Ha-Sefer he-hadash shel Orli Kastel-Blum.

Ben-Chaim, Michael

Orly Castel-Bloom. Ha-Sefer he-hadash shel Orli Kastel-Blum. Jerusalem. Keter. 1998. 204 pages. isbn 965-07-0792-1.

Taking the Trend" is Orly Castel-Bloom's eighth book and, together with her previous works as well as with the literary works of several other young Israeli writers, marks a major change of direction in Israeli literature. The revival of Israeli fiction writing in the early part of the century was primarily conveyed by a genre that took the principal experiences of Jewish and Israeli life as its predominant frame of reference. It was an epic genre that sought to investigate and dramatize those experiences which were widely considered by the small audience of Hebrew readers to characterize the leading events, movements, and forms of life of the new nation, such as the adventures of Zionism, the Holocaust, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or kibbutz life. Those issues - it appears from that literary harvest - provided the immediate and indelible context within which most Israelis lived their lives.

In "Taking the Trend" (whose Hebrew title translates literally as "Orly Castel-Bloom's New Book") this context is hardly recognized, and definitely loses the cultural importance with which it had been associated. The story focuses on a young woman from Tel Aviv who lives through a culture of ever-changing fads, seeking a purpose in life and a sense of belonging. But her disenchanted outlook renders her quest meaningless, since nothing seems to hold together her continual encounters with these fads. The young woman's anthropological sensibility discloses the different modes of thought, language, expression, and emotion that characterize the changing fashions. However, the experiencing subject is unable - and does not at all feel the need - to bring these different balloonlike cultural monads together within a unifying narrative.

"Taking the Trend" is first and foremost an enchanting celebration of the Hebrew language of ordinary people in a modern urban environment, who suddenly realize that history is nothing but the minor experiences that make up their daily encounters with one another. It is a language that deliberately yet somewhat effortlessly liberates itself from certain respectful literary canons, or a hierarchy of cultural values. Castel-Bloom sets out to provide her readers with a key to delete any expression of the sacred from their consciousness. Her "new book" thus challenges many Israelis to rethink the common form their lives are fashioning nowadays.

Michael Ben-Chaim

Israeli Institute of Technology