An excellent review of The Retrospective published in The Independent by Donald Macintyre:
"Halfway through A.B. Yehoshua's novel, Yair Moses, an ageing but distinguished Israeli film director who is in Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his early work, decides ,on a whim, to ask a friendly Dominican monk if he can make his confession in the city's cathedral. Everything about the confession is strange. It is made in Moses's native Hebrew which the scholarly monk, Manuel, knows well. And the director tells him that: "I don't need absolution that does not follow an act of atonement – which no one can perform in my place."
This remark, incidentally juxtaposing Jewish against Christian doctrine, goes to the core of Moses's predicament. Accompanying him is Ruth, long his leading actress, with whom he has an ambiguous relationship. In their shared hotel room hangs a reproduction of a 17th-century painting, Caritas Romana, depicting an old man suckling at the proffered breast of a young woman. Which is odd, because during the shooting of one of Moses's films years ago, Ruth's refusal to take part in an almost identical scene, and Moses's acceptance of her refusal, had enraged the film's screenwriter Trigano, Moses's collaborator and Ruth's lover. Feeling his artistic integrity violated, Trigano ended relations with both.
Moses is preoccupied by this unfinished business and thinks that confessing it all before he returns home "might restore his soul". Once back, he seeks out the deeply hostile Trigano, because he wants him to persuade Ruth, who may be seriously ill, to take blood tests. Trigano demands in return from Moses an exacting act of, yes, atonement, which provides The Retrospective's satisfying denouement.
In a translator's note, Stuart Schoffman explains the double meaning of the book's Hebrew title, Hesed Sefaradi. "Hesed" denotes "compassion, kindness, love and charity" while "Sefaradi" means "Spanish", as well as referring to the descendants of Jews expelled from Spain in 1492, and "more broadly", those from Arab countries. Moses, a Jew visiting the land of the Inquisition, brings Ruth, a child of Israeli immigrants from North Africa. "Sephardic", in all its meanings, haunts the book. But it is also a compelling meditation on art, memory, love, guilt. A hugely pleasurable read, it shows that in his seventies, A.B. Yehoshua is still producing some of his best work.
The BBC have recently conducted an interview with A.B. Yehoshua about his new novel The Retrospective that you can watch at the link below.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01qzcmg/HARDtalk_AB_Yehoshua_Author/
Don’t forget that you can purchase ‘The Retrospective’ on the Halban Publishers website: http://www.halbanpublishers.com/showBook.php?file=retrospective.xml&sortby=date.
For more updates on A B Yehoshua and ‘The Retrospective’, like Halban Publishers on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @HalbanPublisher.
Charlotte - Halban Publish
The Jewish Chronicle's review of A. B. Yehoshua and 'The Retrospective'
David Herman from The Jewish Chronicle online has written an intellectually stimulating review reflecting on his interview with A B Yehoshua at London's Jewish Book Week, and also about 'The Retrospective' and Yehoshua's works in general.
Herman analyses Yehoshua's role as the voice of Israel and comments how 'It is hard to imagine a writer more rooted in his homeland'. Herman also examines Yehoshua's influences, his biography and his own Jewish identity.
You can purchase 'The Retrospective' on the Halban Publishers website here:http://www.halbanpublishers.com/showBook.php?file=retrospective.xml&sortby=date.
For more updates on Yehoshua and 'The Retrospective' like us on Facebook or follow us @HalbanPublisher.
Charlotte - Halban Publishers
A B Yehoshua — the writer still shaping Israel’s identity
Part of the pioneering post-1948 generation, the veteran author remains an important influence among Israelis
ByDavid Herman, February 28, 2013
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A B Yehoshua has been one of Israel’s leading writers for more than half a century, since he and Amoz Oz and Aharon Appelfeld met as young students in Jerusalem in the 1950s. His recent novels have a wonderful restraint, an increasingly elegiac feel. But in person, Yehoshua is full of energy and passion, the words pour forth in fluent English.
He was born in Jerusalem in 1936, to a fifth generation Israeli family. “That is very important for me,” he says, banging the table in the room in the London hotel where we meet. My tape recorder bounces up and down. Why is it important?
“Because it was before Zionism.”
His father’s family came from Salonica in the mid-19th century. “Not because of pogrom, not because of antisemitism. Because of next year in Jerusalem,” he says.
His mother was Moroccan. She came with her father in 1932. He died four years later, the year his grandson, Abraham, was born. “In my DNA, the Zionist gene is extremely strong,” Yehoshua says.
