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| David Grossman: ‘You have to act against the gravity of grief – to decide you won’t fall’ | |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| David Grossman makes an unlikely standup comedian. Aged 62, he is slim and slight, fair-skinned and ginger-haired. Gentle, compassionate curiosity radiates out from behind his spectacles. You fear he would be eaten alive at an open-mic night. His trade is deep empathy and the closeup observation of frailty. He is a writer so sensitive, picking up every wave of heartache or joy, that the broad, robust demands of a spotlit stage at a comedy club would, you suspect, be hard to endure. | David Grossman makes an unlikely standup comedian. Aged 62, he is slim and slight, fair-skinned and ginger-haired. Gentle, compassionate curiosity radiates out from behind his spectacles. You fear he would be eaten alive at an open-mic night. His trade is deep empathy and the closeup observation of frailty. He is a writer so sensitive, picking up every wave of heartache or joy, that the broad, robust demands of a spotlit stage at a comedy club would, you suspect, be hard to endure. |
| And yet in Grossman’s newest novel, he brilliantly channels the voice of a battered, bruised, half-crazed veteran comic as he performs a set in a nothing venue in a second-tier Israeli city. We get the entire two hour show, the voice of Dovaleh G commanding the novel, save for the observations of the narrator, a childhood friend, whom the comedian has begged to see this performance – which, it seems, might be his last. | And yet in Grossman’s newest novel, he brilliantly channels the voice of a battered, bruised, half-crazed veteran comic as he performs a set in a nothing venue in a second-tier Israeli city. We get the entire two hour show, the voice of Dovaleh G commanding the novel, save for the observations of the narrator, a childhood friend, whom the comedian has begged to see this performance – which, it seems, might be his last. |
| Inevitably, then, A Horse Walks into a Bar is packed with jokes. A sweet example. A snail walks into a police station and says to the desk sergeant, “Two turtles attacked me!” The desk sergeant opens up a file and says, “Describe exactly what happened.” The snail says, “I don’t really remember, it all happened so fast.” | Inevitably, then, A Horse Walks into a Bar is packed with jokes. A sweet example. A snail walks into a police station and says to the desk sergeant, “Two turtles attacked me!” The desk sergeant opens up a file and says, “Describe exactly what happened.” The snail says, “I don’t really remember, it all happened so fast.” |
| Before writing the book, Grossman reckons he knew about two or three jokes, tops. As he points out, a person who knows jokes and a person with a sense of humour are not the same thing. But once he had dreamed up a comedian protagonist, he started hearing them everywhere. “I was amazed how often people are telling jokes,” he tells me when we meet for lunch in London. “Now, the whole idea of jokes, if you think about it, it’s a very strange idea. I would not stop you here on the street and start singing you an aria. But if I say, ‘A Jew, a Muslim, a Christian were on a plane. Suddenly the engine stopped’, you immediately know that I’m talking to you about a reality that is not our reality. I’m telling you about people you don’t know. And you feel very attentive because maybe at the end there will be the pleasure of laughter.” | Before writing the book, Grossman reckons he knew about two or three jokes, tops. As he points out, a person who knows jokes and a person with a sense of humour are not the same thing. But once he had dreamed up a comedian protagonist, he started hearing them everywhere. “I was amazed how often people are telling jokes,” he tells me when we meet for lunch in London. “Now, the whole idea of jokes, if you think about it, it’s a very strange idea. I would not stop you here on the street and start singing you an aria. But if I say, ‘A Jew, a Muslim, a Christian were on a plane. Suddenly the engine stopped’, you immediately know that I’m talking to you about a reality that is not our reality. I’m telling you about people you don’t know. And you feel very attentive because maybe at the end there will be the pleasure of laughter.” |
