Celia Gurevitch Jewish Community Library

I have to admit that I did not read all the books from beginning to end I write about in this blog. Most of the time I spend half an hour with getting familiar with it, by browsing it through, reading a few page here and there and checking reviews. This time however I did read Edeet Ravel‘s novel, “Ten thousand lovers” from cover to cover. I had an easy job, because it was fascinating on several levels.

I was surprised how well the author integrated explanations of origins and analysis of words from modern Israeli vocabulary into the novel. Not speaking Ivrit, but having been to Israel and having some knowledge of Hebrew this was most educational for me. On every tenth page or so Ravel devoted half a page or so to introducing a new word or a whole phrase. She explained the connection to Biblical Hebrew and how the contemporary meaning of the word came about. The connections, the logic behind the transformation of the meaning was fascinating and revealing.

I also enjoyed the frame of the novel, from where the protagonist flashed back to tell the main story. The framing narrative is set in today’s London, where the protagonist hosts her daughter, in her twenties, and her boyfriend, both dancers, for a visit. We mostly learn about the mother’s feelings and musing about their relationship as she think through how the daughter came to this world. But we also get acquainted a little bit with the daughter’s struggles.

All of the above serve as backdrop only in retelling the main line of events. Our heroine is a university student in the 1970′s Israel. She gets to know, fall in love and eventually bear the child of Ami, an intriguing man who works as an interrogator for the army. Herein originates the ethical dilemma. Ami was depicted as a decent man, who does not select his friends base don race or religion. He is also a man of high moral standards. For example in the course of his work he helps the prisoners to recover from previous abuses, never hurts them physically, his method of inquiry is simply to conduct a verbal conversation. But how can one do this kind of work and keep one’s sanity? The other question the novel works around is how she can accept him and his job as an integral part of his being. There is no simple answer for these questions; they are the problem the book returns again and again. That is why I liked this book. It did not take the easy way out of taking either side of the conflict. I rarely saw this kind of honesty. The book just described the human struggle of the people who live in the midst of this.

Here is an excerpt from Ami’s monolog, from page 241, that sheds light on part of his stance:

This idea that we’re the good guys, we’re the nice ones, beleaguered, long-suffering, misunderstood–it’s ingrained. We’re the ones who are advanced, bringing light wherever we go. Ad for a while there was at least something to hold on to, some good intentions, some sort of real struggle. And whatever didn’t fit into that view of ourselves, we ignored. We focused on the good things and we believed we were better than everyone else. Good guys surrounded by bad guys. Well, the occupation finally leaves us without a way out. It proves we’re exactly the same as everyone else. Capable of everything and anything.