Unlike most of the great Israeli writers, Yehoshua is Sephardi. The others were Ashkenazi. Shmuel Agnon, a huge influence, born in Galicia; Benjamin Tammuz, Russian; Yehuda Amichai, German; Appelfeld, from Bukovina. Oz’s parents are from eastern Europe.
Yehoshua comes from a very different world. His roots are in the Mediterranean. It is surely no coincidence that he lived in Haifa for almost 50 years. He has only just moved to Tel Aviv, to be close to his children and grandchildren.
Was that difficult for him growing up in Israel as a Sephardi Jew? Did he feel like an outsider?
What mattered, he says, was the Israeli context, not an ethnic context, though he concedes that his Sephardi roots gave him “another point of view. I think about the Arabs not as enemies but as cousins. Even when we are in a fierce conflict with them they are more of a kind of family — with all the problems of a family. We have to live with them.”
He orders an espresso. It comes with biscuits. My tape recorder stops bouncing on the table. Then he is off again.
Crucially, Yehoshua was part of the generation that grew up after independence. Generation is a key word for him. He comes back to it again and again. “I believe in generations,” he says.
In a fascinating piece he wrote some years ago, he said he was part of the “generation of the State”. This generation was important in helping “consolidate and mould the Israeli identity”. They were very different from the previous generation, “the generation of the War of Independence”.
“The nucleus of their experience was the creation of the state: from the land of Israel to the state of Israel,” he says.
His generation — Appelfeld, Oz, the poet Moshe Dor — were all born in the 1930s and grew up after independence, emerging as writers in the late 1950s. He adds others to the group — Amichai and even David Grossman. But isn’t Grossman much younger?
“Grossman’s like a schoolboy who skipped a year,” he laughs.
“We are the generation,” Yehoshua wrote, “which internalised very clearly the transition from eretz Israel to Israel, and this had great significance, since through this we acquired a grasp of frontiers and the security that comes from understanding frontiers.”
But there was something else. Many of these writers studied Hebrew literature at the University of Jerusalem. “The sense of continuity and commitment to Hebrew literature of our generation has permitted a more integrated attitude to the Jewish past,” he says.
There was an international context too. “World War II was a trauma that paralysed writers. It was something metaphysical, diabolical. To deal with this demonic reality, writers like Beckett, Ionesco, Sartre, Camus, turned to the absurd, the symbolic. And we, in Israel, we did too — for Israeli reasons and for world reasons.”
This was when Kafka was discovered. Kafka is hugely important for Yehoshua and he comes up a number of times in his new novel, The Retrospective, the story of an Israeli film director, in his seventies, who comes to terms with his past.
Which other writers influenced him? He mentions Beckett, Agnon and particularly Faulkner. “Faulkner’s a giant, combining history, drama, specific attachment to a particular place.”
Yehoshua and his wife, a psychoanalyst, spent some years in Paris in the ’60s. It was important, he says, not that they went to France but that they did not go to America. “Israel is too attached to America, too influenced by America. It should be connected to Europe.”
He pauses. “America is based on mythology — the free man, the individual, the open frontier. Europe is more conscious of history. Take Britain and Shakespeare. You shape your identity through history.”
He had a run-in with American Jews a few years ago when he gave a speech saying that Israeli Jews are more authentically Jewish than Jews in the diaspora. This did not go down well. He is more conciliatory now.
“My Jewish identity,” he says, “is total. Your Jewish identity — in America, in Britain — is partial. I pay taxes to the Jews, I go to war for the Jews. All my decisions are Jewish. It’s not a question of who’s a good or a bad Jew.”
It is hard to imagine a writer more rooted in his homeland. And yet, curiously, The Retrospective starts at a film festival in Spain and another recent novel, Friendly Fire, moves between east Africa and Israel. Why this movement between Israel and abroad?
“Moving from one place to another is important to the tradition of Jewish literature. There is this capacity to have a different angle, a different place.”
It is the second time he has mentioned having “a different angle”, first as a Sephardi Jew, then as a Jewish writer. No one could be more passionately Jewish or Israeli. But no one is less provincial or insular.
Yehoshua has just come from Paris where his new novel has won two prestigious awards. He is in London to speak at Jewish Book Week. In his seventies, he is as busy as ever, much in demand.
His Book Week event is due to begin shortly after our interview, but there is time for one last question. How would you like to be remembered?
“As an honest writer,” he says.
The Retrospective is published by Halban Publishers at £9.99
The original article can be found here: http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-features/102912/a-b-yehoshua-%E2%80%94-writer-still-shaping-israel%E2%80%99s-identity
Sandee Brawarsky, a Jewish Book Week critic, has given a great review of A B Yehoshua's 'The Retrospective' that is definitely worth reading.
