The Same Sea

Rating:
Summary: deserves to be read more than once
Review: Accountant Albert Danon lives in the seaside town of Bat Yam, Israel. His wife, Nadia,dies of cancer. Their only son Rico, leaves Dita, his girl-friend in Israel, to travel through the mountains of Tibet and finds himself sleeping with Maria, a Portuguese woman. Meanwhile, Dita, who has been cheated of her money and left with no place to live, convinces Albert to let her stay with him.

Here's a poignant story of one family, each member or aquaintance trying as hard as possible to establish control of his life. That's not always as easy to achieve as it seems. The novel describes, in both in prose and poetry, how several people try to achieve that end. The novel slips so easily from prose into poetry and vice versa, that even readers who are not particularly interested in poetry may not mind this writing technique. Although it's a melancholy story, it's also an intriguing look at how several people relate to one another and how their goals at some times in their lives tend to either attract or repel others close to them. At one point, the author himself shows up as a character! That is really an interesting occurence and a situation not oftened encountered in most novels.

THE SAME SEA is not hard to read. However, because of the style in which it is written, it would lend itself to being read more than once. For sure, it deserves to be read at least a first time!

Rating:
Summary: beautiful - ezeh yofi
Review: An amazing book. Spare language sprinkled as if jewels across the pages. We know very little about the cast of characters and yet they feel like family by the time the story is finished. I will be reading this book again.

Rating:
Summary: A disappointment
Review: I am usually not mean-spirited to books I read. I always try to find something of value, but it is sometimes simply impossible. This is the case with "The Same Sea". I found it lacking in character development and plot, which leaves us only with language as the possible source of aesthetic achievement. I admit some of the poetic passages were beautiful in a subtle way, but that wasn't enough to win my attention. If Mr. Oz wanted to write a poem, he should have done so explicitly, without disguising it as a novel. The "plot" is simple yet unappealing: an old Israeli man loses his wife to death; his son becomes depressed and travels to Tibet, Bangladesh and other lands to meditate and overcome his grief. His girlfriend is cheated by a film producer, loses her money and moves in with Albert, his boyfriend's father. Then she sleeps with her botfriend's best friend. That's it.

I didn't find any of the characters interesting, whether good or bad. They just ruminate about their problems, but there's not really a plot or some interaction that becomes appealing, at least for this reader. I'm not a prude at all, but a story that centers on the sexual lust of an old widow for his son's girlfriend is not terribly interesting (maybe Nabokov could have made it so). She's kind of cruel walking around the house with a towel for all clothes, as well as giving him glimpses of young flesh. Naughty girl and dirty old man. The son's reflections on his travels weren't much illuminating either. He made me remember the main character in Somerset Maugham's "The Razor's Edge", but without the vitality and passion for knowledge that characterized him. All in all, a disappointment of a book.

Rating:
Summary: "The Purpose of Silence is Silence"
Review: The overriding tone of this strange book is so pessimistic and melancholy and yet I found the book so strangely beautiful and exotic. As melancholy as it is, I felt great comfort reading it. While the author seems sure that loneliness and aloneness are natural and inevitable states of being, he also seems comfortable with that solitude and the book doesn't show even the slightest trace of bitterness or defeat. On the contrary, I found it almost transcendent.

Outwardly, the book concerns itself with the very lonely life of Albert Danon, an Israeli tax accountant whose wife, Nadia has died from ovarian cancer. Albert does have a son, Rico, but rather than turn to his father for comfort, Rico sets off on a self-imposed exile to Tibet where his mother (Nadia), often speaks to him in dreams. In the meantime, Rico's girlfriend (or is she now an ex-girlfriend), Dita, moves in with Albert and sets about attempting to seduce him. Then there is Bettine, a widow close to Albert's age who is able to express genuine affection, especially for Albert, but finds no one willing to receive it, except for her grandchildren, perhaps.

All of the characters in this book are starving for affection and human interaction, yet none of them seem able to express it themselves or accept it from others. Their attempts are awkward, at best. Oz is telling us, in this book, that human communication, on all but the most superficial of levels, is very rare and is rarely, if ever, found. He seems to think that, hard as we try, it is simply impossible for one human being to know another at the very deepest level.

