Scan barcode
nicholasmiles's review
3.0
It was ok. Retired engineer gets dementia and helps a younger guy build a tunnel, where the tunnel is a metaphor for the hole in his brain. I was a little lost at times, and thought some of the sentences were pretty clunky (maybe just a product of the translation).
vonnegutian's review
3.0
Thanks to Halban publishers for the opportunity to read A.B. Yehoshua’s ‘The Tunnel’. It tells the story of Zvi Luria, a retired and respected director and road engineer for the Israel Roads Authority who is 75 and navigating his later years. We join him as he receives results of a scan that show the slow onset of dementia. Together with his wife, a paedeatrician, he is keen to delay the effects of the atrophy and be proactive in keeping his brain busy.
Although the book isn’t solely about dementia, we are witness to its growing and poignant effect on Luria (namely the forgetting of his address, the first names of people he has known for many years and mistakenly taking home the wrong child from his grandson’s kindergarten). It is also a study of a family dealing with change and the way love adapts as people grow old together.
In parallel to the familial change, cultural change and adaptation is another strong theme in the book. In his quest to slow the atrophy, Luria finds part-time work helping a young associate from his former job. The work is the planning of a secret army road, which is set to be built across a piece of land where a nomadic Palestinian family live. It is a narrative vehicle that allows Yehoshua to explore the complicated interrelations of Israeli and Palestinian Jews as Luria learns how the divisions and segregations are not so black and white.
A slow burner but a good read, The Tunnel was a portal to a part of the world I haven’t read much literature from (always a bonus for me). I found the subject of dementia interesting and well handled in the light humorous style the author used to describe it. At an age myself where certain facts and memories come to me a little less easily, I was reminded of one of my favourite poems by the American ex poet laureate Billy Collins, which I include below. The losing of one's mind is a subtly terrifying fate and Yehoshua artfully puts into words the tensions, trivialities and helplessness it brings.
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
Followed obediently by the title, the plot,
The heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
Which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
Never even heard of,
As if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
Decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
To a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
And watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
And even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
Something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
The address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
It is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
Not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
Whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
Well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
Who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
To look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
Out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Billy Collins
Although the book isn’t solely about dementia, we are witness to its growing and poignant effect on Luria (namely the forgetting of his address, the first names of people he has known for many years and mistakenly taking home the wrong child from his grandson’s kindergarten). It is also a study of a family dealing with change and the way love adapts as people grow old together.
In parallel to the familial change, cultural change and adaptation is another strong theme in the book. In his quest to slow the atrophy, Luria finds part-time work helping a young associate from his former job. The work is the planning of a secret army road, which is set to be built across a piece of land where a nomadic Palestinian family live. It is a narrative vehicle that allows Yehoshua to explore the complicated interrelations of Israeli and Palestinian Jews as Luria learns how the divisions and segregations are not so black and white.
A slow burner but a good read, The Tunnel was a portal to a part of the world I haven’t read much literature from (always a bonus for me). I found the subject of dementia interesting and well handled in the light humorous style the author used to describe it. At an age myself where certain facts and memories come to me a little less easily, I was reminded of one of my favourite poems by the American ex poet laureate Billy Collins, which I include below. The losing of one's mind is a subtly terrifying fate and Yehoshua artfully puts into words the tensions, trivialities and helplessness it brings.
Forgetfulness
The name of the author is the first to go
Followed obediently by the title, the plot,
The heartbreaking conclusion, the entire novel
Which suddenly becomes one you have never read,
Never even heard of,
As if, one by one, the memories you used to harbor
Decided to retire to the southern hemisphere of the brain,
To a little fishing village where there are no phones.
Long ago you kissed the names of the nine Muses goodbye
And watched the quadratic equation pack its bag,
And even now as you memorize the order of the planets,
Something else is slipping away, a state flower perhaps,
The address of an uncle, the capital of Paraguay.
Whatever it is you are struggling to remember
It is not poised on the tip of your tongue,
Not even lurking in some obscure corner of your spleen.
It has floated away down a dark mythological river
Whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall,
Well on your own way to oblivion where you will join those
Who have even forgotten how to swim and how to ride a bicycle.
No wonder you rise in the middle of the night
To look up the date of a famous battle in a book on war.
No wonder the moon in the window seems to have drifted
Out of a love poem that you used to know by heart.
Billy Collins
audree's review
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
More...