Monday, September 25, 2006

Looking for Georgian Audio

I have finally found a copy in Georgian of Shota Rustavelli's famous Epic "A Knight in Panther's Skin" which is also refered to as "Vepkhistkaosani." I'd really like to hear it being read in the original Georgian but I haven't had any luck finding an audio source for it. If anyone out there knows where I might find one I'd love to know!

Monday, September 18, 2006

Israeli Non-Fiction Book Review: Amos Oz In Love and Darkness

Amos Oz has written an autobiography detailing his early childhood up until his mid teens. I liked the book but I wasn't skipping in the aisles over it like I have previous Oz books like "The Same Sea." Don't get me wrong Amos still has his frequent moments of brilliance. The passages about life during the British Mandate and the chaos that came along with the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948 are very personal and insightful. I also enjoyed hearing about the different writers who inspired Amos and bits and pieces about his own creative process.

Amos spends a lot of the book talking about his mother's and father's family histories from Poland and Lithuania. Some of the stories were amusing but I have to admit particularly on his mother's side they got a bit boring. I started feeling like I was listening to my grandmother recounting ever last detail of her childhood. It's interesting if you're related but kind of a bore and just an endless babble of names and places if you aren't.

Amos spends a graet deal of time analyzing the timeline of events prior to his mother's suicide. You truly do feel his pain over this traumatic event in his life. However from a purely literary point of view I found his perspectives on the historical events that he lived through to be more engaging for an audience.

It's not a bad book, it has its good moments sprinkled with a couple of great ones. But you have to understand that I am a huge Amos Oz fan and for me it just didn't hit that "I'm still thinking about what he said two weeks later" mark that I have grown to expect from an Oz book.