| The book serves up several crowdpleasers, including one joke which Grossman insists is entirely his own creation – he won’t say which – but the novel is as much tragedy as comedy. What we, like the audience at the gig, witness is the apparent breakdown of Dovaleh, as he tells fewer and fewer gags – yielding them reluctantly, as the price he has to pay to keep the punters in their seats – and steadily reveals the terrible grief, and guilt, he has carried with him since childhood. The comedian is scarred by a decision from his past, an ultimate choice that no child should ever have to make. | The book serves up several crowdpleasers, including one joke which Grossman insists is entirely his own creation – he won’t say which – but the novel is as much tragedy as comedy. What we, like the audience at the gig, witness is the apparent breakdown of Dovaleh, as he tells fewer and fewer gags – yielding them reluctantly, as the price he has to pay to keep the punters in their seats – and steadily reveals the terrible grief, and guilt, he has carried with him since childhood. The comedian is scarred by a decision from his past, an ultimate choice that no child should ever have to make. |
| These days it’s hard to read Grossman without thinking of his own heartbreak. Ten years ago, in the final hours of what Israelis call the second Lebanon war – and just two days after he had joined his fellow Israeli literary titans, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, in calling for an immediate ceasefire – Grossman heard that his son, Uri, a staff sergeant serving in a tank unit, had been killed in action. Uri was 20. | These days it’s hard to read Grossman without thinking of his own heartbreak. Ten years ago, in the final hours of what Israelis call the second Lebanon war – and just two days after he had joined his fellow Israeli literary titans, Amos Oz and AB Yehoshua, in calling for an immediate ceasefire – Grossman heard that his son, Uri, a staff sergeant serving in a tank unit, had been killed in action. Uri was 20. |
| It’s clear that Grossman’s protagonist, Dovaleh, has cracked under the weight of the grief he has borne his whole life. What about Grossman? How does he bear the weight of his own loss? | It’s clear that Grossman’s protagonist, Dovaleh, has cracked under the weight of the grief he has borne his whole life. What about Grossman? How does he bear the weight of his own loss? |
| “There is life and there is joy and there is our granddaughters and friends and writing books. There are many things,” he says, his voice quiet. “Yet in order to do almost anything, you have to act against the gravity of grief. It is heavy, it pulls you down, and you have to make a deliberate effort to overcome it. You have to decide that you won’t fall. In the [last novel] I wrote, Falling Out of Time, this idea of falling, all the time – the temptation to fall is very strong.” | “There is life and there is joy and there is our granddaughters and friends and writing books. There are many things,” he says, his voice quiet. “Yet in order to do almost anything, you have to act against the gravity of grief. It is heavy, it pulls you down, and you have to make a deliberate effort to overcome it. You have to decide that you won’t fall. In the [last novel] I wrote, Falling Out of Time, this idea of falling, all the time – the temptation to fall is very strong.” |
| He says that it required a conscious decision on his part not to immerse himself in grief. He had to decide “how much to insist on life”. And there were other, related decisions. “How much do you need to forget in order to continue your everyday life ... how much can you forget without killing, and how much can you remember without dying from it? I think we found this line, my family and I.” | He says that it required a conscious decision on his part not to immerse himself in grief. He had to decide “how much to insist on life”. And there were other, related decisions. “How much do you need to forget in order to continue your everyday life ... how much can you forget without killing, and how much can you remember without dying from it? I think we found this line, my family and I.” |
| He refers to his family often. His marriage is strong, his relationship with his surviving son and daughter close. He tells me that Israelis always say, with sadness, that their children are merely “lent to us”, granted to parents for the 18 years from birth until they are conscripted. “Usually when a child is born, almost immediately parents calculate what year they will go to the army. Of course then you get closer to the army, and suddenly even the most pacifist boys start to practise and to jog and to develop muscles and to become more and more militaristic, and the parents start to be more forgiving of them, because there is this shadow hovering over their head. Really, when they come back from the army – if they come back from the army – they are different people.” That “if” lingers in the air. | He refers to his family often. His marriage is strong, his relationship with his surviving son and daughter close. He tells me that Israelis always say, with sadness, that their children are merely “lent to us”, granted to parents for the 18 years from birth until they are conscripted. “Usually when a child is born, almost immediately parents calculate what year they will go to the army. Of course then you get closer to the army, and suddenly even the most pacifist boys start to practise and to jog and to develop muscles and to become more and more militaristic, and the parents start to be more forgiving of them, because there is this shadow hovering over their head. Really, when they come back from the army – if they come back from the army – they are different people.” That “if” lingers in the air. |
