To The End Of The Land by David Grossman

[Fran]

To The End Of The Land is my first introduction to David Grossman and it certainly will not be my last. So intense is this book and it had such a profound impact on me that it has taken me nearly two weeks to get my mind together sufficiently to write this review & needing the added impetus of a reminder from DATo this morning.

The first reaction to tragedy psychologists tell us is denial and at the core of To The End Of The Land is a mother (Ora) efforts to deny the “notifiers” the chance to deliver a formal notification of her son (Ofer) death in action with the Israeli Defence Forces. Beset by worry and premonitions she goes hiking on the Israeli hills, a trip she had planned to take with her son, and retelling the life of her son she hopes to defy fate and as it were magically keep him safe. It reminded me of the Jewish tradition of shiva or indeed the Irish concept of the wake where the deceased life is talked over and stories told of his or her achievements good or bad, funny or sad as though by talking through the life story the inevitability of death can be defied, not unique to Jewish or Irish cultures I'm sure. Although her son is not dead, as the story progresses we realise that her concept of her son is indeed dead, since as she puts it “he was nationalised” by the Defence Forces and, probably inevitably, the man that returns from a war situation is never the boy that left … those who came back but never came home.

Inevitably this story involves war and the impact of wars, starting with the 1967 Six Day War and the meeting of three teenagers in a largely abandoned Tel Aviv hospital. The three, Ora and two boys Avram and Ilan, try to comfort each other convinced as they are that their fragile country has fallen to the Egyptian forces. Avram is a poet, a romantic and inevitably Ora falls in love with him but it is Ilan who appears the more needy, less robust and less able to cope with life. The intertwining and convoluted relationships of these three people form the core of this book and the backdrop to this exploration of the great human dilemmas of love, the risks of intimacy, loss, war, memory, regret, guilt and the fear of personal and national obliteration.

I loved the character of Ora, the strong, coping Jewish mother, stuffing her son with his favourite foods when he returns from military service and desperately wanting him to still be the child she knew and reared largely alone. There is a poignant moment when, hugging her returned son she tries to find a space on his uniform clad back that hasn’t been nationalised by the military. There are awful moments when he laughs at her for admonishing him to be careful and he tells her his job is to be the buffer between suicide bombers and Israeli residents, to make sure they blow themselves up at the checkpoint rather than in a restaurant or outside a school. You can almost hear him saying “mother you just don’t understand”. She does understand only too well and she is not opposed to his doing military service and she supports the need to defend their country but in many ways she is asking the age old questions is the price too high, and in defending what they have are they sacrificing the very best of what they are? There is something extraordinary sad and poignant in her interactions with her Arab driver, you just feel in a different time and a different place these two people, so very alike, could be such great friends.

There is so much to digest in this extraordinary, intense book and I am certain I will be rereading it again in the future. There is the bizarre choice Ora is given when she has to choose between Avram and Ilan, without knowing why or the awful consequences of her choice, brought to mind for me the choice forced on Sophie in William Styron’s book, Sophie’s Choice.

To The End Of The Land is my kind of book, intense and meaty with so much to think about and raising issues that will remain in the mind long after the book is put back on the shelf. I will, most definitely, be going in search of more of David Grossman’s published books.

[DATo]

To The End Of The Land is a book which cries out for deeper analysis. The author, David Grossman, has peppered the literary landscape of this book with precious gems. Though largely buried, sometimes a corner glistens above the surface which invites us to dig it up, brush off the dirt and sand and examine it thoroughly.

I have found several dominant themes in this book which resurface time and time again. These themes include devotion, responsibility, guilt, and the inability to communicate. This last theme emerged in a retrospective as I was driving home from work tonight. The more I thought of it the more pronounced it became. This theme, the inability to communicate, takes many forms throughout the novel: from the psychological to the technological.

Themes: The Inability To Communicate

1) The book opens with Ora screaming out a song in her sleep. Even in an unconscious state Ora is trying desperately to communicate with a lost childhood friend who has died.

2) Ora instructs one of her sons who is currently serving in the IDF to never shoot anyone and tells him to promise her that he never will. She knows if he does it will irreparably change him and this she fears more than anything else. He tells her he cannot make that promise. She desperately seeks to find the right words to convince him and berates herself for her inability to do so.