Why do we find it so difficult to let another human being know how much we love him or her? Why is it so hard to say, "I miss you?" Why do we enclose ourselves is a shroud of loneliness rather than reaching out to other lonely souls in need of comfort and love? The author's answer seems to be: because that is simply the nature of things. Oz seems to think it is far easier for us to sublimate our loneliness in intellectual or business pursuits than to interact with our fellow human beings...and I'm not sure he's not correct.

The sea is used as a metaphor for life in this book. Just as the sea in constantly in motion and flux, so is life. And, just as the sea carries in bits of flotsam and jetsam and then carries them out to sea again, so does life. Nothing is permanent; little or nothing remains behind of what went before.

The prose in this book is quite spare and pared down to the bone, though at times it can be quite lyrical (the book is a prose poem rather than a straight narrative). This book is impressionistic, meditative and reflective...not choppy. Oz's poetic ism often infuses the book with a richness many other authors lack and, at other times, the short and to-the-point sentences evoke the inherent emptiness in human existence.

THE SAME SEA is a book filled with biblical allusions that run the gamut of Ecclesiastes to Job to the Song or Solomon. I thought these biblical allusions only added to the richness and timelessness of the thoughts expressed in the book. It doesn't matter if you're Orthodox, agnostic or atheist...these allusions are simply beautiful and help to cement a connection from the present to the past. "All the rivers flow to the sea," yet even so, says Oz we cannot or will not connect with our fellow human beings.

Is there any optimism at all in this very melancholy book? Is there any hope that man will learn how to communicate and connect with others? A little. But only a little. Oz's vision remains, almost totally, pessimistic. We can make gestures, Oz says, but that is all they are...gestures...and at their most basic, gestures end up being as futile as not even trying.

Rating:
Summary: Top Fiction, true love for Israel
Review: There are writers who are great and write best selling books that never get close, close to there own work. I have never read a book so hard worked at by an author as this. Amos put all he had into this as if it were his last work. A person who can take a story from an accountant to such heartbreaking levels is evidense alone of a superior write. I don't know of any accountant or anyone who would be able to bring a reader to slight satisfaction over a number crunchers story. His wife dies, son flees to a foriegn country, son's girlfriend moves in with the father(remember he is the accountant).. You see, even I can't do it. The biblical Israel is profoundly painted, a cry for her future in blood chilling realism that brings deep concern to the reader. This book makes you live Israel, makes you live the story, if you want to be captured or taken away from anything molesting you, get into this book and escape. I for one know that reading it a second time will be as capturing. I have read another great adventure book about the future of Israel, from the beginnings, Moses, The Sword of Gideon, the prophets to Armageddon, must read especially in this new era of terrorism, SB 1 or God by Karl Mark Maddox

Rating:
Summary: deserves to be read more than once
Review: This book illustrates the way in which a gifted author can use words to paint a world filled with beautiful and haunting imagery. Although it was initially hard to keep the story line straight, it was worth the effort. The language hovers on the line between prose and poetry and each section can stand on its own or be read as part of the whole. I look forward to reading more from this author.

Rating:
Summary: a great writer a wonderful book
Review: This is Amos Oz at his best. In the "Same Sea" Oz continues to grow and explore the boundries of literature and of the human condition.
His ability to synthesize prose and poetry is superb. He is among the greatest contemporay authors. He defines the relationships between the characters to each other to themselves and to the universe with grace. Beyond that he introduces himself as both chronicler and character without hubris and with grace. This is a literary feat. Many have failed at it. The best book I've read this year.

Rating:
Summary: The fruit always falls near the tree and re-nourish him
Review: When we get tired of fight each other, we start trying to understand mutually and unexorablly search for peace. Life is a chain of simple-day-after-day actions, but finally we come to love, as Leonard Cohen said once "as refugees". It is useless to speak of many oceans or seas, cause in the end we all share the same sea. As Carl Sagan once said "we'll all will end sharing the same destiny, good or bad". This book comes to simple things of life, with simple but powerful truths. Amos Oz has a global and positive perspective and remember us that we have more in common, that what we belive. A great piece of stylistic literature, refreshing and motivational. "Life is very short and there is no time for fighting and fussing" (Lennon/Macartney): we share the same sea and if the sea level grows, we all will end paying the price.