| But Grossman brightens, talking of his grandchildren – and finding, like any good novelist, a new angle on an eternal subject. | But Grossman brightens, talking of his grandchildren – and finding, like any good novelist, a new angle on an eternal subject. |
| “Grandchildren are really something, a good invention. I thought of it, no other animal, no other creature has a relationship with his grandchildren.” Because they don’t live long enough? “No, even if they live long enough, do you think that a horse really knows whose grandchild is his or not? A leopard or a cat? I don’t believe they really know. We know. And this sequence is something very special because, well, it creates a feeling of identity.” | “Grandchildren are really something, a good invention. I thought of it, no other animal, no other creature has a relationship with his grandchildren.” Because they don’t live long enough? “No, even if they live long enough, do you think that a horse really knows whose grandchild is his or not? A leopard or a cat? I don’t believe they really know. We know. And this sequence is something very special because, well, it creates a feeling of identity.” |
| Grossman can talk at length about what he has learned from his grandchildren – he is fascinated by their acquisition of language – but there is no doubting that his chief consolation has come from writing. Even in the immediate aftermath of his son’s death, he was back at his desk. “Writing was the way to go back to life,” he says. “I wanted to write because writing was the only solid thing in my life ... This is me. I understand my life through writing.” All his first drafts are in pen: “I like the effort. I feel that I am carving.” | Grossman can talk at length about what he has learned from his grandchildren – he is fascinated by their acquisition of language – but there is no doubting that his chief consolation has come from writing. Even in the immediate aftermath of his son’s death, he was back at his desk. “Writing was the way to go back to life,” he says. “I wanted to write because writing was the only solid thing in my life ... This is me. I understand my life through writing.” All his first drafts are in pen: “I like the effort. I feel that I am carving.” |
| Like Oz, he straddles both fiction and non-fiction. Indeed, Grossman first won international attention with The Yellow Wind, his account of travelling the West Bank in early 1987, a series of dispatches that exposed the damage Israel’s grip on the territory was inflicting on both the occupied and the occupier – a book that looked like a prescient warning of the first Palestinian intifada when it erupted later that year. Since then, Grossman – like Oz or Yehoshua – will take to the newspaper opinion pages, at home or abroad, when events demand a cry of rage, protest or pain. And, like his fellow writers, he insists that that is the only place he voices his opinions. His novels are to be read as novels, he says, not political allegories. | Like Oz, he straddles both fiction and non-fiction. Indeed, Grossman first won international attention with The Yellow Wind, his account of travelling the West Bank in early 1987, a series of dispatches that exposed the damage Israel’s grip on the territory was inflicting on both the occupied and the occupier – a book that looked like a prescient warning of the first Palestinian intifada when it erupted later that year. Since then, Grossman – like Oz or Yehoshua – will take to the newspaper opinion pages, at home or abroad, when events demand a cry of rage, protest or pain. And, like his fellow writers, he insists that that is the only place he voices his opinions. His novels are to be read as novels, he says, not political allegories. |
