Anche se è una tematica assai ricorrente nella narrativa contemporanea, in questa storia Yehoshua decrive la spersonalzzazione degli uomini con grande ed immediata aggressività. Un dirigente giovane ed ambizioso, ha tutti i numeri per fare strada all'interno di una grande azienda produttrice di pane, ma non ne ha affatto per farne nella vita. A tal punto è emotivamente immaturo che tutte le sue relazioni umane sfociano nel nulla della mediocrità. Il suo matrimonio è andato in malora e l'ex moglie non trova di meglio che guardarlo con compassione, cosi come compassionevole ed amaro è lo sguardo della madre che vede il figlio fallire qualsiasi relazione con gli altri. Dal caratere estremamente debole ed insicuro, questo ragazzo incapace di compiere scelte vere si trova paradossalmente ad occupare il posto che meno di tutti si confà alla sua aerea ed infantile inconsistenza, il responsabile delle risorse umane. Oppure no? Se da un lato proprio una persona incapace di stabilire rapporti umani (al punto da non meritare neppure un nome) diventa "responsabile delle risorse umane", questo riflette in fondo molto bene il grigio mondo della produzione aziendale, che parallelamente riduce l'uomo a "risorsa". Le cose sembrano infatti funzionare, ma il mondo non permette a nessuno di vivere senza fare i conti con la responsabilità, con scelte dolorose e con la fatica di vedere gli altri come uomini e donne "altri" e "pari" a noi. La tragica morte di una sventurata dipendente dell'azienda, povera immigrata costretta ad un lavoro infimo, passa sotto ilenzio ed ignorata dal meccanismo di funzionamento dell'azienda: lo scandalo che ne cosegue costringe il protagonista a fronteggiare l'enorme responsabilità che si era sempre nascosto, e dalla quale all'inizio tenta di sfuggire con patetica goffaggine. E' l'inizio di un faticoso percorso di consapevolezza e di maturazione, che al termine di un lungo viaggio in un paese straniero condurrà il protagonista a vedere gli altri con occhi diversi, ad un maggiore spirito di iniziativa ed ad avere il coraggio di fare scelte che possano avere delle conseguenze. Si finisce il romanzo col pensiero che anche se arte da una morte, la storia sia in realtà una pacata celebrazione della vita. La scrittura di Yehoshua mi affascina sempre perchè riesce ad essere semplice e chiara senza mai essere superficiale, e nessuna parola sembra mai essere scelta a caso. Una storia che contiene elementi drammatici ambientata all'interno di un paese che del dramma fa la sua ragione d'essere come Israele, volta le spalle all'effetto facile e procede con grande umanità e semplicità, tale da far apparire tutti i personaggi (dal sergente russo che presidia una base militare al giornalista che ha diffuso la notizia dello scandalo) come piacevoli a conoscersi, con le loro positività e le loro debolezze. Che differenza con il pesante cinismo di Philip Roth, sempre alla ricerca di uno sfogo alla rabbia ed ll'angoscia di una vita che si nega da sè! Anche al termine di storia breve, lineare e forse troppo didascalica come "il responsabile delle risorse umane" non si riesce a finire l'ultima pagina senza la piacevole sensazione che, dopotutto, l'umanità ha ancora speranza. Anche questa capacità che ha Yehoshua di considerare i problemi degli ebrei e dell'ebraismo come problemi "umani" e non "ebraici" è peculiare e preziosa, e mi fa pensare che se questa sensibilità fosse più diffusa quegli stessi problemi sarebbero più facili a risolversi. Forse non sarà il libro più bello di Abraham Yehoshua ma la capacità di vedere la fatica della responsabilità e dele scelte con semplicità e sicurezza, la possibilità che dà alla vita di essere vissuta guardando alle cose semplici, unita ad una prosa parimenti sicura e piacevole lo rendolno godibile ed assolutamente consigliato.
This is a fast-paced, plot dominated novel that rings lots of bells and leaves the reader at the end laughing out loud but also seriously exploring the issues it raises. The main character is “the human resources manager” of a large Jerusalem bakery. He used to be the top salesman but was transferred when extensive travel interfered with his home life. His wife divorced him anyway. The main focus of the novel is a corpse—and oddly the only character with a name—Yulia Ragayev, a non-Jewish immigrant from an unnamed Slavic country who came to Jerusalem with a Jewish lover who abandoned her. Her son went back to his father but Yulia remained, employed as a cleaner (though she a trained engineer) at the bakery. She comes to the human resources manager’s attention when a weekly scandal rag accuses the company of “gross negligence” in not caring what happened to her. Her body has been in the morgue, unidentified, a week after she was killed in a terrorist attack. The reporter found a pay stub from the bakery in her possession.Other main characters include the owner of the bakery who wants his human resources manager to turn around the negative publicity the company will get from the reporter’s soon-to-be-published article, the human resources manager’s assistant (with her husband and baby to say nothing of the human resources manager’s daughter and ex-wife) as well as the owner’s assistant and a night manager who was Yulia’s boss, and who, it turns out, is “responsible” for the fact that Yulia had a pay stub but was not in fact working at the bakery. There’s the reporter and the photographer and eventually the honorary consul (located in the unnamed Slavic country) and her husband. Oh, yes, Yulia’s son and her ex-husband.The situation escalates as the investigation progresses. It turns out that Yulia was beautiful, fair with unusual Tartar eyes. The night manager had let her go because he’d become obsessed with her and the human resources manager, even though he refuses to look at her corpse, becomes similarly obsessed. He is “blamed” for the situation—he is after all the human resources manager and as such responsible for any irregularities connected with personnel. And it also turns out that he interviewed Yulia—he has his notes on what she told him—without remembering either her person or her plight. The escalating situation raises touchy issues connected with what happens to immigrants and the effects of living with terrorism as well as nationality and what that means. Even more it raises issues of responsibility for what happens to individuals in a complex society.I won’t give you any more of the plot—you need to read it for yourself. It’s a quick read, but one that will stick with you.
