It is 1975 and Shaltiel Feigenberg has been abducted from his Brooklyn home, seemingly at random, by an Arab and an Italian and will be released when Israel releases 3 Palestinian prisoners. During his time in captivity, he tells himself and his captors stories, mostly from his own life: hidden in the home of a wealthy German nobleman during the war to serve as his chess opponent, a brother in love with Soviet communism emigrates to Moscow only to later escape, a wife, beloved in spite of Shaltiel's infidelities, for which he makes flimsy excuses to both her and the narrator.
The narrative of Shaltiel's abduction is faintly drawn, only barely visible amidst the constant fog of Shaltiel's memories. I found myself unable to care whether S. survived or not, although his many back stories were interesting. His captors, Luigi the Italian and Ahmed the Arab, play good cop, bad cop with him. The portrait of Ahmed is pure caricature; of course there are many fanatically religious and violent young Arab men, but Wiesel never allows us to see anything remotely distinct or individual about him.
The weak frame of this story was obviously constructed for hanging Wiesel's philosophical and historical thoughts. Nothing wrong with that, of course; I frankly just didn't understand quite a lot of the writing.
No comments:
Post a Comment