Amoz Oz wrote Elsewhere, Perhaps when he was 27. It was his second novel. Set in the fictional town of Metsudat Ram, an Israeli Kibbutz, in a valley near a disputed border. If the desert heat doesn’t threaten their way of life than the enemies in the mountains do. The people of the kibbutz believe [...]
Entries Tagged as ‘literature’
July 26, 2008
As Close as We’ll Ever Be
The poet and philosopher Rubem Alves writes about the idea of writing a story or a novel with just one word. Could it be done? What word would he choose? Which words has the power to tell the whole story?
Of a singular word Emily Dickinson wrote, “I know nothing in the world that has [...]
July 21, 2008
This is Madness
One of my favorite parts of the movie 300 is at the beginning when the Persian messenger rides into Sparta asking for “Earth and water,” representing their submission to the god-king Xerxes. When Leonidas pulls a sword on the messenger, the Persian yells, “This is madness,” to which Leonidas states, “This is Sparta!” and then [...]
May 29, 2008
The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet by Rubem Alves
The Poet, The Warrior, The Prophet by Rubem Alves is the most important book on the subject of Theopoetics. Unlike Amos Wilder’s Theopoetics: Theology and the Religious Imagination–which, although claims to be writing against the discursive, prosaic, and rationalistic, is written in a form that is discursive, prosaic, rationalistic–Alves’ language and metaphors are pure poetry. While Wilder marches, Alves dances.
This [...]
February 26, 2008
Israeli Literature
One of my favorite authors is an Israeli writer Amos Oz. His novel Fima is about a middle-aged divorced man named Fima, who works as a secretary at a gynecology clinic. He’s a brilliant man, but as all his friends say he’s unmotivated, a kind of an oaf. He continuously tells himself [...]
