An Egyptian Novel (Hebrew Literature) by Orly Castel-Bloom

An Egyptian Novel (Hebrew Literature) Reviews

• 
  Siv30

  סיפורה של משפחת קשתיאל שהומרה לנצרות ב 1492 , תקופת גירוש ספרד, וחלק מהמשפחה מצא עצמו במצריים. ממצריים הגיעו לקיבוץ השומר הצעיר במסגרת הגרעין המצרי ומשם התפזרו במרכז הארץ לאחר שנכשלו בהצבעה נכונה בתקופת המשפטים הצ'כים (שנות ה 50).
  
  הסיפור נע בין העבר להווה והפרקים מתארים את קורותיהן של דמויות רבות ומגוונות ובעיקר את משפחתם של וויואן, צ'רלי והאחות הגדולה.
  
  הסיפור מערב את המציאות במידה מספקת שהקורא ירגיש מחובר לאירועים שקרו אבל ברור שיש בו קמצוץ של אמת והמון בדיה.
  
  מאוד קשה להתמצא בכל הדמויות ובקורותיהן אם כי הפרק על המרת הדת בספרד של איזבלה, הוא הפרק הטוב והחזק ביותר בספר.
  
  בין לבין הדמויות מתחתנות, מתגרשות, חלק מהדמויות מתות חלק נולדות, דרמות ואירועים רודפים אחד את השני.
  
  מומלץ לקריאה. אם כי בסופה בשל עומס האירועים והדמויות אני לא זוכרת את הדמויות השונות בפירוט על קורותיהן ולא מצאתי קו עלילה אחד.
• 
  yoav

  סאגה קצרה או רומאן של סיפורים קצרים עם חוט דקיק שמקשר, אולי זו ביוגרפיה משפחתית שהיא בעצם אוטוביוגרפיה חופשית ומשוחררת על "הבת הגדולה" ומקומה בעולם. בלגן מאורגן מעין קולאז' חצי בדיוני, לעיתים מצחיק, מלא תובנות שמתגנבות בדרך אגב:
  
  "מוטב לכתוב על חפיסת סיגריות שהסיגריות גורמות לייאוש, ולא שהסיגריות גורמות למחלות ומוות. אנשים מפחדים יותר מייאוש מאשר ממוות. מוות כבר לא עושה להם את זה, וייאוש כן"
  
  זה הספר הראשון של הסופרת שאני קורא ואחותי שאלה אותי אם אהבתי ואחרי פאוזה אמרתי שכן, והיא אמרה: ככה זה עם אורלי קסטל בלום, תמיד צריך איזה פאוזה להחליט.
  ...
  [פאוזה]
  בהחלט נהניתי 4.5 כוכבים.
• 
  Weird

  Orly Castel-Bloom's DOLLY CITY is one of my very favourite books encountered this decade. Everybody who comments on it seems compelled to call it postmodern (shorthand for experimental, fanciful, non-realist, and kinda deliciously outré?) and I suppose it is ultimately hard to argue w/ that, but more than anything else it is probably my favourite novel about motherhood. AN EGYPTIAN NOVEL on the face of it would seem altogether more realist, and it is indeed stylistically very staid, but in its situation of identity around the construction of narrative and its insistence on the fragmentation of identity-narrative as fundamentally emblematic of the human condition, it is certainly a postmodern novel w/ poststructuralist resonances. Had Castel-Bloom not directed us in the very title of the book to approach the work as a novel, we may well have failed to do so. The interrelated (to one extent or another) chapters feels very much like autonomous pieces. By insisting that the work is a novel (a topos), Castel-Bloom is suggesting that any sense of wholeness much necessarily be open-ended, fragmented, and resistant to the fallacy of the 'master narrative.' If the form of the novel speaks to fragmentation, dislocation, and displacement, so too do the enmeshed lives and histories w/ which it grapples (history definitively being plural in this context). This is a novel in which the concerns of the Egyptian diaspora in Israel speak to the difficulty of finding fixity or harmony in this world. Perhaps this world is not our home. Perhaps our lives are protracted exodus (speaking explicitly to the Jewish context). Castel-Bloom cleverly depersonalizes the connected/disconnected web in which she is situated by writing herself into the novel in the third person. She is called "the Older Daughter," and this reader at least only gradually became aware of the fact of this fundamental correlation. If our identities are a matter of the narratives we establish to make ourselves intelligible to ourselves in the world, then those narratives must contain a great deal more indeed than just ourselves. Perhaps the novel's most remarkable sections are those that push the fragmentation and dislocation beyond the arena of basically contemporaneous family relations deeper into history (as in the chapter "Year of the Pig") or into adjacent environments (as in the final two brilliantly placed chapters). AN EGYPTIAN NOVEL is a work of quiet profundity. It will appeal to those who prefer genuine wisdom to pomp and flash. It is a very personal novel that is more about history in the most expansive sense than it is about any kind of self-reflection or direct personal reckoning (not that there is none of that woven into the fabric of the thing). Anyone w/ a halfway refined sensibility will be aware of the control Castel-Bloom has over what she has embarked upon to do and the grace w/ which she pulls it off. It is not dedicated to wowing you (DOLLY CITY kind of was), but it certainly wowed me nevertheless.
• 
  Tali Lerner

