We accompany Keret and his son on their trips to the neighbourhood playground. There, parents discuss whether they would let their children join the army later on. Keret is surprised to discover that his wife (the poet Shira Geffen) has already decided that she doesn’t want their son to join the army. “So what you’re saying is that you’d rather have other people’s children go into the army?” Keret asks hotly. “No,” she replies, “I’m saying that we could have reached a peaceful solution a long time ago, and we still can. And that our leaders allow themselves not to do that because they know that most people are like you: they don’t hesitate to put their children’s lives into the government’s irresponsible hands.” In interviews Keret has said that Israelis boycott him as a traitor, while foreigners boycott him as an Israeli.
The members of Keret’s family provide an astonishing range of insights into Israeli society. Keret’s ultra-Orthodox sister has 11 children, and lived in a settlement at one point. His peacenik brother used to work in high-tech and now campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis from his new home in Thailand.
His parents were Holocaust survivors. Keret’s father hid in a hole in a Polish town for almost 600 days. He is a warmhearted businessman who discusses the treatment options to his terminal illness as if they are a new business opportunity. Some of the book’s most glowing stories are based on the memories he leaves behind. This includes the story “Love at First Whisky”, on how he met his future wife while being arrested for drunkenly peeing against the wall of the French embassy in Tel Aviv.
At a book fair in Sicily Keret begins to understand the context of the bedtime stories his father used to tell him. The heroes of these stories were always drunks and prostitutes, says Keret, “and as a child, I loved them very much. I didn’t know what a drunk or a prostitute was, but I did recognise magic.”
His father’s stories were full of magic and compassion, and they were based on the time he lived on the Sicilian coast from 1946-48 in lodgings provided by the local Mafia. As he walks through the streets Keret imagines this time in his father’s life and comes to a realisation: “Compared with the horrors and cruelty he witnessed during the war, it’s easy to imagine how his new acquaintances from the underworld must have appeared to him: happy, even compassionate.”
In this universe of absurd tales and harsh realities, we find the most extraordinarily life-affirming views. Keret’s stories are deeply moving and powerful, full of wit in the face of tragedy. For all their depth, they are no longer than about four pages each. It’s possible to read them on a short commute across one zone in London or a few stops on the subway in New York, and you’re bound to leave the carriage with a slightly different view of the world.
Kafka said a book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us. Keret’s stories certainly break that ice.
The members of Keret’s family provide an astonishing range of insights into Israeli society. Keret’s ultra-Orthodox sister has 11 children, and lived in a settlement at one point. His peacenik brother used to work in high-tech and now campaigns for the legalisation of cannabis from his new home in Thailand.
His parents were Holocaust survivors. Keret’s father hid in a hole in a Polish town for almost 600 days. He is a warmhearted businessman who discusses the treatment options to his terminal illness as if they are a new business opportunity. Some of the book’s most glowing stories are based on the memories he leaves behind. This includes the story “Love at First Whisky”, on how he met his future wife while being arrested for drunkenly peeing against the wall of the French embassy in Tel Aviv.
At a book fair in Sicily Keret begins to understand the context of the bedtime stories his father used to tell him. The heroes of these stories were always drunks and prostitutes, says Keret, “and as a child, I loved them very much. I didn’t know what a drunk or a prostitute was, but I did recognise magic.”
His father’s stories were full of magic and compassion, and they were based on the time he lived on the Sicilian coast from 1946-48 in lodgings provided by the local Mafia. As he walks through the streets Keret imagines this time in his father’s life and comes to a realisation: “Compared with the horrors and cruelty he witnessed during the war, it’s easy to imagine how his new acquaintances from the underworld must have appeared to him: happy, even compassionate.”
In this universe of absurd tales and harsh realities, we find the most extraordinarily life-affirming views. Keret’s stories are deeply moving and powerful, full of wit in the face of tragedy. For all their depth, they are no longer than about four pages each. It’s possible to read them on a short commute across one zone in London or a few stops on the subway in New York, and you’re bound to leave the carriage with a slightly different view of the world.
Kafka said a book must be an axe for the frozen sea within us. Keret’s stories certainly break that ice.
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