Never Ending Stories–essay in The Tel Aviv Review of Books

Haim Watzman

A plaint about the inordinate length of too many contemporary Israeli novels.

“Do not speak slightingly of the three-volume novel,” Miss Prism, the governess, cautions her charge in Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Through four decades of reading Hebrew novels, I have diffidently heeded the sage advice of this sterling Victorian educator. But no longer. I boldly pronounce, here in the pixels of this daring Israeli literary publication, what I have been keeping pent up in my kishkes for so many years. Many contemporary Hebrew novels are too long. Way too long. … continue reading at The Tel Aviv Review of Books

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