I’ve been reading To The End Of The Land by David Grossman since like the middle of November. It is not a particularly long book, something under 500 pages I think, but it moves rather slowly. Starts out in sort of a magical realism place which I tend to have a hard time with because I think I don’t understand it and it’s only later that I realize I wasn’t supposed to understand it. I did not put it down because I am not a quitter.
Which paid off sort of because what this is is a pretty heavy duty character study of some pretty heavy duty characters. They are Israeli and from the sound of the book it’s pretty much impossible not be heavy duty if you are Israeli, whether or not you want to be. There is the everybody goes into the army, for instance. That causes problems for kids and their parents, not the least of which is the possibility of going to war.
Which happens kind of on a regular basis in that part of the world, and one of the characters wound up in an Egyptian prison at one point. It sounds pretty horrific, but I should point out that it sounds like what a country might do during a time of war and the author (who is Israeli) doesn’t seem to paint the Egyptians as any more horrific during a time of war that most people. Which is still pretty bad.
At one point, in the midst of some “extraordinary measures” at the hands of his captors, this character sees a piece of newspaper that reports that Israel no longer exists. He realizes that it is propaganda meant to make him spill the beans, but still it’s hard. Israel is a place that has been willed into being. Israelis kind of have to believe in its existence for it to exist. It is, in that sense, perhaps unique in the world.
The state of belief is the thing which is real. It is where we live. When Jesus first got followers, he asked them what they wanted. They wanted to know where he lived. Even then, I think, it was a loaded question. Do you believe enough in God’s promise to live in the Promised Land? Jesus’ answer: come see for yourself. I am really doing this thing. I believe it so that you can believe it. Whether or not the Egyptians buy it is a different story.