Brawarsky utilises Yehoshua's responses from interviews as well as further biographical information to contextualise the novel in relation to the author's life, beliefs and other literary accomplishments. She also explores how "the richly plotted 'The Retrospective' hinges on ideas about artistic integrity and moral commitment".
'The Retrospective' can be purchased here on the Halban Publishers's website: http://www.halbanpublishers.com/showBook.php?file=retrospective.xml&sortby=date.
You can also follow us on Twitter @HalbanPublisher and use the hash tags #TheRetrospective and #ABYehoshua to let us know your own opinions of the novel.
You can also like Halban Publishers on Facebook for more Yehoshua updates.
Charlotte - Halban Publishers
Yehoshua Takes On The Artist
His richly plotted ‘The Retrospective’ hinges on ideas about artistic integrity and moral commitment.
Sandee Brawarsky
Jewish Week Book Critic
Givatayim, Israel –‘The Retrospective” is a work of art inspired by another work of art, a novel with roots in a painting.
A few years ago, A. B. Yehoshua and his wife were visiting Santiago de Compostelo, Spain, and he saw a graying reproduction of a disturbing painting, with a prisoner feeding at the breast of young woman. He took a photo of the painting, something he rarely does, and then showed it to an expert. The painting is “Caritas Romana” or “Roman Charity,” based on an ancient Roman legend of Cimon, imprisoned and sentenced to die by starvation, and his daughter Pero. That scene has been portrayed in paintings, sculpture and drawings over the centuries, including works by Caravaggio, Rubens and Vermeer.
“My readers are eager to see some element of autobiography. If I take something from my life, I cut it into very small pieces,” he says, chopping up an imaginary block with his hand. He adds, “I am trying to understand myself through the writing.”
“The Retrospective” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), beautifully translated into English by Stuart Schoffman, was published in Hebrew as “Hesed Sefaradi.” A translator’s note explains that chesed “eludes precise translation” and connotes kindness, compassion and charity, and that Sefaradi refers both to Jews whose ancestors were expelled from Spain and to Jews from Arabic-speaking countries. Schoffman’s aside that “the double meaning helps the reader get the picture” hints at the many levels of meaning the reader is about to encounter in the richly plotted story.
Last year, Yehoshua, whose previous works include “The Lover,” “A Late Divorce,” “Mr. Mani” and “A Journey to the End of the Millennium,” was awarded the prestigious French “Prix Medicis” for the new novel. The Hebrew edition features the painting on the cover, although the American version does not.
A talk with the 76-year-old author about the novel becomes a wide-ranging conversation about art and Judaism, the nature of creativity, Israeli policies and politics, God, religion and peacemaking, all springing from the storyline. He’s open and generous and articulate.
Before meeting Yehoshua, I ask cab drivers, cousins, hotel clerks and other Hebrew speakers about him, and many have read him, some back in their school days. He’s part of the modern Hebrew canon, and is recognized by the café waiters, who seem pleased by his presence, although they make no fuss.
The Aleph (A) in his pen name is for Avraham, Bet (B) is for Buli, a nickname given to him by childhood friends. The winner of the Israel Prize, he grew up in Jerusalem, the son of a fifth-generation Jerusalem family originally from Salonika on his father’s side, and a Moroccan-born mother. His grandfather was a rabbi, and the family’s lifestyle was traditional. He served in the Israeli Army, studied literature and philosophy at Hebrew University and, until recently, taught at the University of Haifa. His books have been widely translated and published in more than 25 countries, with many adapted to film, theater and opera.
When asked about the emotional complexity that marks the characters in his novels, he says, “In this I got good training. I am married to a psychoanalyst — I have to understand that the world is not simple. You see the surface and have to dig again and again.”
In “Retrospective,” film director Yair Moses travels to Santiago, a pilgrimage city with grand plazas and cathedrals, at the invitation of the city’s Archive of Cinematic Arts, for a major retrospective of his early films. He later learns that the film institute is connected to the Catholic Church, and that its director is an ordained priest. His companion is Ruth, his longtime leading actress, who is also aging, and they are fine-tuned to each others’ needs. Moses is still full of ideas for new films; he sees images and tries to commit them to memory to recreate in the future.
Watching his old and ambitious avant-garde films, he doesn’t always remember the scenes. But they spark memories of earlier days and his late cinematographer Toledano and now-estranged screenwriter Trigano, and the surreal, absurdist visions they tried to express. The retrospective is full of surprises.
