The Same Sea - Softcover

Oz, Amos

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099283956 ISBN 13: 9780099283959

Publisher: Vintage, 2002

Synopsis

‘In a world full of hype, noise, and confusion, the simple lucidity of The Same Sea is totally unexpected’ New York Times

An intimate, everyday tale of unrequited love and grief

Nadia is dead. Her widower, Albert, comforted by his old friend Bettine, is trying to put his life back together. His son, Enrico, has gone to find himself in Tibet. Enrico's girlfriend, Dita, is being friendly and daughterly to Albert – but his responses are less platonic. Meanwhile, Dita has another lover, and a slightly repellent film producer lusts after her too.

Through these intersecting triangles of desire and loss comes a novel that is surprising, heart-breaking, funny, poetic and simply unmissable.

About this title

Review:

The Same Sea finds Amos Oz, one of Israel's finest living novelists, at the height of his literary powers. First published in Hebrew to wide acclaim, Nicholas de Lange's elegant translation of The Same Sea retains the complex mosaic of voices that make up Oz's novel, as it daringly hovers between prose and poetry. Both the plot and style of the book are encapsulated in its first lines:

Not far from the sea, Mr Albert Danon lives in Amirim Street, alone. He is fond of olives and feta; a mild accountant, he lost his wife not long ago.

Slowly, the connections unfold between the quietly grieving Albert, his dead wife Nadia, their absent son Enrico, and the two women in his life--Enrico's sensuous girlfriend Dita, and his widowed friend Bettine. The short, allusive chapters cut between prose and a loose, free verse, as the characters' paths are marked out and criss-crossed, as Oz skilfully moves from the confused, contemporary world of Enrico and Dita, and the elegiac past of Albert, Nadia and Bettine. At points Oz himself appears to offer solace and advice to his characters, as well as his readers. Offering hints as to the nature of the novel, he suggests "you could see it as a number of intersecting triangles", but that, ultimately, all the characters "are among shadows". Playful, beautifully written, and full of biblical and rabbinic allusions, The Same Sea is a consummate but also strangely elusive novel. --Jerry Brotton

Review:

"Comic, tragic, erotic and elegiac. His finest work" (Mail on Sunday)

"Touching and comic... Magical" (Scotsman)

"A poetic novel of love, family and loss... A work so exquisitely written, so diamond-clear, that critics are already hailing it as Oz's finest work... A writer of revelatory genius" (Guardian)

"Beautiful and profoundly wise. Very few works of fiction are written with such economy, simplicity and precision that a reviewer simply wants to quote from them... The Same Sea is such a book. Amos Oz has created an unforgettable work of art" (Daily Telegraph)

"A cleansing, poetic, meditative and moving novel" (Herald)

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0099283956
• ISBN 13: 9780099283959
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208