The wizardry of Oz
What Makes an Apple? By Amos Oz with Shira Hadad
SADLY, THIS is my last book review for Gerald Jacobs, the long-time literary editor of the JC, who is retiring this month. During the 25 years I have written for Gerald, I have reviewed novels by more than 20 different Israeli writers, from Shmuel Agnon to Ayelet Gundar-Goshen, born almost exactly 100 years later.
One of the greatest of these Israeli writers was Amos Oz, who died in 2018. Oz was a prolific author and perhaps the most acclaimed Israeli writer of his generation. This book of conversations between Oz and Shira Hadad, an Israeli screenwriter and fiction editor, was first published in Hebrew just before Oz died and has now been translated by Jessica Cohen.
The book is made up of six short chapters, mostly about writing and Oz’s life. He talks about Israeli writers, revealing that those who matter most to him him are the “dinosaurs” — Agnon and the great writers born in the 1930s, especially Aharon Appelfeld and A. B. Yehoshua. The younger generation are barely mentioned.
When Oz is asked what motivates him as a writer he replies simply, “to save something from the claws of time and oblivion… that the desire for things not be erased.”
Having spent much of his life on Kibbutz Hulda, by the time of What Makes An Apple?, he is very critical of kibbutz life, particularly childcare:
“Today, I know that the children’s communal houses were a terrible place.” Perhaps his greatest regret is that he didn’t leave the kibbutz earlier. He wasn’t brave enough, he reflects. He says he should have trusted his instincts and protected his children from the Lord of the Flies life at the kibbutz.
Amos Oz’s early years were hard, not just his childhood — so brilliantly described in the magisterial A Tale of Love and Darkness (which he insisted should not be referred to as a “memoir”) — but also his early years as a writer, struggling to support his young family: “I worked at four jobs to make enough money.” He talks interestingly about his habits as a writer. He is a creature of routine, early to rise,
As a young writer, he worked at four jobs to make enough money
addicted to early morning walks at 5 am. “I’ve always lived the life of a spy,” he says. He overhears conversations, notes the kinds of shoes people wear; in restaurants, he looks and sees who is ordering what.
He recalls at some length the 15 years in the 1980s and ’90s when his books were attacked by critics. “It’s like watching your child getting beaten up,” he says. “That’s how it is with bad reviews.” The turningpoint came in 2002 with A Tale of Love and Darkness, with its deeply personal and historical recollections, which touched a chord with so many readers.
At the end, Hadad asks Oz whether he fears old age or death? “The fear doesn’t go away,” he tells her. But there are still things to be taken care of, and “the light is still so sweet to our eyes.” What Makes an Apple? confirms why we miss Oz so much. His qualities as a writer, of course, but also his decency, and wisdom.