| Yet it is the fate of all Israeli writers to have their work read as coded meditations on the state of their nation. A Horse Walks into a Bar invites just such a reading in one scene in particular. Dovaleh whips his audience into a transgressive frenzy, granting them permission to “Close your eyes for a minute and think about a world where you can do anything you feel like – anything!” He lets them fantasise about an unending occupation that no one calls an occupation, one that brings no hint of criticism, “no ulcerous editorials in the paper! ... You feel like putting a little Palestinian village under curfew for a week? Bam – curfew! ... you feel like seeing Arabs dance at the checkpoint? Bam! Just say the word and they dance, they sing, they undress.” | Yet it is the fate of all Israeli writers to have their work read as coded meditations on the state of their nation. A Horse Walks into a Bar invites just such a reading in one scene in particular. Dovaleh whips his audience into a transgressive frenzy, granting them permission to “Close your eyes for a minute and think about a world where you can do anything you feel like – anything!” He lets them fantasise about an unending occupation that no one calls an occupation, one that brings no hint of criticism, “no ulcerous editorials in the paper! ... You feel like putting a little Palestinian village under curfew for a week? Bam – curfew! ... you feel like seeing Arabs dance at the checkpoint? Bam! Just say the word and they dance, they sing, they undress.” |
| But just as the audience are joining in, clapping and cheering, Dovaleh flips things around, warning them that their fantasy has one drawback, that the fairy godmother is a “fickle bitch” and that “after we’ve had our fun and games for a while it’ll be us – surprise! - singing Biladi Biladi at their roadblocks! Oh yeah, the Palestinians, they’ll make us sing their anthems.” The audience begins to boo. | But just as the audience are joining in, clapping and cheering, Dovaleh flips things around, warning them that their fantasy has one drawback, that the fairy godmother is a “fickle bitch” and that “after we’ve had our fun and games for a while it’ll be us – surprise! - singing Biladi Biladi at their roadblocks! Oh yeah, the Palestinians, they’ll make us sing their anthems.” The audience begins to boo. |
| Benjamin Netanyahu knows how to stir the dangers that Israel faces | Benjamin Netanyahu knows how to stir the dangers that Israel faces |
| It seems Grossman is issuing another warning to his Israeli audience, advising them not only that the occupation cannot go on forever but also that history has a habit of reversing roles, that today’s perpetrator can sometimes become tomorrow’s victim, and that today’s victim could be tomorrow’s perpetrator. It emerges that the young Dovaleh was the victim of beatings and horrific bullying. Now on stage as an acerbic and aggressive adult, he is happy to turn viciously on any individual if the moment demands it. Is Grossman implicitly endorsing the view, advanced so often by Israel’s critics, that the Jewish story is one of the abused becoming the abuser? | It seems Grossman is issuing another warning to his Israeli audience, advising them not only that the occupation cannot go on forever but also that history has a habit of reversing roles, that today’s perpetrator can sometimes become tomorrow’s victim, and that today’s victim could be tomorrow’s perpetrator. It emerges that the young Dovaleh was the victim of beatings and horrific bullying. Now on stage as an acerbic and aggressive adult, he is happy to turn viciously on any individual if the moment demands it. Is Grossman implicitly endorsing the view, advanced so often by Israel’s critics, that the Jewish story is one of the abused becoming the abuser? |
| “I think for anyone who has suffered from violence, the option of violence is formulated in some form,” he says. “In a way, he has to act against even the temptation to go back to this place.” Why would Dovaleh want to repeat what had been such a traumatic experience? What could possibly be tempting about returning to that? “Maybe because there [in that place of violence] was home.” | “I think for anyone who has suffered from violence, the option of violence is formulated in some form,” he says. “In a way, he has to act against even the temptation to go back to this place.” Why would Dovaleh want to repeat what had been such a traumatic experience? What could possibly be tempting about returning to that? “Maybe because there [in that place of violence] was home.” |
| As for Israel and the Jewish experience, Grossman rejects as simplistic the cod psychology of oppressed turning into oppressor. The book raises the question in part because Dovaleh is the child of a Holocaust survivor, his mother broken by her experience in Nazi Europe. The impact of the Shoah on the second generation has been a preoccupation of Grossman’s, most famously in his breakout novel See Under: Love. (In our conversation, Grossman notes that younger Israeli writers barely touch on the Holocaust, while novelists of his era can rarely escape its shadow.) But, no, this is not the story of victim turned perpetrator. “It’s much more complicated than that,” he says. | As for Israel and the Jewish experience, Grossman rejects as simplistic the cod psychology of oppressed turning into oppressor. The book raises the question in part because Dovaleh is the child of a Holocaust survivor, his mother broken by her experience in Nazi Europe. The impact of the Shoah on the second generation has been a preoccupation of Grossman’s, most famously in his breakout novel See Under: Love. (In our conversation, Grossman notes that younger Israeli writers barely touch on the Holocaust, while novelists of his era can rarely escape its shadow.) But, no, this is not the story of victim turned perpetrator. “It’s much more complicated than that,” he says. |
