The best thing I can say about A.B. Yehoshua's "The Lover" is that it isn't a political novel, or, rather, that it's not just a political novel. It's set in Haifa just after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, so, as expected, the politics of the place and time are constantly felt. But it's the characters in it that seem to matter most to the author and which will probably stick with me. In a sense, "The Lover" is the story of a disintegrating marriage that could be set anywhere. Asya and Adam are wealthier and more successful than they imagined they'd be, but stolid, silent Adam seems adrift and Asya, who is wrapped up in her teaching job, seems to be growing old a bit too quickly.The best-drawn character in the book is their daughter, Dafi, whose body and will seem to be maturing at a fantastic pace and who seems estranged from her parents. Asya has a brief affair with a rather recently returned French Jew whose identity and current whereabouts slowly become Adam's obsession. A blue 1947 Morris Minor plays something of a starring role. Adam enlists Na'im, an Israeli Arab teenager who has recently begun working for him at his garage, to help him find out where he's gone to, and, from that point, things play out as they usually do. As a plot, it's good enough.

But Yehoshua is particularly good at describing -- and making you feel -- the emotional strain this small family is being subjected to. His description of their emotional distress is, if anything, too sharp: I read "The Lover" constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the next plot point to blow the entire novel apart. I suppose it's fitting, as it's set in a fairly tense time and place, but, good as it was, reading this one was sort of exhausting. The reader might feel this all the more keenly because the emotional stress that they're under seems to knock everybody's sleep cycle far out of balance. Dafi suffers from acute insomnia, while Asya works herself into a stupor and spends much of her time at home asleep. She dreams, and -- if only to remind the reader that this novel really is about Israelis, not just Israeli politics -- vivid descriptions of her dreams are included in the text of the novel. Adam sleeps soundly but, on several occasions, also forgoes sleep for several days in a row searching for his wife's former paramour. As the novel goes on, it becomes difficult to be sure exactly who the title refers to: there's not much cruelty in this novel, but frustrated -- even misshapen -- forms of love seem to trap its characters in constant turmoil, and, as the novel comes to a close, it becomes simultaneously more sexual and more spiritual. I'm not sure the novel ever reaches a properly satisfying conclusion on all fronts. A good book, but I felt like picking up something nice and light after reading this one. ( )

tante le voci che animano questo romanzo sullo sfondo di un'assolata Haifa, ancora scossa dalla guerra del 1973. ( )

A strange book, the search for a vanished man. Somewhat inconsequential. ( )

A husband seeks his wife's lover who has vanished in the turbulence of Israels Yom Kipur War. (A.B Yehoshua's first novel)