Photo

THEEYES OF AWOMAN IN(AND OUT OF) LOVE: CREATION, PAINTING,ANDBETRAYAL IN SHAHAR’SFICTION “Of Shadows and the Image” “Of Dreams” “First Lesson” His Majesty’s Agent Of Candles and Winds

SHAHAR’SJERUSALEM Small World/Liminal Space Space and Plot Heterotopia An Urban Idyll

vii

1 5 7 15 17

25 26 34 35 43 52

57 58 66 74 80

CHAPTER4

CHAPTER5

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Contents

OTHERNESS, IDENTITY,ANDPLACE Fluid Identities and Violent Mobs The Portrait of the Narrator As an Arab Chauffeur Exchanging Clothes, Exchanging Places Canaanite, Hebrew, Jew A Cautionary Tale

REMEMBERINGPROUST Similes of Memory Metaphor and Metonymy Autobiographical Narration Apprenticeship Artists

87 88 95 100 106 113

119 121 124 130 134 141

149

175

185

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to Shulamit Shahar, Meir Shahar, and Madeleine Neige for their cooperation and encouragement. We also wish to thank Murray Baumgarten, Yair Mazor, Alan Mintz, and Henry Sussman for their help and support. We are beholden to Tamar Sofer and Mark Shaeffer for the maps included in this book. We thank Avner Treinin, Hayim Beer, Hanan Hever, and Michal Oren-Nordheim, who discussed with us portions of the manuscript, and Jenny Navot for her friendship and hospitality. An earlier version of chapter 1 appeared inProoftexts19 (1999): 151–77. We thank the editor for the permission to reprint.

vii

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Introduction

At the time of his death, April 2, 1997, David Shahar had not become a household name. He died in France, and his body was transported back home to Jerusalem, where a brief ceremony was held before the funeral procession to the Mount of Olives. A few dozen people gathered in the little plaza outside Beit Hasofer in downtown Jerusalem around a slightly raised stone platform on which the body was laid. Midday traffic was heavy, as usual, in the adjacent streets of this busy commercial district. Some speeches were given. While Avner Treinin, professor of physical chemistry at Hebrew University and a poet, spoke of Shahar’s passionate interest in the phenomenon of vision and his intense ambivalence about the mind-body duality, hundreds of high school students began streaming out of the nearby Beit Ha’am auditorium, where they probably had attended an educational program. Some lingered a moment on the crowded sidewalk to stare, by no means disrespectful, obviously non-plussed. Who was this guy? A writer, ah, yes. A Jerusalem writer. Is this odd event a proper emblem of the sayingEin navi be’iro, so often applied to David Shahar? Though he himself was not averse to cultivating the mystique of the prophet unrecognized in his hometown, the notion that he has been totally or willfully ignored is not quite accurate. Not only did he receive important prizes and honors (Agnon Prize, 1973; Prime Minister’s Grant 1969, 1978, 1991; Bialik Prize, 1984; Bar-Ilan University Newman Award, 1986–87), but many critics recognized him as one of Israel’s foremost novel-1 ists, an author whose oeuvre is unique and unparalleled in scope and force. Yet reviewers of Shahar’s work also have noted that his reception, both by the gen-2 eral public and by professional critics, has fallen short of what was his due. Given the magnitude and quality of his literary project, his relative marginal-ization within Israeli culture is in itself of considerable interest. The reasons for this marginalization are both poetic and ideological (and, in our mind, these two aspects cannot be separated). Poetically speaking, crit-ics were not wrong to read Shahar as a realist who chronicled life in Jerusalem

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