The Same Sea. (Two Views of Amos Oz's).
Cohen, Leslie ; Herbstman, Elvera
by Amos Oz. Translated by Nicholas de Lange. London: Chatto and Windus, 2001, 201 pp., 15.99 [pounds sterling]. New York: Harcourt, 2001, 201 pp., $24.
LESLIE COHEN
The Same Sea is a postmodern novel in which the craft of the writing is at least as important as the story. In many ways, this is a continuation of Oz's earlier work, as the focus is on the quality of relationships rather than the actions of the characters. Moreover, a sense of mystery and the unexplained pervade, as in Don't Call It Night and To Know A Woman. But, in The Same Sea, Oz takes a decisive turn toward the mystical: the living and the dead interact, playing a major role in each other's existences. And the Narrator is also a participant in the story, discussing his former novels with the other characters and engaging them in the development of the current novel -- an innovative and intriguing concept.
The story is about the recently bereaved Danon family. Nadia has died of cancer; her husband, Albert, and their grown son, Enrico David, are struggling to adjust to their loss. Rico has decided to go in quest of mountains and peace of mind in Tibet, leaving his father to struggle with loneliness on his own. At the beginning of the novel, Albert -- a tax accountant -- "sits night after night at his computer looking for loopholes in the tax laws," convinced that everyone "is condemned to wait for their own death locked in a separate cage." Along with his grieving father, Rico has also left behind a girlfriend -- Dita. While Rico is away, Dita comes to visit Albert, and they become intimately involved. Dita stays with Albert in Rico's old bedroom for a few months, and then Albert helps her to find her own apartment.
Much more important than the story line is the author/narrator's running conversation with himself, the other characters, and the reader concerning the meaning of life, death, and relationships. Key words and phrases are used as poetic refrains. The notion that "in the end everyone is left alone" flows from the thoughts of several characters -- including the Narrator -- and is repeated throughout the novel. The repetitions also reveal the hidden ways in which the characters resemble each other and are interconnected. For example, in the chapter "Nocturne," Rico's former girlfriend, Dita, makes a mundane observation. In the following chapter, Rico's current girlfriend, Maria -- halfway around the world -- repeats exactly the same words, implying a mysterious and intimate connection between the women.
Rico's adventures in the Orient are presented as separate chapters along-side Albert's groping adjustment to widowhood. Reading them is like switching computer screens: Oz describes the shifting of Albert's thoughts back and forth between his apartment in Tel Aviv and his son in Tibet as, "Next screen previous screen." Whenever Albert's mind wanders eastward, he recalls the difference in time zones between Israel and Tibet. "In the Himalayas it's already tomorrow," he thinks. Or, "In Bengal now it's 5 o'clock." In this way, Oz emphasizes Albert's distinctive way of yearning for his son.
The deceased Nadia is poignantly present from the first page to the last. In the beginning, she listens to a bird singing outside her bedroom window, moments before her death. Her own memories, as well as her husband's and son's memories of her, are woven into the novel. Toward the end, she says: I'm the air my son breaths in his sleep on the straw. I'm the sleep of the woman, who's, resting her head on his shoulder. I'm also the sleep of my husband who's fallen asleep on the living-room couch. I'm my daughter-in-law's dream, her head in her hands on the hotel desk. I'm the swish of the curtain that the sea stirs through the window. That's me. I am all of their sleep.
Possibly the most intriguing aspect of the novel is the way in which the Narrator inserts himself into the cast of characters. He enters gradually and stealthily, so that halfway through the book, when he discusses his novel, To Know a Woman, with Dita, the reader takes their dialogue for granted. The Narrator first enters in a chapter called "And What is Hiding Behind the Story?," in which he shares with us some of his own experiences and longings. In later chapters, he repeats several times that the poet Zelda was one of his grammar school teachers, and that she advised him to stop talking, so that "maybe things will sometimes talk to you." Significantly, the Narrator has learned to listen, and he hears the sound of silence more loudly than anything else. Toward the end, when he sums up the story, he declares that "the purpose of silence is silence."
In The Same Sea, Oz's prose approaches poetry more than ever before. The Same Sea epitomizes the evolution of his artistry and can perhaps be called an "extended prose poem." Its chapters are short -- many of them cover only a quarter of a page. Like poetry, some chapters are arranged into stanzas of equal numbers of lines. In the original Hebrew version, the visual aspect of the printed words on the page is striking. Several chapters look like shaped (concrete) poetry. For example, the chapter called "Tortoises and Butterflies" appears in the shape of a butterfly in the Hebrew version -- a meaningful visual accompaniment to the text. This has been abandoned in the English translation, in which the text is printed primarily in a square format on the page. This is not so much a fault of the translation as a problem in converting the shorter Hebrew lines of text into longer lines of English prose, since Hebrew is so much more condensed than English.
Another very difficult task for the translator was dealing with the many references to Biblical sources. Several references have been left untranslated and unexplained, such as "Talitha numi," and "Talitha kumi, "a play on words in Hebrew. A number of Biblical references are listed in the translator's note at the end of the novel, as de Lange felt that footnotes would interfere with the enjoyment of the text. Yet, despite whatever nuances may have been lost, the English version reads as a beautiful tone poem.
The Same Sea is the work of a mature writer who has reached the age of wisdom. It deserves to be acclaimed as a world-class piece of literature, written by the author at the pinnacle of his artistic career.
LESLIE COHEN is a writer, living in Israel, whose book reviews jave appeard in the Jerusalem Post, among other publications.
ELVERA HERBSTMAN
Contained within pages that produce an arrhythmic cadence, the fortunate reader may locate a narrative that can be recited in nouveau-rapper-style. The roles enacting the tale are Narrator (the author), wife (dead and undead), Son (aimless adventurer), Temptress (young, of course), Entrepreneur (phony), plus surrounding symbols personifying an obscure view of fear and trembling by the protagonist (Albert), who founders through life. The offspring he produces escapes to the Himalayas in search of nirvana, where he discovers his calling as a night watchman for a Belgian-owned fishery. There he slobbers about with a soothsaying lady , who services groupies while uttering time-worn proverbs. The girl he left behind in the city of Bat Yam (equals "Daughter of the Sea"), serves more effectively as a provocative image in the eyes of the father. Here Oz offers us a turnabout of the Phaedra and Cosima da Medici models, wherein they (according to legends) favored the son over the old man.
An extortionist, uglified by life, courts the young woman, who appears to reveal a hopeless continuation of life. Therein lies the tale. It mocks, it flirts, it weaves oddly deconstructed couplets and unfocused sentences. It attempts to locate life in a stream of consciousness that loses consciousness. Phrases unravel, then resort to stringing words together as if caught in the thrall of a word processor. It is neither poetry nor prose. It somehow divorces the Narrator from the authorship of his oeuvre. Yet, a zany, quirky work of art it is.
Whether, in desperation, due to the dire turn of world events, Oz has retreated from politics into an obscure form of linguistics poses a mystery. And it surely captures attention. Nevertheless, his latest approach to writing, if it can be deciphered, appears to detoxify our everyday language into a non-malignant means of communication.
One reviewer called it a crazy book; another implied he was making sport of his reader. Actually, like paintings hung in the Museum of Modern Art that perplex us (e.g., Nude Descending A Staircase; Mama, Papa Has Been Wounded), Oz's The Same Sea is an enigmatic work, stylistically meaningful as well as quite wonderful.
ELVERA HERBSTMAN is a freelance writer, who lives in New York City. Her articles have appeared in Midstream, Jewish Frontiers, and other publications.
