Double Book Feature: “The Guests” and “Back from the Valley of Rephaim”

**Note: I am so behind with my book-posts that I’m resorting to a double feature!

** Another Note: I read both books in Hebrew. Books by both authors have already been translated into English so you may find these in the future as well.

Photo by Gil Epshtein

For me, both of these books are connected to language, words, books and how they are written.  Things I happen to be interested in…

In “The Guests” by Ofir Touche Gafla, the author takes a well-worn idiom literally (extremely literally!) and builds a whole unsettling new global reality with it. Everything is very realistic, “not sci-fi like” except that the people in the world, as we know it today, have to deal with the events of one highly unusual week and its aftermath.

Please concentrate a moment on the idiom ” Before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes”. Now imagine that every adult in the world wakes up one morning to find a pair of his /her dream shoes, exactly the right size, and color, just begging to be tried on. That act causes people to become someone else for a week. Not just “any” someone else, but the person they hate the most…

Can you really imagine all of the ramifications of such an event? I think not. Don’t worry, Gafla has done the imagining for you. The book is an intriguing read, even though I believe that the book could have been a bit shorter.

Epstein Family Photos

In “Back from the Valley of Rephaim”, the author Haim Be’er captures our interest right away by presenting us with an intriguing situation, raising a host of questions.  A highly successful (fictional) writer, from an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish background, passes away and is buried in a Christian cemetery in the German Quarter of Jerusalem.

A young filmmaker and his friend from the radio peel back the layers of the surprising mysteries surrounding the writer’s life, death, and work, with the help of many colorful figures whose lives intersected with the that of the writer. It’s also a tale of different time periods and places. I really don’t want to give you any examples, that would be a real spoiler here.

The use of language in this book was delightful – such a rich use of expressions, idioms, and surprising metaphors! I admit I had to look up a few unfamiliar ones! Frankly, it seems a challenging book to translate – I sincerely hope someone will do it!

Enjoy!

 

 

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