| Nevertheless, Grossman does see a subtler parallel between his character, Dovaleh, and his country, Israel. Dovaleh’s tragedy is that he has strayed from, even betrayed, the person he was. Once a spirited, animated, generous child – “a good boy”, in the words of one witness – he has allowed the bitterness of guilt and shame to change him. As a performer, he has become acidic, cynical and cruel. In the course of the evening, he – and we – get a glimpse of the other life that might have been his. | Nevertheless, Grossman does see a subtler parallel between his character, Dovaleh, and his country, Israel. Dovaleh’s tragedy is that he has strayed from, even betrayed, the person he was. Once a spirited, animated, generous child – “a good boy”, in the words of one witness – he has allowed the bitterness of guilt and shame to change him. As a performer, he has become acidic, cynical and cruel. In the course of the evening, he – and we – get a glimpse of the other life that might have been his. |
| Grossman is not after anything wild, just the two-state solution that Israeli peaceniks have been advocating for decades | Grossman is not after anything wild, just the two-state solution that Israeli peaceniks have been advocating for decades |
| “There is some parallel to draw in the feeling that I have as an Israeli, that we in Israel, we live in parallel to the life we should have lived,” Grossman explains. The turning point was the 1967 war, when Israel gained the territories it has occupied ever since. He sees that as a kind of navigational error, when Israel strayed off course. “If or when it is corrected, then we should have a chance to go back, to live in a more harmonic way with the region we live in, to try to live a life that is not so darkened constantly with fear.” | “There is some parallel to draw in the feeling that I have as an Israeli, that we in Israel, we live in parallel to the life we should have lived,” Grossman explains. The turning point was the 1967 war, when Israel gained the territories it has occupied ever since. He sees that as a kind of navigational error, when Israel strayed off course. “If or when it is corrected, then we should have a chance to go back, to live in a more harmonic way with the region we live in, to try to live a life that is not so darkened constantly with fear.” |
| I suggest to him that plenty, especially on the European left, would dispute the notion that all was fine until 1967: their disagreement would go further back, to the circumstances of Israel’s founding in 1948. “I do not want to idealise the Israel before 1967,” he replies. “Of course, there are terrible things that happened in ’48. And yet, before ’67, there was still a hope that things can be corrected, that we are not doomed to continue to fight with our neighbours for another 50 years. To live by the sword and to die by the sword. What we have now is the belief that this is the only option open to us. That there is a kind of divine decree. I think the majority of Israelis believe that now. It was not like that before 67.” | I suggest to him that plenty, especially on the European left, would dispute the notion that all was fine until 1967: their disagreement would go further back, to the circumstances of Israel’s founding in 1948. “I do not want to idealise the Israel before 1967,” he replies. “Of course, there are terrible things that happened in ’48. And yet, before ’67, there was still a hope that things can be corrected, that we are not doomed to continue to fight with our neighbours for another 50 years. To live by the sword and to die by the sword. What we have now is the belief that this is the only option open to us. That there is a kind of divine decree. I think the majority of Israelis believe that now. It was not like that before 67.” |
| It is this fatalism, this defeatist sense among his fellow Israelis that the situation with the Palestinians is immutable, an act of God or nature that cannot be reversed, that incenses Grossman most. It turns Israelis into a nation of victims, he says, helpless before their fate. | It is this fatalism, this defeatist sense among his fellow Israelis that the situation with the Palestinians is immutable, an act of God or nature that cannot be reversed, that incenses Grossman most. It turns Israelis into a nation of victims, he says, helpless before their fate. |
