Thursday, June 08, 2006
I really enjoyed Valérie Zenatti's novel, En retard pour la guerre. Set during the lead up to and over the course of the first U.S. led Gulf War in 1991, it captures the effects of the war on the lives of regular people living in Israel - focusing in particular on a young scholar and her disintegrating relationship with her boyfriend and her deepening relationship with her best friend who is just about to give birth to her first child. A stranger than usual time to be living in Israel, a country that wasn't a member of the coalition against Iraq during the war, but was the only country being attacked by Saddam Hussein's SCUD missiles at the time. Attacks they couldn't retaliate against. The book really captures the weird feeling of not knowing when the war was going to start, not knowing what the attacks against Israel would be like, and the weirdness of creating your own anti-gas attack shelters, the ringing of air raid sirens and the anxiety of donning gas masks. But more than that, the book is about trying to live your own life the way you would most want, even during these strange times - that could be the end of all time as far as you know. Just like any day. A moving and interesting read.
