1.0shezaf.nethttps://shezaf.net/en/Tsur Shezafhttps://shezaf.net/en/author/tsurshezaf2019gmail-com/rich600338<blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="jyoBxJmmhH"><a href="https://shezaf.net/en/product/the-lost-pilots-wife/">The Lost Pilot’s Wife</a></blockquote><iframe sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" src="https://shezaf.net/en/product/the-lost-pilots-wife/embed/#?secret=jyoBxJmmhH" width="600" height="338" title="“The Lost Pilot’s Wife” — shezaf.net" data-secret="jyoBxJmmhH" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no" class="wp-embedded-content"></iframe><script> /*! This file is auto-generated */ !function(d,l){"use strict";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&"undefined"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!/[^a-zA-Z0-9]/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret="'+t.secret+'"]'),c=new RegExp("^https?:$","i"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display="none";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute("style"),"height"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):"link"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute("src")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener("message",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener("DOMContentLoaded",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll("iframe.wp-embedded-content"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute("data-secret"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+="#?secret="+t,e.setAttribute("data-secret",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:"ready",secret:t},"*")},!1)))}(window,document); //# sourceURL=https://shezaf.net/wp-includes/js/wp-embed.min.js </script> https://shezaf.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/אשת-הטייס-שנעלם.-עטיפה.jpg432672Tsur Shezaf is, first and foremost, a traveler. A journeyer. His new novel, the seventh, uniquely blends a journey from Israel to Lebanon with an exploration of the two countries. Unlike his travel books, Shezaf charges the space in which the characters roam with lyricism, symbolism and mystical meanings. The geographical expanse becomes fertile ground for illustrating the soul’s depths. Every plant, every plot of land, and every landscape are depicted with great esteem for their medical or purposeful significance for the characters, the emotions and memories they evoke, and their concrete and dramatic effect on the situation. The plot of The Lost Pilot’s Wife moves between these different layers, and Shezaf skips among them with ease and sensitivity. The novel is told in a double voice: by Ruth, the wife of the lost pilot, who—we are told at the beginning of the book—has finally met her missing husband, whose plane went down in Lebanon and whose fate was unknown for decades. After their encounter, Ruth begins to write the story of her ordeal from the moment he disappeared. The second voice is that of Assaf, the pilot, who writes a letter intended for Ruth, in which he recounts his experiences since that fateful day when he parachuted down onto Lebanese soil. Through his story, we learn why he did not return to his wife or contact her for all these years. The two voices are intertwined, turning our viewpoint back to the past. The reenactment of past events functions as a sort of effort to repair. The narrators tell their stories primarily in order to impose order upon their souls, and only secondarily in order to clarify their realities. Ruth often wonders what happened to Assaf, and her story is one of a private coping, of personal grief and a life stolen. Assaf, conversely, devotes almost no attention to Ruth in his story, although she is the recipient of the letter. He focuses to the extreme on “the death of Assaf and the birth of Yusuf,” the new identity he adopted—mostly unwillingly—in Lebanon. This matter is critical, since the novel presents two completely different narratives. While Ruth’s story depicts Assaf as a present-absentee with great influence, Assaf’s stresses the absence of Ruth. Ruth’s own account occupies the national sphere no less than the personal. Her experience is not only that of a woman who has lost her beloved, but also of a citizen in face of the political machine. […] The Lost Pilot’s Wife is not a travel book, yet the geography has great significance. There is an expectation that the arena of Tel-Aviv and northern Israel, though not always peaceful, would be safer than that of Lebanon. But this is not the case. Lebanon, with its mountains and flora, and its factious populations, emerges as a fertile expanse, and it is there, ironically, that Assaf finds salvation from death, and is able to resurrect himself (in a scene we will not spoil) and build a new life. This conflicted and dangerous place is depicted as almost mystical, where things happen that could not occur anywhere else. Israel, on the other hand, with its problematic government, its political frauds, and complex imagery, is portrayed as a stifling space that does not lead to resurrection, to the foundation of new life, or to truth. The discrepancies between the two places, much like the two narratives, emphasize the prosaic superiority of Assaf’s story as compared with Ruth’s. The geography is charged with emotional significance in both, but it is far more prominent in the context of Assaf’s location in Lebanon, where he adopts a new identity: a village doctor who specializes in botany. The Tel-Aviv concrete and drab government offices are analogous to Ruth’s condition, but in terms of the prose itself, the Lebanese expanses allow the author to expand the borders of literary expression, with impassioned descriptions of flora and landscapes, which he connects impressively with Assaf’s psychological processes. While Ruth’s emotional reversals are depicted concisely, with local dryness and fairly simple language, Assaf’s experience, starting with his first fall onto Lebanese soil and all the way through his establishment as a respected doctor, moves along the axis between physical geography and the map of human emotions. From Y-Net ( 5/18/2011) by Yotam Schwimmer http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-4069219,00.html