Volume 51, Number 20 · December 16, 2004
In Abraham's Vineyard
By Amos Elon
A Tale of Love and Darkness
by Amos Oz, translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange
Harcourt, 538 pp., $26.00
When Amos Oz's moving and frank autobiography—partly family saga, partly Bildungsroman, partly self-portrait—was first published in Israel two years ago, it was praised as his finest book so far. In a review in Haaretz, the novelist Batya Gur drew attention to the illustration on the cover of the Israeli edition: Pablo Picasso's 1903 painting, now at the National Gallery in Washington, entitled Tragedy. Three barefoot figures are seen stranded on a desolate, pale-blue beach: a gaunt man and woman with sagging heads and a small child. The man and the woman avoid facing each other, their arms are crossed in a gesture of loneliness and alienation. The child is lightly touching the man's thigh in what seems a desperate attempt to make contact.
Review, 3153 words
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