3) In one of the most dramatic parts of the book Ilan is unable to communicate with Avram who is hiding in a stronghold which has been overrun by Egyptian forces. The communication device he has will only allow him to receive but not send. As he receives Avram's calls to come and rescue him he knows that Avram is giving away his position to the enemy. Ilan's frustration and desperation in being unable to communicate with Avram is palpably felt by the reader.

4) During the hiking trip Ora, in desperation, digs a hole in the earth in which to bury her face and scream out what Avram will not allow her to talk about.

5) Ofer and Neta leave messages on the answering machine ... MANY messages. They are trying to communicate, once again, "desperately", with Ora and Avram respectively.

6) Ilan cannot communicate with Ora though he wants to very much. He wants to be close to her and his son but he cannot bring himself to address her face to face so he lives in a shed outside the house she is living in.

Themes: Devotion

1) Avram tries to convince Ilan to take a romantic interest in Ora even though he loves her himself. He feels Ilan is better suited to her than he is. He is willing to give up that which he most desires for the good of his two friends.

2) Ilan and Ora rush to Avram's side when he is returned after being a POW. They take turns visiting him and administering to him in the hospital and after till he refuses to see them anymore.

3) Ilan becomes totally devoted to Avram's son, Ofer.

4) Ofer is devoted to Adam as a child and despite his years and the fact that he is younger than Adam finds the means to rescue Adam from a psychological impairment that the "experts" have been unable to diagnose or cure.

Also : A dog becomes devoted to Avram and Ora --- Neta and Avram, in a very strange relationship, become devoted to each other --- A settlement volunteer becomes devoted to the misfits of the region

Themes: Guilt and Responsibility

1) During the hike Ora reprises an incident she observed when she was a child and saw her mother, a Holocaust survivor, beat and scratch herself, possibly as a form of punishment for the fact that she survived and others did not.

2) Ilan blames himself for the choosing of lots which determined that Avram would ultimately endure the horrors he experienced. He accepts the responsibility for this and the fact that he did not (could not) rescue Avram at the stronghold or warn him to keep silent on the radio. He determines to devote his life, first, to helping Avram upon Avram's return, and later by being a good father to Avram's son.

3) Ora feels guilty about the events which created a divide between her and Samie. She resolves to mend this breach as soon as she can. She assumes the responsibility for being the one who caused the breach though she did not do so intentionally.

4) Ora feels guilt and responsibility for the death of Ada. She feels that if they had not had the argument she would have been walking to school with her hand in hand and somehow would have averted the accident which killed Ada. This results in the overwhelming responsibility she feels in keeping her family safe - especially Ofer, whose father was brutalized because of the drawing of lots, yet another source of feelings of guilt and responsibility.

-- January 24th, 2013, 12:17 am --

Other things I noticed

1) As the hike continues Avram grows stronger and Ora seems to deteriorate. It is as though Ora has transfused her strength into Avram in the tradition of the devotion felt by the three friends toward each other.

2) I feel Ora's clutching obsession is the result of letting go of Ada when they were children. She is now obsessed with never letting go of the good things in her life. But her family has deteriorated and all she feels she has left is Ofer and Avram. I think she has dreams of rebuilding a family with Ofer and Avram but the messages she gets on Avram's answering machine from Neta acts as a wedge between her dreams and her fears of failure. She then reacts with hostility towards Avram even though she knows she is wrong to do it. She has become what Avram was at the beginning of the hike - Avram has become what she was.

3) Ora becomes obsessed with keeping things from changing. She wants stability in her life and the life of her family. Ilan and her two sons are rooted in the realities that she cannot and does not want to accept.

(Ofer has come home from a stint with his military unit - Adam walks in - and Ilan is there too. Ora is cooking.)

"Believe the soundtrack. This is the right tune : A pot bubbles, the fridg hums, a spoon clangs on a plate, the faucet flows, a stupid commercial on the radio, your voice and Ilan's voice, your children's chatter, their laughter - I never want this to end."

4) There is a lot of time spent by Grossman talking about documenting things. Avram is constantly writing when he is younger. Ora gets an overwhelming compulsion to document things as they hike. She later begs Avram to REMEMBER the things they talked about. In so doing they can memorialize Ofer and he will never die. Grossman mentions in a post script to the book that this is what he himself felt when his son was serving in the IDF ... that if he could just keep writing he could keep his son safe.

