Valley of Strength
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
This scenic, moving novel, set at the end of the nineteenth century, follows the first seven years of Gai Oni—a settlement in the Galilee, the precursor to the town of Rosh Pinnah—through the life-altering trials and experiences of a pioneer woman. Fania, a 16-year-old survivor of a pogrom in the Ukraine, arrives in pre-state Israel with her uncle, her deranged brother and her unwanted baby, a product of rape. Upon her arrival in Jaffa, she meets Yehiel, a 26-year-old widower, the father of two, and one of the few courageous souls left in Gai Oni. Severe drought and exhausting work have driven away most of the pioneers, leaving behind only a few tenacious families.
Fania moves in with Yehiel and throws herself into the life of a peasant woman, trying to squeeze a living out of the stony ground despite hunger and disease. Wearing Arab robes, she rides through the bandit-infested country and breaks into the male-dominated worlds of commerce and politics, even of defense.
"One of the tests of the coming of age of any literature...is when it is able to take on a national historical theme convincingly," wrote Yael Feldman. Valley of Strength is an Israeli classic which ties together Israeli history and world feminism, and is beloved by critics and readers alike. It has become an integral part of Israelis’ literary education.
Translated from the Hebrew by Philip Simpson.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Set in late 19th-century Galilee, Lapid depicts the hardships of life in the agricultural settlement Gai Oni in this dense historical novel. The heroine, Fania Mandelstam, is a strong-willed Russian Jew who, at 16, after her parents are murdered in a pogrom in Russia, is left to care for an insane brother and her own newborn the result of her rape. She comes to Gai Oni, where Yehiel, a widower with two children, offers to marry her, and Fania lives as a peasant, working fields that won't yield much more than onions and cucumbers. When Fania becomes an entrepreneur, her success causes tension with her idealistic husband, who believes hard labor is the only just way to live. Meanwhile, Fania's memories prevent her from intimacy with Yehiel, and her independent streak causes her to struggle with her own desires and her duty to her family. Although Fania is a spirited female protagonist and Lapid highlights an important slice of history, her other characters remain underdeveloped and one-dimensional vehicles for a discussion of Israel's history and politics, which is difficult to follow, while the ending's strange twist lacks resolution.
