An Israeli’s Novella

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32394, 5 September 1970, Page 4

An Israeli’s Novella

The Death of Lysanda. By Yitzhak Orpaz. Translated from the Hebrew by Richard Flint. Jonathan Cape. 110 pp.

Following the manner popularised by Continental writers like Sartre and Svevo, this early novella by a distinguished Israeli writer is in a persistently impersonal style. Not only is the “authorial voice” not allowed to intrude, but the work is prefaced by a brief “Editor’s Note” explaining the alleged origin of the documents which constitute the novella. The narration, sometimes in the first person and sometimes in the third (with variations even within a single paragraph), is from the viewpoint of the central character, a newspaper proof-reader called Naphtali Noi. Noi had once studied to be a taxidermist, but had shown a perverted enthusiasm for mutilating animal carcases and arranging them in highly unnatural stances, often with extra or alien limbs. Noi describes this eccentricity without any obvious selfconscious boasting, and this seems to be the key to his behaviour: he eannot come to grips with the real things that surround him, and so he continuously resorts to a private fantasy. Most of this novel is concerned with his relationships with women, but all the time he is projecting his attention back to the stuffed monstrosities that fill his room. This is a morose story, not alleviated by any real amusing or entertaining theme; it will appeal mostly to adventurous readers who want something a little out of the ordinary.