| Which brings us to Benjamin Netanyahu, about whom Grossman is scathing. He faults the prime minister for preying on Israelis’ fears, stoking and manipulating them. “He does it in the most efficient way. Netanyahu is a genius in the way he knows how to stir together the dangers that Israel faces – and we do have dangers – but he knows how to stir them with the echoes of past trauma. We Israelis, as a traumatised community, we are helpless in front of such manipulation, just helpless.” | Which brings us to Benjamin Netanyahu, about whom Grossman is scathing. He faults the prime minister for preying on Israelis’ fears, stoking and manipulating them. “He does it in the most efficient way. Netanyahu is a genius in the way he knows how to stir together the dangers that Israel faces – and we do have dangers – but he knows how to stir them with the echoes of past trauma. We Israelis, as a traumatised community, we are helpless in front of such manipulation, just helpless.” |
| Worse, though, is Netanyahu’s refusal to move or act. “He is paralysed,” says Grossman. “In a way he sanctifies paralysis.” He cites the PM’s failure to act on various peace openings and initiatives, his stubborn insistence that nothing can be done. “I tell you, it humiliates me as a human being to admit that Israel, the strong Israel, with all the huge military that we have, with the unlimited support of the United States, of Britain, of Germany, of France, that still we are victims. Motionless, frozen in front of the situation. Like Netanyahu is. He is totally frozen. He doesn’t have any room to manoeuvre ... We have to live, why not create a situation, rather than being again and again the passive victim of this situation? This is something that really freaks me out.” | Worse, though, is Netanyahu’s refusal to move or act. “He is paralysed,” says Grossman. “In a way he sanctifies paralysis.” He cites the PM’s failure to act on various peace openings and initiatives, his stubborn insistence that nothing can be done. “I tell you, it humiliates me as a human being to admit that Israel, the strong Israel, with all the huge military that we have, with the unlimited support of the United States, of Britain, of Germany, of France, that still we are victims. Motionless, frozen in front of the situation. Like Netanyahu is. He is totally frozen. He doesn’t have any room to manoeuvre ... We have to live, why not create a situation, rather than being again and again the passive victim of this situation? This is something that really freaks me out.” |
| Grossman is not after anything wild, just the same two-state solution that Israeli peaceniks and leftists like him have been advocating for decades. As for alternatives, such as a single, binational state for both peoples, he is dismissive: “I think that all the beautiful ideas that we hear now are attractive only because they have not been explored and have not failed yet. A binational state is a very lofty idea. Who wouldn’t like to live in a place without borders, without limitations, where everyone respects each other with total equality? But do you really believe that the majority of Israelis – who are unwilling, practically, to give an independent separate state to the Palestinians – that they will accept the idea that there will be total equality between the Israelis and Palestinians in one political entity?” | Grossman is not after anything wild, just the same two-state solution that Israeli peaceniks and leftists like him have been advocating for decades. As for alternatives, such as a single, binational state for both peoples, he is dismissive: “I think that all the beautiful ideas that we hear now are attractive only because they have not been explored and have not failed yet. A binational state is a very lofty idea. Who wouldn’t like to live in a place without borders, without limitations, where everyone respects each other with total equality? But do you really believe that the majority of Israelis – who are unwilling, practically, to give an independent separate state to the Palestinians – that they will accept the idea that there will be total equality between the Israelis and Palestinians in one political entity?” |
| None of this is to suggest Grossman is so immersed in his own local political struggle that he cannot see the wider, global picture. He can. He reflects on Donald Trump and the permission he gives his supporters to say things “that usually they will be hesitant to express out loud ... He unleashes all these primal powers, you know? He gives them legitimacy. He is like a burst of the id.” | None of this is to suggest Grossman is so immersed in his own local political struggle that he cannot see the wider, global picture. He can. He reflects on Donald Trump and the permission he gives his supporters to say things “that usually they will be hesitant to express out loud ... He unleashes all these primal powers, you know? He gives them legitimacy. He is like a burst of the id.” |
