Fields of Exile (ebook)

Argumento de Fields of Exile (ebook)

The author of a previous well-received collection of stories titled Marrow, Gold is a highly competent writer and reportedly the first to focus on the shocking anti-Israel climate now prevalent on many Canadian and American campuses.

Nora Gold's Fields of Exile is a fine novel: poignant, passionate, compelling, and funny, an adventure of the heart and mind. I don?t think anybody has nailed the way anti-Israel feeling gives the licence for antisemitism as well as Gold has here, and you won't find a more unflinching examination of the terrible ironies inherent in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or a more compelling portrait of the personal toll exacted from those who face these ironies with courage. This is an emotionally fraught, distinguished novel, often as humorous as it is harrowing.

?the great strength of this novel is Nora Gold?s spot on portrayal of the shock of encountering antisemitism, the dizzying dismay of finding that howling hateful horde even here in Canada.

Nora Gold?s Fields of Exile restores one's faith in the possibilities of the novel. It is truly a novel of ideas, a brave book that ventures into territory from which nonfiction has shied away and even obscured the truth. With a lyrical flair Nora Gold has delivered a novel that casts a light onto the ivory tower in ways that should unsettle the faculty lounge.

An engrossing read.? A revealing and searing portrayal of moral courage and commitment amidst hypocrisy and betrayal ? seen through a cross-cultural looking-glass.

'My heart is in the East and I am in the far, far West.' Seldom has anyone expressed so well as Nora Gold the yearning for Zion that remains within every fibre of one who has been torn away from a life of fulfillment in Israel and condemned unwillingly to return to the anti-Zionism/antisemitism of exile. A brave book that courageously takes on the ambivalences of Jewish life in the Diaspora ? ambivalences that mirror those of the protagonist, torn between two very different lovers.

A novel about a difficult subject ? antisemitism in the university ? written with passion and fervor.

Nora Gold's Fields of Exile is a gripping tale. It is also a novel of ideas in the tradition of George Elliot, Doris Lessing, and Marge Piercy, but one that is filled with real characters, a literary sensibility, and a powerful example of the near-fatal consequences of anti-Israel aggression. The heroine Judith's vulnerability, dreaminess, erotic imagination, and knowledge of Jewish traditions in both kitchen and yeshiva drew me close and kept me there, and I could not put this book down. I wanted to scream to her, though: 'Danger Ahead! Proceed with Caution,' but she could not hear me. I hope and pray that this novel's readers do.

Gold offers sensuous descriptions of the Jewish homeland ?

Dr. Nora Gold is a prize-winning author, activist, and scholar. Her first book, Marrow and Other Stories, received glowing reviews and won a Canadian Jewish Book Award. Gold is editor-in-chief of the literary journal Jewish Fiction .net, and Writer-in-Residence and Associate Scholar at OISE/University of Toronto's Centre for Women's Studies. She lives in Toronto.

In Fields of Exile, Nora Gold succeeds fully in making her characters debate social and political themes as an expression of their personal complex contradictions. They are luminously alive. This novel is about men and women who are trying to understand and define their relations to each other, as well as their place in society. Wonderful reading.

Given the climate of anti-Israel hatred, this book is an excellent choice for book discussion clubs and interfaith and inter-political dialogue.

Fields of Exile is a novel that tackles some difficult questions. What exactly is terrorism? Does Israel have the right to defend itself against suicide bombers? Are those who attack Israel?s responses to terrorism anti-Semites? What can be done to properly and fairly state Israel?s case on Canadian campuses? Even so, the novel is not political in nature. This gripping work of fiction is also the very touching story of a young woman faced with the challenges of life, both on campus and at home.

The yearning for true peace and human compassion blooms in these fields of exile. Judith, the protagonist, much like Nora Gold, the author, searches relentlessly for ways to fix the flaws of our world. This is a novel written with an open heart and a loving hand, and with the hope that literature can somehow make amends. After crossing many fields of exile we, like Judith, shall finally find our way home.0