Page 6 - Boca ViewPointe - October '20

Page 6, Viewpointe October 2020
Book Review

Infirmity And The Beauty Of companionship, each partner looking after the other in
their time of illness, having the back of the other in a
Living life-long marriage partnership.
Zvi is a retired highway engineer who enjoyed a
A.B. Yehushua. The Tunnel, trans. Stuart Schoffman. Boston: distinguished career as map maker and implementer of
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2020. roads in contemporary Israel. He has been involved in
J. Alison Rosenblitt. the beauty of living, e.e. cummings in planning and executing engineering feats on the northern
the great war. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2020. highways for military, as well as roads built for the general
“Of all our infirmities, the most savage is to despise our public. His decisions relate to engineering choices on
being.” Montaigne Independence Highway, bypassing rather than obliterating
“The beginning of wisdom is clemency and gentleness, hills and obstructions by encircling roundabouts, or even
which arise from greatness of soul and bearing of infirmity.” tunneling under the land to maintain security and to avoid
Isaac of Nineveh usurping Palestinian lands, or orthodox revered sites. He
“Sir, I am vexed/ Bear with my weakness. My old brain is is now facing the infirmity of old age, and specifically the
troubled. Be not disturbed with my infirmity.” Shakespeare’s e.e. cummings and the Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua are onset of dementia, his neurologist explains as atrophy in
Prospero, The Tempest outstanding writers, individualistic and with a bent for his frontal lobe. His illness manifests itself in a comical
whimsy and quirkiness represented in the works under tragical way, replicating purchase of foodstuffs like
By Dr. Ronald J. Meyers review. J. Alison Rosenblitt’s biographical study of the tomatoes, forgetting first names, as well as the last name
early life of e.e. cummings and A.B. Yehoshua’s The of a previous fling, picking up the wrong child rather
To be sure, one Tunnel finally share an interest in the role of infirmity than his grandson at daycare, even misremembering his
abidingly wishes for good in our destinies. street address and the code to start the ignition on his
health and mindset on the The Tunnel is Yehoshua’s twelfth novel in a notable Japanese car. His loyal wife and helpmate coaxes him
long or short journey of career in which in my view, he has inherited the mantle to undertake his last hurrah with the son of his former
our lives. Yet suffering of great storyteller from Nobel Prize winning author S.Y. colleague, coming up with a plan at the Ramon Crater,
is part and parcel of the Agnon, combining realism with acute biblical allusion, huge archaeological remnant that had (two hundred
human condition. As far as distinct allegory, and obscurantist symbolism. Yehoshua million years ago) existed as an ocean in the Negev.
its influence on creativity, has always dealt with the domestic side of life in the But the resolution of the mission has everything to do
the jury is mixed. The late context of courtship, sexual passion, the breakdown of with the personalities of the protagonists, both Palestinian
great author Gabriel Garcia marriage, and divorce. In this novel, on the contrary, and Israeli. Yehoshua, who has long been involved as a
Márquez noted: “You write better in good health. You he shows a tender representation of marriage between political activist, at one time arguing for the two state
write better without preoccupations. You write better 74 year old Zvi Luria and his wife of 48 years, Dina; solution, but in recent years, for a single state of Jews
when you have love in your life. There is the romantic in fact, dedicated to Yehoshua’s wife who died while
idea that suffering and adversity are very good, very he was composing the work. It celebrates the power of Book Review on page 8
useful for the writer. I don’t agree at all.” What of the
romantic suffering of Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Van
Gogh, Emily Dickinson and countless others? (To be Boca Pointe Community Association, Inc.
sure, Márquez composed one masterpiece One Hundred
Years of Solitude during trying, youthful struggles with 6909 SW 18th St., Suite A120 A special Thank You to our monthly volunteer contributing writers
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Love in the Age of Cholera at his peak, while enjoying Email: info@bocapointe.com Steve Handwerker Harold Katz Frank Weinstock
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prestige, wealth, and acknowledgement). Website: www.bocapointe.com Mort Mazor Jack Kulick Justin Mocha
The two authors whom I have chosen to review Access Control Judith Levy Elaine Rubinson Barry J. Haberman
happen to be favorites of mine. Both the American poet Operator: (561) 395-3392 Dr. Ronald J. Meyers Anne Gannon Peter Sachs
Voice mail system: (561) 395-3369 Lisa Sileo Elyse Weintraub Brown Steven L. Abrams
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