Amos Oz - Fima (Harcourt, 1994).  Translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange.

ISBN: 780156001434 | 336 pages | EPUB & MOBI


Fima lives in Jerusalem, but feels he ought to be somewhere else.  In his life he has had secret love affairs, good ideas, and written a book of poems that aroused expectations.  He has thought about the purpose of the universe and where the country lost its way.  He has felt longings of all sorts, and the constant desire to pen a new chapter.  And here he is now, in his early fifties in a shabby apartment on a gloomy wet morning, engaged in a humiliating struggle to release his shirt from the zipper of his fly.  With wit and insight, Amos Oz portrays a man -- and a generation -- dreaming noble dreams but doing nothing.


Reviews

"Astonishing . . . galvanic and intoxicating." -- The New Yorker

"One of Oz's most memorable fictional creations . . . Fima is a cross between Chekhov's Uncle Vanya and Joyce's Leopold Bloom." -- Washington Post

"Funny, wistful and beautiful. . . full of life and humour, spirit and reality." -- Philadelphia Inquirer

"In Oz's new novel, brilliant, pathetic, naive, dyspeptic Efraim (Fima) Nisan wanders through his Jerusalem life like an irritating shopper in a department store. Fima published a highly regarded book of poems in his salad days but has since lapsed into a dreary existence of intellectual and political quarreling; his brilliance gets on everyone's nerves almost as much as his inability to manage his life properly. He now works as a receptionist at a gynecological clinic and has puzzling affairs with women whose husbands have lost interest in them. Throughout the book, Fima makes plans to see a Jean Gabin film, but when he finally gets to the theater, it has come and gone. Oz uses his protagonist's arguments and fantasies of becoming prime minister to convey the confused and confusing mixture of political and personal life in his homeland. A fine work by one of Israel's best writers." -- Harold Augenbraum, Library Journal
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For more fiction and non-fiction by Amos Oz, see the following links:

A Tale of Love and Darkness: A Memoir (2004): 
http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8412136/

My Michael (2005): 
http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8529429/

Scenes from Village Life (2011): 
http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8412091/

Under this Blazing Light: Essays (1995): 
http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8370300/

Where the Jackals Howl & Other Stories (2012) 
http://piratebayproxy.live/torrent/8529431/