Feathers

by Haim Be'er

Book Overview

When first published in 1979, Haim Be'er's Feathers was a critical and commercial success, ushering in a period of great productivity and expansiveness in modern Hebrew literature. Now considered a classic in Israeli fiction the book is finally available to English readers worldwide. In this, his first novel, Be'er portrays the world of a deeply religious community in Jerusalem during the author's childhood and adolescence in the 1950s and 60s. The...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 158465371X
• ISBN13: 9781584653714
• Release Date: March 2004
• Publisher: Brandeis University Press
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.3" x 9.1"

Customer Reviews

The end of this story lies shrouded in death

Haim Be'er's Feathers is a unique novel, at turns frolicking and grim. Feathers plays with the entire notion of the Zionist enterprise in its utopian guise, but does so covertly, by taking on other, equally as unsuccessfully utopian schemes and gestures. Some of these are little known, like the Popper-Lynkeus dietary cult, while others need no introduction, such as Esperanto and Communism. All the while Be'er betrays his deep and convoluted knowledge of ultra-orthodox religious Judaism. The search for the biblical "true" blue dye and the actual willow used in the hadass, the myrtle tree at Sukkoth, take on an equally utopian flavor, as characters try to bring the ideal into the real with crushing results. All the while these actions are framed by the Yom Kippur War, Israel's most ego shattering conflict. For humans, there is probably no great source of disillusionment than trying to enact our dreams in the real world. Feathers is a case study in this exercise.