Critical Reviews for Liar by Ayelet Gundargoshen Interview
Liar , by Ayelet Gundar-Goshen (tr. Sondra Silverston), presents the story of Nofar: seventeen, an ugly duckling in her own optics, invisible to her peers. We run across her during the summer holiday before her concluding year of high schoolhouse, working in an ice-cream shop in the middle of Tel Aviv, badly hoping for something to happen to her, something to rescue her from her depressing life. And something does happen. After an altercation with a customer, a famous-for-fifteen-minutes refugee from reality television, she flees the shop in tears and runs into a neighboring backyard. He chases after her, grabs her arm firmly; she screams. Passers-past get together circular and offer their aid; and almost by accident, the story of a sexual assault that never took identify is built-in. Nofar'due south lie picks up pace; all of a sudden the girl under a cloud is in the limelight, and everyone wants to be associated with her.
Liar , Gundar-Goshen'southward 3rd novel, addresses two very contemporary, just nevertheless opposing, social phenomena: #MeToo and Fake News. That said, this novel is not well-nigh female empowerment, and does not accost the issue of sexual harassment. To the contrary: it tries to understand what might prompt a regular everyday girl to make an untrue accusation against another person. In parallel, it presents a false reality in which all of its characters are guilty of lies, and considers the value of a prevarication in an age where the "narrative" has go a substitute for identity.
Liar addresses this question on 2 levels, the modern and the postmodern. With the first, the novel considers its protagonist's psycho-social positioning as an explanation for her lie. Nofar'southward life undergoes a dramatic upheaval in the wake of her accusation; she is interviewed on television conversation shows nigh her ordeal, and her social status heaven-rockets. She benefits personally from this: a newly discovered self-confidence creates a buffer which helps her to bargain with her ambivalence towards her supposed aggressor, and to ward off growing suspicions near her tale. Merely this central narrative pin is flawed. There is something naïve and reductive in the presentation of this thread: the characterization is unconvincing, the details unrealistic. The police investigating the allegation, the media, her family, her schoolhouse: all come across very much like rhetorical devices, an all-too-like shooting fish in a barrel means of conveying a complicated message about contemporary Israeli society.
Nevertheless. What comes across as flaws from a realist indicate of view takes on new significance from a postmodern perspective. Liar presents a social reality underpinned by what Fredric Jameson describes as "the cultural logic of late capitalism." This reality is that of a global consumerist guild, a social reality inside which identity is just another product; feelings, passions, memories are mere items, and can be purchased or exchanged according to one's whims. In this marketplace called Capitalism, the most pop goods for sale are self-prototype, the "make," and symbolic capital.
This orientation becomes somewhat clearer once one begins to engage with Gundar-Goshen'due south sub-plots, and their underlying roles as literary devices. I such digression concerns the relationship between Raymonde and Rivka, two elderly women living in a retirement home. Raymonde immigrated to State of israel as a kid from Kingdom of morocco, and spent her childhood in a Ma'araba , a transit army camp for new migrants. Rivka, for her function, is a Holocaust survivor; she spent her first years in Israel on a Kibbutz, where, as she puts it, she acquired "proper Hebrew."
This story arc hints at the historical tensions between the Mizrahim and the Ashkenazim, betwixt the Jews from the Due east and the Jews from the Westward: the explosive socio-political context upon which the social framework of the new Israel established itself in the 1950s. The Mizrahi immigrants who arrived in Israel in the belatedly 1940s and 1950s were perceived by the founding fathers of the nation—nigh all of them Ashkenazim—equally arriving from a primitive place. The official "Melting Pot" land policies of the era demanded of the new immigrants that they must change; that they erase their inferior identities from the galut (which for about meant the identity of the Arab globe from whence they had arrived), and replace this with the identity of the Israeli sabra .
The Holocaust survivors who arrived in Israel during the same period had a similarly alienated experience. Only and then, their status began to change. From the 1960s onwards, the status of the Holocaust survivor became symbolic uppercase of sorts for the first-generation survivors and their descendants—the source of prestige, sometimes even power.