Do You like book A Woman In Jerusalem (2006)?
I find Yehoshua rather difficult to read. I keep thinking that there's depth there that I'm not seeing. Supposedly this work "get[s] under the skin and into the soul of Israel today." I wished I could've felt that, but I didn't. I couldn't understand the drive of the main character, and how he continues getting pulled farther into activities those around him see as folly. Guilt, certainly, but how does what he is doing assuage that? I also had trouble with the ending. I'm not sure whether it was intended to be a resolution of sorts; if so, I don't think it succeeded. Nevertheless, I felt the book was worth reading. The characters and the settings were described vividly, both in Israel and in the unnamed former Soviet Union country. I didn't really empathize with the main character very much, and actually found him slightly absurd. But it was interesting to follow his thoughts and fears at each step along the way.
—Susan
A woman is killed in a terrorist bombing in Jerusalem. She has no ID and no relative or friend comes to claim her body at the morgue in the days following the incident. Then a reporter learns that she had a paystub from a large and famous bakery in her pocket and prepares to write a blistering article on the company’s insensitivity. His editor reaches out to the bakery’s owner for a comment and the owner orders his HR manager to investigate and make things right. From this not very compelling plot comes a very compelling reading experience.A. B. Yehoshua is a very fine writer and A Woman in Jerusalem has won all kinds of international prizes and accolades since it was first published in Israel in 2004 and in English in 2006. What begins as an end of day work assignment that forces the manager to miss his night with his daughter (he is recently divorced, a fact that makes it into the article, much to his aggravation) soon becomes an odyssey of futile pursuit and ambiguous return (if you can mix Homer and Kafka, as Yehoshua seems to be able to nimbly do, and find redemption into the bargain). Yehoshua uses the circumstances to explore identity, individual and corporate and national responsibility, the media, the mysteries of love, and the complications that make graceful humanity a challenge in the twitching face of adversity.In A Woman in Jerusalem people act well and ill with a mishmash of intentions both noble and self-serving. The reporter is something of an intolerant weasel, more moved by how a story fits his assumptions than the reality underneath it. The manager just wants to get on with his life, connect with his daughter, find a place of his own. The owner is obsessed with his company’s, which is his, identity. The night shift bakery manager fired the victim so she could find a better job and so he wouldn’t be tempted by her mysterious beauty but didn’t report the termination so she could continue to be paid. The bus bombing ruins his plan and sets everything in motion. Yehoshua brings a deeply perceptive imagination to his tale, capturing small moments with a clarity and level of truth that makes the small cast long and precise shadows of meaning. The fact that the manager struggles to put the strange assignment to bed reflects the Sisyphean reality of life and its obligations. The fact that the struggle lends a compassionate, if perplexing, nobility to the manager and the others engaged in the story of the Israeli immigrant’s tragically short stay in Jerusalem reflects the grace possible for us for behaving with humanity regardless of our weaknesses and complicated lives. It’s a subtle and moving story, brilliantly told.
—Rick
This book was quite a unique read. Only one of the characters in the story is mentioned by name throughout the entire novel. The other characters are all described by their titles, such as "the resource manager", "the owner", etc. It is set in Jerusalem, and there has been a recent terrorist bombing of a local market. The book follows the story of a temporary employee of a bakery killed in the bombing, and the journey taken by the human resources manager at the bakery where she worked from her identification in the morgue to her final resting place. It is a story of her journey to Jerusalem and also the resource manager's journey to discover her homeland and the village where she grew up. The story is mostly told from the point of view of the human resources manager, and reflects his feelings towards the entire process, which ultimately becomes his mission. It is at times a classic "traveler's tale" of seeking adventure with an ultimate end result, a love story, a discussion of the current state of affairs in Israel, as well as a brief look at the former Soviet Union (although not specifically mentioned by name in the book). It is also at times witty and humorous. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for something a little different to read.
—Rachel Stroup
