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A review by hannagg
Inside Information by Eshkol Nevo
4.0
"Inside Information" is an excellent title for this novel by Eshkol Nevo. We are given three very loosely interconnected stories, all told in the first person narrative, so the reader is looking at the events from the narrator's point of view, favoring his or her interpretation. But there are mysteries, and things may differ from what we have been told.
The first story is told from a divorced man's perspective who meets a couple of Israelis on his trip to South America. The couple is there on their honeymoon, but it's not happy traveling. The woman fascinates the narrator, and soon he becomes entangled in her marriage story. Still, it's hard to say if she is a victim there or a cold, calculating person to take advantage of the handsome "Viking" type man.
The protagonist of the second story almost immediately wins our sympathy: he's a respected senior doctor at a Tel Aviv hospital and still grieving after his wife. His children live in different countries (a choice that he and his wife never entirely accepted.) He develops a relationship with a young female resident at the hospital, interpreted as a father-daughter connection, trying to protect her. However, his feelings are unclear, even for him; the story has another unexpected twist.
The third story can be interpreted as the final link, the most metaphorical and spiritual one. It's inspired by a Talmud legend of four men walking into an orchard, and only one returned. A couple went into an orchard, and the husband disappeared. It became clear to me quickly that his disappearance meant he had died. Told from a wife's perspective, it deals with accepting the loss and, once more, with the parent-child difficult connection.
I listened to an audiobook, and both narrators did a good job, although I thought that the woman's accent she used in the third story was a bit too strong and distracting. However, the narrators' voices were distinct and interesting. I liked the first two stories the most; the third one had a somewhat repetitive feeling of sadness and gloom, probably understandable as it dealt with death.
Eshkol Nevo is the new author for me. He's, first of all, a storyteller, and that's what I enjoyed the most – following the stories. The flow of the stories is slow and somehow meditative. I was not blown away but still immersed in the narratives – sometimes more, sometimes less. Perhaps reading more books by this author will give me a better understanding of his writing.
The first story is told from a divorced man's perspective who meets a couple of Israelis on his trip to South America. The couple is there on their honeymoon, but it's not happy traveling. The woman fascinates the narrator, and soon he becomes entangled in her marriage story. Still, it's hard to say if she is a victim there or a cold, calculating person to take advantage of the handsome "Viking" type man.
The protagonist of the second story almost immediately wins our sympathy: he's a respected senior doctor at a Tel Aviv hospital and still grieving after his wife. His children live in different countries (a choice that he and his wife never entirely accepted.) He develops a relationship with a young female resident at the hospital, interpreted as a father-daughter connection, trying to protect her. However, his feelings are unclear, even for him; the story has another unexpected twist.
The third story can be interpreted as the final link, the most metaphorical and spiritual one. It's inspired by a Talmud legend of four men walking into an orchard, and only one returned. A couple went into an orchard, and the husband disappeared. It became clear to me quickly that his disappearance meant he had died. Told from a wife's perspective, it deals with accepting the loss and, once more, with the parent-child difficult connection.
I listened to an audiobook, and both narrators did a good job, although I thought that the woman's accent she used in the third story was a bit too strong and distracting. However, the narrators' voices were distinct and interesting. I liked the first two stories the most; the third one had a somewhat repetitive feeling of sadness and gloom, probably understandable as it dealt with death.
Eshkol Nevo is the new author for me. He's, first of all, a storyteller, and that's what I enjoyed the most – following the stories. The flow of the stories is slow and somehow meditative. I was not blown away but still immersed in the narratives – sometimes more, sometimes less. Perhaps reading more books by this author will give me a better understanding of his writing.