Posted on May 18, 2008 by Steve Pollak
On Sunday, The New York Times ran a review of Israeli writer Etgar Keret's new story collection, "The Girl on the Fridge."
For purposes of this book, 'new' does not mean newly written. The Times' reviewer, novelist Joseph Weisberg, notes that 'new' in this case means newly published: Keret wrote these stories in the mid-1980s when he was a young man serving in the army.
This Israeli writer has become known for putting out unusually short short-stories that often take a surreal turn. Writing in the Times, Weisberg says each one averages about three pages and "presents a single fully formed incident." Here's more:
In one of the stories in “The Girl on the Fridge,” a man waiting on the street hears from a passerby that the buses are all dead. When he goes to the central bus station, he sees “hundreds scattered all over the place, rivulets of fuel oozing out of their disemboweled shells, their shattered innards strewn on the black and silent asphalt.” The story manages to be both whimsical and deeply serious, a flight of fancy built around an image from the very real world of suicide bombings.
Nu, so what's the verdict for this book? Weisberg describes a mixed bag of great and not-so-good:
Many of these stories feel slight, as if Keret were still working out his style, failing to match it with much substance. In “Crazy Glue,” a couple fight about how well Superglue works; later, the man comes home to find his wife affixed to the ceiling. In “Freeze!” a man gains the power to stop time and uses it to make a woman fall in love with him. Although they’re well constructed, these brief stories are forgotten as quickly as they’re read.
Yet when Keret’s stories work, they present an extraordinary vision, a fresh, original and effective portrait of a society and its beleaguered young men. In three-page bursts, he shows us an Israel no longer filled with pioneers and heroes but with ordinary people — a view from the ground, as genuine as it is bleak.
In the end, Weisberg advises readers to start with Keret's 2006 collection, "The Nimrod Flipout." After reading that book, you will be a fan of Keret's unusual style, Weisberg says.
That's when you might be curious to know how Keret developed his talents. "That's when it's time to read 'The Girl on the Fridge,'" Weisberg writes.
'The Girl on the Fridge' is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux (192 pages).
Buy this book >>>
For more news about Jewish books, sign up for Jewish Literary Review's email alerts (via Feedburner).