| And he sees a wider resonance of the story of Dovaleh G. No one in the audience wants to know the backstory of the man on stage. They only want to see a comedian, telling them jokes. They are indifferent to his deeper pain. Grossman thinks we adopt the same attitude every day, when we look at vast, undifferentiated groups of refugees. “We see them looking miserable and noisy and dirty. Just to make the effort, the 30 seconds effort, of putting these men in a shirt like yours, having an apartment like yours, having friends, having his life, his job, his love, his respect for his parents, his caring for his children, all these small things and suddenly, you will not be able to deny him any more ... I think the way to solve the problem of the immigrants, the way to integrate them into their life in new places, is this way of looking at them, which will allow them to regain their dignity.” Everyone, says Grossman, has a backstory. | And he sees a wider resonance of the story of Dovaleh G. No one in the audience wants to know the backstory of the man on stage. They only want to see a comedian, telling them jokes. They are indifferent to his deeper pain. Grossman thinks we adopt the same attitude every day, when we look at vast, undifferentiated groups of refugees. “We see them looking miserable and noisy and dirty. Just to make the effort, the 30 seconds effort, of putting these men in a shirt like yours, having an apartment like yours, having friends, having his life, his job, his love, his respect for his parents, his caring for his children, all these small things and suddenly, you will not be able to deny him any more ... I think the way to solve the problem of the immigrants, the way to integrate them into their life in new places, is this way of looking at them, which will allow them to regain their dignity.” Everyone, says Grossman, has a backstory. |
| Including himself. At one point, he tells me of his service in the military. He was in intelligence during the 1973 war – involved in work that he won’t reveal but which he says he’s “glad” he did – and fought again in the first Lebanon war in 1982. He was a reservist, 28 years old and a new father. | Including himself. At one point, he tells me of his service in the military. He was in intelligence during the 1973 war – involved in work that he won’t reveal but which he says he’s “glad” he did – and fought again in the first Lebanon war in 1982. He was a reservist, 28 years old and a new father. |
| “Every evening, at seven o’clock, before sunset, I used to go up to the balcony observing the battlefield, between the Israeli tanks and the Syrian tanks. There were battles of tanks just in front of us. I used to sit with my back to the village where my unit was. During this time, seven of us had been killed by snipers. | “Every evening, at seven o’clock, before sunset, I used to go up to the balcony observing the battlefield, between the Israeli tanks and the Syrian tanks. There were battles of tanks just in front of us. I used to sit with my back to the village where my unit was. During this time, seven of us had been killed by snipers. |
| “I went to sit without a flak jacket, reading a chapter from my book, Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary, a French-Jewish writer. This was a book that I had loved all my life, and every year I used to read it, like a periodical medication. This is the book I brought to Lebanon. Every evening, seven o’clock, I would sit and read 10, 12 minutes, terrified, and then, when I was finished, I’d run back to the shelter. Because I knew this was my way to keep myself sane in this crazy place, and to remember who I want to be when I come out of this hell ... It was such a crazy thing to do.” | “I went to sit without a flak jacket, reading a chapter from my book, Promise at Dawn by Romain Gary, a French-Jewish writer. This was a book that I had loved all my life, and every year I used to read it, like a periodical medication. This is the book I brought to Lebanon. Every evening, seven o’clock, I would sit and read 10, 12 minutes, terrified, and then, when I was finished, I’d run back to the shelter. Because I knew this was my way to keep myself sane in this crazy place, and to remember who I want to be when I come out of this hell ... It was such a crazy thing to do.” |
| It sounds crazy. But it’s also proof that, for Grossman, even when death is all around, it’s stories that keep you alive. | It sounds crazy. But it’s also proof that, for Grossman, even when death is all around, it’s stories that keep you alive. |