Review by Narcissa13 -- The Expelled by Mois Benarroch
Post by Narcissa13 » 17 Jan 2018, 22:54
[Following is a volunteer review of "The Expelled" by Mois Benarroch.]
For those of you who enjoyed the works of Franz Kafka, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Nikolai Gogol, The Expelled by Mois Benarroch would be a good choice for you. In his work of modern fiction Mr. Benarroch takes the reader through a wide range of psychological and mystic, if not somewhat supernatural, phenomena in a fast pace trip through the eyes of a writer at a creative crisis who encounters some rather unusual circumstances.
The story is set in Tel Aviv, and is told from a first person perspective. The narrator is a struggling author whose relationship with his wife is becoming increasingly strained and difficult. During the course of a bus ride he sees a woman who is a double of his wife, only ten years younger. Wondering if she is really the same woman (it seems impossible) he approaches her and discovers that she is the same person, yet she doesn’t know him. The narrator and his wife’s double start an affair, as it were, the dynamic between them mimicking that of that with his wife when they first met.
During one of their meetings he reads her a story he has written about a group of people on a bus ride that encounter a number of strange, inexplicable, and frequently stark and violent circumstances. He finishes reading the story, in and of itself a considerable section of the plot, and continues his relationship with his wife’s younger double until the situation resolves itself in a manner both predictable and unpredictable.
Within the basic framework of the story, using a writing style and tone similar to that of a personalized journal entry or a person talking or thinking to oneself, the author discusses a wide variety of controversial topics such as national and religious identity, societal perception of various religious groups, and sexual interest and frustration to name a few. Frequently he introduces these topics in the manner of a thought occurring almost at random to the narrator and subsequently relayed to the audience.
From my personal perspective I thought Mr. Benarroch’s use of the story-within-a-story technique to introduce a vast array of complicated topics was impressive. The story about ‘The Bus’, at least from my perspective was an ingenious way of portraying a range of complex phenomena such as the uncertainty of life in a region plagued by terrorism and the warped and somewhat negative way that human psychology can change and evolve in dangerous, uncertain situations. The author, again in first person perspective, presents a vast array of concepts in a relatively very small amount of text.
I would rate this story as a 3 out of 4 stars. I think it sits between a 2 and a 4 because while The Expelled is a very complex story rather cunningly written to use a small novel-sized book to touch base on a vast number of very difficult to address topics, it can at times be difficult to track the exact interactions between characters and concepts at a few points. The feature just mentioned is very probably a literary technique intended to create a feeling of uncertainty and of being off-balance in the reader, which is actually what I perceive the author’s aim was by writing it this way. However for readers less accustomed to unusual phenomena such as walls appearing and disappearing and transitioning quickly from event to event without much time or space involved, the book might seem disconcerting and might leave some readers behind.
If you enjoy some mysticism and a sense of suspended reality then The Expelled by Mois Benarroch will be a good trip into the less certain aspects of the world.
******
The Expelled
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
For those of you who enjoyed the works of Franz Kafka, Mikhail Bulgakov, and Nikolai Gogol, The Expelled by Mois Benarroch would be a good choice for you. In his work of modern fiction Mr. Benarroch takes the reader through a wide range of psychological and mystic, if not somewhat supernatural, phenomena in a fast pace trip through the eyes of a writer at a creative crisis who encounters some rather unusual circumstances.
The story is set in Tel Aviv, and is told from a first person perspective. The narrator is a struggling author whose relationship with his wife is becoming increasingly strained and difficult. During the course of a bus ride he sees a woman who is a double of his wife, only ten years younger. Wondering if she is really the same woman (it seems impossible) he approaches her and discovers that she is the same person, yet she doesn’t know him. The narrator and his wife’s double start an affair, as it were, the dynamic between them mimicking that of that with his wife when they first met.
During one of their meetings he reads her a story he has written about a group of people on a bus ride that encounter a number of strange, inexplicable, and frequently stark and violent circumstances. He finishes reading the story, in and of itself a considerable section of the plot, and continues his relationship with his wife’s younger double until the situation resolves itself in a manner both predictable and unpredictable.
Within the basic framework of the story, using a writing style and tone similar to that of a personalized journal entry or a person talking or thinking to oneself, the author discusses a wide variety of controversial topics such as national and religious identity, societal perception of various religious groups, and sexual interest and frustration to name a few. Frequently he introduces these topics in the manner of a thought occurring almost at random to the narrator and subsequently relayed to the audience.
From my personal perspective I thought Mr. Benarroch’s use of the story-within-a-story technique to introduce a vast array of complicated topics was impressive. The story about ‘The Bus’, at least from my perspective was an ingenious way of portraying a range of complex phenomena such as the uncertainty of life in a region plagued by terrorism and the warped and somewhat negative way that human psychology can change and evolve in dangerous, uncertain situations. The author, again in first person perspective, presents a vast array of concepts in a relatively very small amount of text.
I would rate this story as a 3 out of 4 stars. I think it sits between a 2 and a 4 because while The Expelled is a very complex story rather cunningly written to use a small novel-sized book to touch base on a vast number of very difficult to address topics, it can at times be difficult to track the exact interactions between characters and concepts at a few points. The feature just mentioned is very probably a literary technique intended to create a feeling of uncertainty and of being off-balance in the reader, which is actually what I perceive the author’s aim was by writing it this way. However for readers less accustomed to unusual phenomena such as walls appearing and disappearing and transitioning quickly from event to event without much time or space involved, the book might seem disconcerting and might leave some readers behind.
If you enjoy some mysticism and a sense of suspended reality then The Expelled by Mois Benarroch will be a good trip into the less certain aspects of the world.
******
The Expelled
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Read THE EXPELLED/ EL EXPULSADO IN
English getbook.at/theExpelled
FRANCAIS getbook.at/lExpulse
Italiano getbook.at/lEspulso
español getbook.at/elExpulsado
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