5) Ora compulsively rides the bus for no reason. She is possibly attempting to prove to herself that nothing can happen to her or her family.

Still trying to interpret the significance of the dog. I feel strongly that Grossman has placed this dog in the novel as a symbol for something but I cannot find an answer to this riddle. The dog is female which is suggestive. It could possibly be a symbol for Ora herself ... or is it meant to represent Ada?

The word "translucent" is used many times in the novel. Still trying to find the significance of that as well. I'm sure it is symbolic of something and not just a descriptive word.

[Fran]

OMG! DATo your are forensic in your analysis.
Can't disagree with anything you write but I would add under the theme of "The Inability To Communicate", Ora's feelings of being outside the world of the men in her life, all have completed military service and seems to have an ease of communication and an understanding which does not require words, from which she feels they are deliberately & somewhat cruely excluding her.
Not sure about the dog episode but it seems somewhat analogous to Ora's position vis a vie the very masculine world of the military.

What in your opinion is the significance of the professor Ora & Avram meet & the recovery of Ora's notebook from him?

Have to admit I did not note the prevelance of translucent

[DATo]

I think the man they meet on the hike was not intended by Grossman to be a character of note. He was important to the story more as a vehicle, or tool, to help us understand what Ora is going through at that time. In this regard his presence is very useful and important. This may be the most idiotic thing I have ever said on this forum, but as I was reading the first encounter between Ora and Avram with this man, without even being aware of it, I envisioned David Grossman himself in this role. Ora notes that he didn't look like a hiker at all - wasn't even dressed for the part. I got the impression that this man could have walked directly out of his study and began to hike. He could have even gotten up from his desk where he had been writing a novel before setting off on this hike. *Wink* We know of David Grossman's personal tragedy and the professor had lost his wife with whom he had planned to make this overland, walking excursion. Could it be possible that Grossman had planned a hike with his son?

I see this man serving to accentuate Ora's sense of loss. It was very suggestive of her longing to grab on to anything, much like a drowning woman, when she put her phone number in the sheets she returned to him. Or perhaps she viewed him as one more person she could tell about Ofer. The man's loss of his wife also served to point out that Ora was not alone in her suffering. Many people were suffering in different ways and were reaching out to others for help. I am reminded of the place Sammie took Ora with the sick child. There were so many refugees there. And I am still struck with the image of the woman who was a stranger nursing that poor, sick boy that Sammie had taken there for help.

[Fran]

@DATo
I think perhaps you have hit the nail on the head, by chance I just came across this Profile in the New Yorker, well done!
newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/27/1009 ... act_packer

The incident with the Palestinian child made me consider the lengths mothers go to for children, not just the woman prepared to nurse the child but Ora is also prepared to risk her own safety to help an ill child. I thought also the soldier at the checkpoint overlooking the child because he had on an Israeli t-shirt seemed to be suggesting that the differences between peoples are superficial & largely cosmetic if we could only get beyond outside appearances.

[DATo]

@DATo
I think perhaps you have hit the nail on the head, by chance I just came across this Profile in the New Yorker, well done!
newyorker.com/reporting/2010/09/27/1009 ... act_packer

The incident with the Palestinian child made me consider the lengths mothers go to for children, not just the woman prepared to nurse the child but Ora is also prepared to risk her own safety to help an ill child. I thought also the soldier at the checkpoint overlooking the child because he had on an Israeli t-shirt seemed to be suggesting that the differences between peoples are superficial & largely cosmetic if we could only get beyond outside appearances. :)

I'M FLABBERGASTED !!! It was just a hunch, I swear !!! *LOL* The picture of David Grossman in the New Yorker article is much the way I pictured the man Ora and Avram meet on the trail.

You've just touched on something very interesting too - the soldier at the checkpoint. We see Ora from two different perspectives. In one instance there is the discussion in which Ofer tells her that as a checkpoint guard he serves as a target in order to save innocent civilians beyond the checkpoint from becoming victims . At this point she is emotionally on the guard side of the fence. And in the example you gave above Ora is on the other side as the person BEING checked out by the guards. She experiences the fear of being discovered as well as the fear of Ofer being killed at a checkpoint.