The Blue Mountain. . - Mixed Media - book review

New Internationalist, Jan-Feb, 2002 by Peter Whittaker

Meir Shalev

(Canongate, ISBN 1 84195 115 3)

Israeli author Meir Shalev's fourth novel is an ambitious epic that tackles grand themes by examining, with great care and sympathy, the small change and everyday events of seemingly small lives. The book is set in a socialist kibbutz in Palestine, established by a group of Ukrainian immigrants, and is narrated by Baruch, the grandson of Mirkin, one of the founders of the community. Drawing on a wealth of anecdote, family history, legend and downright rumour passed on to him by his grandfather, Baruch tells of the impoverished beginnings of the kibbutz, won by hard labour from a mosquito-infested swamp, and its growth and development over three generations. The characters of the villagers are quirkily individual while remaining wholly believable. There is Pinness, the staunchly rational schoolteacher, enigmatic Uncle Ephraim, who disappears along with his prize bull, and, central to everything, Mirkin, a man as gifted in horticulture as he is tortured in love. Baruch himself, orphaned and overweight, becomes the village undertaker and gets to bury most of the primary characters by the end of the book.

The Blue Mountain is a lyrical and wise portrait of a community struggling with its surroundings and with itself. It makes good use of folk history, humour and a dash of magical realism. Perhaps its political edge is less sharp than it could be, but its humanistic message that ordinary people, in all their glory and confusions, are worthy of respect and dignity, is one that we should surely heed.

RATING ***

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