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Thursday, September 9, 2010

David Grossman..

I stalk the book reviews in The Metro .. I really do :)
This week I read something which was so deep and meaningful that I should put it up here . It was an interview with the Israeli Author David Grossman. He had spoken about his new book 'To the end of the Land' as part of which he walked across Israel ...

He says
"We never used to hike because it was so dangerous. But just being exposed to the dramatic landscape, you meet people in a disarmed way. Meeting settlers in any other context would have evolved into a clash. But out there, none of us were representative of anything. In nature, you can be more loose. You're not entrenched in your position"
Am quiet fascinated with the idea of using travel  as a tool for book research. There are times when you read something that strikes so deep a chord in you because you have known it to be true.  Its something I have felt for long though I have no journey of this magnitude to speak of.
A few years back when I discovered hiking it changed my relationship with travel forever. After that I was never satisfied with just being a tourist, (not that there is anything wrong with it) I realized that travel was how I could be part of lives that I had not known, of worlds I was not part of. Especially in a country like India inherently riddled with complexities that I found too hard to grasp, Travel gave me the rare chance to see things and make up own mind. I don't think it was by accident that Gandhi undertook a mission to travel through India before he launched the Freedom movement, That philosophers like Adi Shankara walked the land called India thrice...And more recently Chris McCandle's great adventure in Alaska...

In the article, Grossman goes on to add
"Everything in Israel is about positions.Rarely can you escape yourself and your history there.. "
Beautifully put..

The article stayed with me long after I finished reading. I saved this issue of the metro to show it to anyone who would care to read.

Hmmm..This is one book I definitely want to catch

Google took me to his article on the Israel's recent attack on the Flotilla. Some perspectives are so incisive!


M

6 comments:

  1. Well said and well observed of a master observer!

    Grossman's whole literary oeuvre is exceptionally interesting and beautifully written - even though one is reading it in translation -

    Amazing for me that METRO published such an interview - it is getting Better ! Rock on.

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  2. Nice one Meena..Makes me want to read.

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  3. Isabel - I haven't really read much of his works..
    So the interview in the metro was like a first introduction. :)

    Ah... I didn't know they were translated works!..Interesting!

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  4. lovely point of view.

    And i have to particularly say, i liked the idea he walked/hiked through Isreal than the usual road trip - there is nothing like discovering a place on foot. True, it doesnt allow u to cover the distance u would idally like to ...but the time you get to observe every frame around you cant be matched.

    travel itself- ultimately, each one to their own!!!

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