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3.54 AVERAGE
3.54 AVERAGE
Nathan Englander's "Dinner at the Center of the Earth" is an ambitious, interesting story that revolves around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Englander's short stories are works of art, so I picked up the novel with (perhaps unfairly) high expectations. Parts of it are extremely well done; other elements feel so experimental that they got in the way of my enjoyment of the story. This is a short book, but by no means an easy read.
Confusing in places. Well written but not an easy subject.
Well written enough, but I could never in good conscience recommend this book to someone who does not know the history of the Nakba or Palestine. Falls into the classic and dangerous narrative of “balanced objectivity”- wherein Israel and Palestine are weighed as equally powerful opponents. They’re not. It’s a genocide.
Not even close to David Grossman, nor to Daniel Silvia, either. This judgement is sad to state, as I love Englander's work.
I had not intended to read this book, although I love Nathan Englander's short stories (and I generally don't love short stories). The descriptions didn't draw me in, and I didn't want to read about conflict. But I picked it up on a whim (yay, bookstores!) and I am so, so glad I did. Englander is a brilliant writer--intellectually engaging without being show-offy, characters so fully realized. Yes, I guessed the "twist" (if it was even meant to be one), and it didn't matter one bit as I watched the story unfold. A fascinating, deeply moving book.
This is the first time I've had to mark a book dnf. This book just made me very uncomfortable - I knew it was largely about the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but wasn't prepared for the one-sided Israeli view. In light of how the world is right now, I just couldn't read it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: War
dark
reflective
slow-paced
adventurous
reflective
fast-paced
For all of the strange pacing and sorting decisions Englander makes, this is a fantastic book that ends up with an extremely surprising take on the vastly complicated situation that is the Israeli-Palestinian relationship. The beginning does a pretty convincing head fake that we will end up with intertwining threads that resolve together, but I think the goal is something much more: This in not so much the story of how the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is writ small in the lives of the characters, but rather the reverse -- a story of how the conflict itself is a mirror for the participants' lives writ large. This is Israel and Palestine as sibling rivalry, a lover's quarrel, a potential friendship strained and broken. As history, that picture would leave something to be desired, but in the novelistic sense I think it works shockingly well.