  לא מאוד נהניתי מצורת הסיפור הקטועה
• 
  David

  My review appears in
  New York Journal of Books.
• 
  Julia

  This was rather confusing, in part because of the title. Rather than a novel with a plot, it is a series of vignettes not in chronological order. I couldn't keep the characters straight because while some are named others are referred to as The Only Daughter, The Oldest Daughter and the Younger Daughter. The last two chapters didn't seem to be about any of the characters in the rest of the book.
  
  The main characters are Egyptian Jews who have migrated to Israel and lived on a kibbutz for several years before being expelled because of differing political views. In some episodes there is a reference to the "Egyptian garin but for the most part their Egyptian background doesn't seem relevant. As a North American, I couldn't see anything that would distinguish them culturally from Jews/Israelis of European background. The exception is the penultimate story, which is set in Egypt.
• 
  Rhonna

  Had very high hopes. My first foray into the author’s work, which I chose for an Israeli lit class that I teach. Have to spend some time letting it settle into my consciousness before passing final judgment, but initially I’m feeling disappointed. Style and structure both somewhat disjointed and jarring. Translation not amazing, from what I can discern. Awkward syntax, inconsistencies, etc. Thinking of re-reading in Hebrew as I have a feeling much of the acclaim must be related to the beauty of her prose, which doesn’t come through in translation. Themes are pretty morose but do give insight into the travails of the Egyptian-Jewish immigrant community and the dysfunction within the transported families.
• 
  Nicolas Legrand

  L'histoire romancé de la famille séfarade d'Orly Castel-Bloom en quinze tableaux non linéaires est un vrai bonheur. L'acidité de l'autrice et l'absurdité des exodes et expulsions de sa famille forment un mélange savoureux, plein de nostalgie pour l'Égypte et l'Espagne, d'amertume vis-à-vis du sionisme socialiste sans pour autant pouvoir vivre ailleurs qu'à Tel Aviv.
  
  Le roman est très bien servi par la traduction en français de Rosie Pinhas Delpuech, toujours très proche du texte et très fidèle.
  
  Plusieurs lien, dont ma critique sur Parutions.com sont disponibles sur mon blog :
  
  
  https://sipourimveshirim.wordpress.co...
• 
  Shahar

  3.45 - I enjoyed listening to it for most part. The ironic tune of the novel was noticeable in the audio readers voice' but on its last third it dropped to faults of many Israeli's novels of : life is meaningless and people are petty and meaningless and it lost me.
  The chapter about the 8th Castilian son was great and thus was the opening chapter and the one with the long hair.
  Its the second Israeli novel i read this year dealing with the Egyptian Jews migration to Israel in the in the 50s.
  Will be interesting to read more about that Aliya.
  Its the first Castel-bloom i read and with my misgivings ill still want to taste at least one of her other books.
  
• 
  Sandy Brusin

  Whenever I read a book in translation, I worry about what is lost in translation. I knew nothing about Egyptian Jews, how and why they came to be in Egypt, how and why they came to be in Israel, how they integrated themselves into Israeli society. This novel offered me their past and present story. After five trips to Israel, I am familiar with the streets, the neighborhoods, the cities Castel-Bloom alludes to in the novel, and her references to them made me feel considerable nostalgia.
• 
  Ava

  Echoing what everyone else has said, this hardly feels like anything more than a collection of vignettes that don’t add to each other in a particularly meaningful way. Also suffers from a very mediocre translation. My life would be no different if I had not read this book.
• 
  Rachel

  See my review at
  http://www.thereportergroup.org/Artic...
• 
  Rivkyk

  Very disjointed. Waiting to great what bookclub has to say.
• 
  Charlotte

  I've heard this is a really rich book in Hebrew full of humor and word play, but I think a lot of that was lost in this at-times-awkward translation. Castel-Bloom still does really interesting and experimental things here and there are beautiful moments, but I didn't get that much out of reading the translation.