Here’s the story: In Haifa, Israel, during the Yom Kippur War (1973), a husband and wife, Adam and Asya, have grown emotionally distant from each other. Adam, who owns a lucrative auto mechanic shop, has lost all sexual interest in his wife, an incisive history teacher. When a quirky younger man, Gabriel, brings his dying grandmother’s classic blue Morris to Adam’s shop for repairs and then can’t pay the bill, Adam hires him as a research assistant for Asya, hoping (accurately) that the relationship between Gabriel and Asya will become sexual.Gabriel then disappears after joining the military, and Adam begins a prolonged search for him with the help of a teenage employee, Na’im. While the search continues, Na’im lives with Gabriel’s grandmother, Veducha, and falls in love with Adam’s maverick daughter, Dafi.
 | |
| Haifa, Israel |
The Lover is wrought with psychological tension. Yehoshua humanizes the broader Arab-Israeli struggles by highlighting more intimate unsettling coexistences. For example:
- Adam is not especially educated, but he’s wealthy and extravagant; Asya is a serious academic, but she’s embarrassingly frugal.
- Young, restless, Arab Na’im lives with and cares for old, immobile, Jewish Veducha.
- Secular Gabriel camouflages himself in the Orthodox community.
The mismatches lead to identity disorientation: Straight-laced Asya has a powerful libido and wild dreams. Veducha fancies Na’im a substitute grandson. Na’im starts feeling Jewish. Even the spunky blue Morris morphs into a black, belabored workhorse.
 | |
| Yehoshua |
You may also begin to ask yourself, Is Gabriel necessarily “the lover”? The other relationships in the story - the youthful romance of Na’im and Dafi, an illicit event between Adam and a teenager, and the guarded tenderness between Veducha and Na’im - raise questions on the variations of “love.”
My apologies if I missed crucial elements. Like My Michael (which I reviewed in August 2011), The Lover is a Hebrew book, and I read an English translation. My understanding, therefore, is necessarily less than complete. While I’m not really qualified to comment on whether the translator (Philip Simpson) successfully captured the author’s original meaning and tone, I offer a small criticism, and this isn’t about Yehoshua specifically. All (three) Israeli books that I’ve read have been penetrative and poignant, but not one of them has been even peripherally lighthearted. They’re decidedly humorless, saturated in gloom. So, I ask those of you who are more familiar with Israeli literature, is this the cultural standard? Don’t any Israeli authors have a sense of humor? Help! Show me an Israeli book that’s smart and funny!
