Amos Oz 소설 "A Perfect Peace"

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Amos Oz 소설 "A Perfect Peace" (1982)

Translated by Hillel Halkin, 1985

 

("Amos Oz, Israeli Author and Peace Advocate, Dies at 79" --- NYT, 12/28/2018)

 

"Set on a kibbutz in the mid-1960s.... They are immigrants and native-born Israelis, idealists and charlatans, tender, cruel, funny --- all living together on the kibbutz." ---- 책 겉표지 안쪽에

 

본문에서

 

The younger members of the party must be asked to keep in mind the broader historical perspective. Countless centuries of Jewish history, Jewish suffering, Jewish yearnings, and Jewish tears are looking down, are shedding down, upon us. (p. 112)

 

Not uncritical compassion, to be sure. There has to be a limit. But compassion nonetheless. Because we all need it. And because without it, vision and imagination begin to turn cannibalistic. Which is why I'm determined to try to be compassionate as secretary of this kibbutz. And not cause unnecessary pain. (p. 226)

 

I never did believe a Jew could really and truly assimilate. That's what turned me  into a Zionist. (p. 236)

 

    Far away, in a place where the heavens descended gently on earthly fields, there was love in this world. All would end happily there. A perfect peace.

    Between him and that place endless waves were billowing across an endless expanse. field after lonely field. Flat earth bounded by soft hills, flat earth stippled by droplets of light, all the way to the edge of the world, with only a single road to spear it like a black arrow, ... (p. 263)

 

At last the winter came to an end. The rains had stopped. The clouds were gone. Punishing winds gave way to soft sea breezes. By the last week of March Srulik could sit every evening on his little porch and watch the flocks of migrating birds cross the reddening heavens on a northwesterly course.

   Despite the winter floods the crops did well. By April the barley and wheat fields had spread ripples of green all the way to the hills in the east. Only now did the apple orchards burst into full bloom. The pears put on their nuptial raiment of trembling white blossoms, and westerly winds carried their carnal scent.... The fig, the almond, and the walnut put forth their rejoicing leaves. Dormant grape arbors reawakend to their entwined green lives. (p. 343)

 

It was said that Paula Levin, one of the original founding members of the kibbutz and a kindergarten teacher of long standing who headed the tots committee, had received an album of Dürer reproductions from Srulik out of the blue. What could such a gift mean? (p. 352)