march 2005
Review: Gilad
Atzmon's second novel is now out.
Of the many constructions and places for
the narrator that novels adopt Atzmon has, in both cases
taken up an outsider's inspection of documents; or
in this second volume, that of a feature writer
researching his material; both are confidants of
"found" material entrusted to them, and thus to
us. The reader too, can take a perspective that is
not unlike, evidently, a glance in the mirror for the
modern jew, or the keyhole perspective that
invites the reader to think about things
unseen, out of line with the viewpoint..
His previous book A Guide for the Perplexed on
the papers and letters of Gunther Wanker a Professor of
Voyeurism, illustrated the cover with a keyhole
perspective, the author with his eye on us..., a method
of reminiscence and thoughtfulness, you will
remember, that Albert Moravia used in his famous
book The Voyeur. Atzmon's first volume reminds one,
if one has time to react after experiencing a
hilarious read, that it is not on the periphery of all
the vulgar tortuous sexual novels of the last twenty or
thirty years, but takes sights on a target,
not only by virtue of its pseudo-serious poise of
interest, but a particular interest in
sex, (that will sell well as they all say),
because it's satyrical descriptions of sex
devastate with massive humour all the pornography
that has sold those hundreds of recent novels by new
and famous writers, who now-a-days describe detailed
sex liasons of every kind. Wether Mr. Atzmon makes
any headway with his readers as a
philosopher, or only as a
popular novelist, it is difficult to say, as those I
know who read it refuse to discuss the book, and one even
laid it aside after a muted read without laughter;
but it is certain sure that this new volume, My One
and Only Love revels not only in the mercurial
temperament of its main character, Avrum Shtil, a music
agent, but also in the bewildering logic of a loving man,
that of Danny Zilber, the star musician, from which
a certain existential philosophy emerges. With
reference to sexual mores that reflect on the previous
volume Avrum casts a line at one point to distil
the vulgarity of this jewish misdemeanor, or
preference as I might describe it, saying, Why does he
kiss her bum? Is he a fuckin' dog? .
It is the political narrative that holds these crazy
characters together, involved with Mossad and
Israeli military government scandals of one kind or
another, spying or gun-running, that provoke in the
storyteller parallel lines of philosophy, stronger
by virtue of the rapid and transcendent reality of scenes
from which they emerge than they would ever be as serious
philosophical dissertations given as lectures on our
shame and moral depravity.This paragraph from A Guide
to the Perplexed might set the tone....
I remember the bed-space wrapped in the fragrant
vapours of desire, recalling the aroma of rubber tyres
scorched by emergency stops....As memory comes, as my
life turns over and turns into a chisel constantly at
work in me, I realise that nostalgia is the longing for
missed experience. Experience that remained hidden at the
time, unexploited. I am coming to understand the cruelty
that lurks at the foundation of existence; just at this
moment, as the exultant fragrance of spring is rising in
my imagination, my flesh is filled with the musty smell
of autumn. And perhaps this is the reward of existence:
it gives to every axiom an untimely spell of validity,
rejuvenation following decrepitude.
There is example of that cruel indifference to life and
death in My One and Only Love
that has become the template of our times
in the political world. The incompetence within political
vision is examined here in the root commonsense of the
actual fix, how it works, how it is carried out,
and who by ; this fix that is always in the
"national interest", the fix, or the stroke as
we call it here in Ireland. A fix that is dependent
on a plan, a framework of events and timing. Timing
is the measure of the musician and this one,
Danny Zilber, has become knotted in another alien
timing of incident that can never be compatible with a
performance: love. But it is this love, a
strangely indefinable love, that hangs over the entire
book with its tangent to all the action that tightens the
tension from beginning to end.
DannyZilber believes in a love, a monogamous perfect
love, that maybe a certain type of woman would
understand. What type? Someone like Sabrina who does not
even know herself and walks like a thoughtful child
through the adult world, someone who, thinking about the
man in her life could make a telepathic bridge between
existence and silence. A love that is not tested by
reality, a love that nevertheless is the entire reason
for the existence of the music of entertainment, a love
that no singer or solo artist really requires ,except as
a stimulant to further the pain of anxiety that love in
this world must really cause. A perfect political
distraction reverberating in the minds of the millions of
a lost youth, of songs that touch that note, that
chord, where the crazy fringes of hysterical girls,
fringes of petticoats that Rimbaud the poet wrote
of, that he would tumble and tear aside, cloud the
stage, with their snowstorms of knickers, or thongs,that
these girls throw estatically in the air. But let us
smile, songs that thousands would pay good money to hear,
to profit the middleman, the expensive screams, the
pay out for the hallucination of existence, in order
to forget the remorseless logic of time.
As Avrum makes clear: I had there a big
combina that goes far beyond the horizon of beauty
of the music...for me, most important is the action, not
the talking. Never argue with success.... Another
combina elicits: Simply it was like a football match
and Italian Operas for the price of a single ticket.
This man, Avrum Shtill, the most outspoken,
truthful, foul mouthed bond of energy and enterprise
is the real hero of this book. There is nothing that
someone else can imagine that he cannot reproduce to
perfection, but also with profit. There is no
difficulty that he cannot overcome, or person whom he
cannot remove or cause to capitulate to emergency, or
tactic, either political or sensual; nothing that he
balks to provide. Another great read, thanks Gilad.
Jocelyn
Braddell©
To read extracts:
http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/Platikus.ht
To buy on line:
Amazon.co.uk
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0863565077/qid=1110060958/sr
=1-1/ref=sr_1_8_1/026-3653741-0931609
Jazz cd.co.uk
http://www.jazzcds.co.uk/store/commerce.cgi?product=GiladAtzmon
Saqi Book Shop (the publisher)