In their hotel room, he is struck by a painting and later finds out that it is “Roman Charity.” The painting reminds him of the dispute that ended his collaboration with his longtime screenwriter, who worked on these early films and had been Ruth’s lover. Returning to Israel, Moses seeks him out, with hopes of reconciliation and a different kind of collaboration. The screenwriter presents him a challenge, and the conclusion of the novel is daring, with a mix of Cervantes and “Don Quixote,” considered the first modern novel.
“For me, coming to ‘Don Quixote,’ this is my retrospective — going back to sources of the imagination,” Yehoshua says.
The descriptions of the films suggest some of Yehoshua’s earlier short stories, and he admits that two of them are directly based on “The Yatir Evening Express” and “The Last Commander,” while the others are imagined. If the novel might seem like a retrospective of Yehoshua’s own career and the shifts he has made, he’d rather talk about his own interest in the creative process.
He’s a writer who takes seriously the professions of his heroes, whether they are engineers, lawyers or garage owners. This is the first time he’s written about an artist. Here, he creates relationships between the director, cinematographer and screenwriter that show the dynamics between wild imagination, ideas and aesthetics. As a novelist, he performs all of these functions, directing, creating images and developing the storyline.
In fact, the dispute between the Ashkenazi director and Sephardi screenwriter is about art — the screenwriter sees a failure of imagination in the director. For the screenwriter, there are no boundaries in art, and no humiliation; art and meaning, even beauty, can be drawn even from the most terrible of sources. Theirs is really a conflict between artistic integrity and moral commitment, one of the book’s underlying themes.
Yehoshua believes that art has no borders. But, he says that creating art is “not for the sake of breaking borders, but to reach new understandings of life.”
The rift between the two men also reflects Israel’s societal break, between Jews of European background and those from Sephardic, or Oriental backgrounds, between religious and secular.
“My feeling is that without cooperation between these two elements, the identity of Israel is in trouble. We need not just an attempt at cooperation, but,” he says, weaving his fingers together in the air, “a mutual feeling of each other.
“I am a believer in reconciliation with the Arabs, with factions in society; I am eager to contribute to reconciliation,” says Yehoshua, who is known for his alignment with Israel’s left. “I believe in the concept of man’s ability to change.” He speaks of Zionism as a movement of optimism, based in the tenet that the future can be different from the past.
The conversation shifts to the recent elections and peacemaking with the Palestinians, which is highest on his national priorities. “I am optimistic,” he says, and looks forward to President Obama’s planned visit later this month. Some on the left, he says, look toward Obama as messiah, but he warns that Obama can’t do the job for the Israelis.
“In Israel, you have to be educated in democracy — it’s in the genes of Americans. You’re born from democracy. You know, ‘No taxation without representation.’” Frowning, he mentions the possibility of an apartheid state, without democracy, if all citizens are not treated equally. He chides American Jews to become more involved with the peace process.
“I am not a navi [prophet] and I am not a ben-navi [the son of a prophet],” Yehoshua says softly, before resuming his high-energy exchange.
He’s the author of a play recently produced at Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theater, “Can We Walk Together,” about David Ben-Gurion and Zev Jabotinsky and a series of meetings they held in London about their political differences in the 1930s. Yehoshua enjoys sharing the detail that Ben-Gurion once cooked an omelet for Jabotinsky. In 1959, while a student, Yehoshua met with Ben-Gurion — his father’s friend Yitzhak Navon was then Ben Gurion’s political secretary — when he was hired to do research for the prime minister about the Talmudic redactor, Rav Ashi.
While Yehoshua is secular, he’s very interested in questions of religion. He mentions the Hebrew writer S. Y. Agnon, who for his generation of novelists is like Tolstoy: the rare example of a writer able to bring art and religion together. While Yehoshua invented the film institute in Santiago that was affiliated with the Catholic Church, he admires the ways in which the Catholic Church embraces art in many forms, whether painting, sculpture, music or literature.“I am still waiting for the encounter between Judaism and art.”
A.B. Yehoshua will speak about “The Retrospective” at the 92nd Street Y on Thursday, March 14 at 8 p.m., in conversation with Dan Miron. Lexington Avenue at 92nd Street. Tickets from $24.; He will also speak on Friday, March 15, following Shabbat services at 6:30 p.m., at Congregation Rodeph Sholom, 7 W. 83rd St. Free for members and $25 for non-members (including dinner). Payment must be received by March 14. For information, contact [email protected], (646) 454-3029.