This explosive discourse of identity began to seep into literary works past Israeli writers of Mizrahi groundwork in the 1990s, shaped by a theme that I have described elsewhere as "Holocaust green-eyed." In many of these works, the Mizrahi hero undergoes a transformation of sorts, and is turned into a Holocaust survivor too, by fashion of mimicking and performing the identity of the survivor—or, otherwise, through a fantastical form of reincarnation. The identity exchange depicted thus—examples include Kobi Oz'due south Avara'ayan Tzaatzua , Yossi Avni'southward Aunt Farhuma Wasn't a Whore After All , and Dudu Busi's A Noble Brutal —tended to be presented in somewhat ambivalent fashion. On the one paw, there is the (fictionalized) desire of the Mizrahim to be like their Ashkenazi brothers. They too desire a Holocaust experience, in lodge to acquire the prestigious condition of a victim. But in this mimicry, there is a deliberately parodic or grotesque aspect, from which the social critique of the fiction emerges. Hither, the commentary is pointed: in order to be fully accepted into normative Israeli society, one must transform oneself into a survivor of the Shoah .
Raymonde and Rivka, from two historically different worlds only together in the retirement home, get intimates; they are so close that they brainstorm to be dislocated for i some other, the staff nicknaming them the Siamese Twins. But then Rivka dies. The dark before, Rivka had given Raymonde her mobile phone—she was tired of the constant calls from her children, she explains. This is how Raymonde finds herself answering a telephone call intended for Rivka, from the leader of a party of high-school students visiting Poland and the concentration camps of the Holocaust. Rivka is scheduled to back-trail the trip, to give the youths first-manus testimony of her experience. The delegation leader, flustered and hurried, does non know that Rivka has passed away, does not realize that she is speaking with Raymonde. But Raymonde knows. Subsequently a moment of hesitation, Raymonde/Rivka finds herself confirming that yes, she remembers; well-nigh by blow, she begins to pose as a Holocaust survivor.
On the face of it, this appears to be some other case of "Holocaust envy." But the use to which it is put hither is instrumental, rather than intrinsic. Considering Raymonde/Rivka puts her memories of childhood in a transit camp to skilful apply, turning them into memories of deprivation during the Holocaust, one is tempted to conclude that the objective here is to present a critique (extreme, perhaps) of the process of absorbing the Mizrahim immigrants to Israel (a stance evident in the literature of some Mizrahim writers). But information technology soon becomes clear that Raymonde is using her memories every bit a commodity, a reservoir from which she tin reproduce the identity of a Holocaust survivor—and all that comes with this status. The identity created here is a simulacrum, an imitation of reality. The words that Raymonde uses in her "testimony" recode the scenes, merely without context: socks; hunger; suffering; cold. In "Holocaust envy," the transformation of the identities of the Mizrahi characters is e'er rooted in a social-historical context, revealing the pain of exclusion that a generation of parents and children experienced at the hands of an alienating society. But Gundar-Goshen presents Raymonde'south impersonation as a part of the miracle of consumerism; hither, the desired commodity is that of the identity of Victim.
This sub-plot attaches to the primary narrative only thinly. The journey to Poland is from Nofar's school, and she is i of the participants. Troubled by the blurred human relationship between fact and fiction, Nofar seeks our Raymonde/Rivka on their return to State of israel; afterwards confessing the lie, Nofar asks for her advice. Raymonde/Rivka responds harshly: "With all due respect, at that place's a piddling more to this world than what people say almost you. There are things that you must not exercise, and you did them." But immediately afterwards this, the impersonator confesses to her ain transgressions. Nofar is disappointed that the person who she had taken to be a wise old woman was behaving exactly like an irresponsible teenager; no longer "a Holocaust survivor, just a Holocaust conniver, pretending to exist a victim to proceeds things." Unsurprisingly—perhaps conveniently—Nofar chooses to reject her advice. But there is a deeper point here. The two characters, facing one another with their lies and deceptions, might well be standing in front of a mirror, reflecting their true selves; both pretending to exist victims, both gaining social currency through this impersonation.
The world of Liar is i in which identity is stripped of historical, social and biographical detail. Instead, identity becomes a article, symbolic capital past virtue of one's status as a victim
In "The Skill of Victimhood," Alon Gan explores the depths of this phenomenon in Israeli lodge and farther afield. Victimhood, the argument goes, is the bon-ton of the postmodern era. Something that at first was a means for presenting the stories of the exploited became a goal in itself—admission to the privileged club of Victimhood. The ii stories of Liar , not quite intertwined and non quite parallel, highlight the benefits of Victim status in contemporary guild. From unseen and invisible, Nofar becomes the immature woman who anybody wants to be seen with. She gives aboveboard interviews on television, and receives clothes and presents from the brands who want to be associated with her equally the person of the moment. Made-up, she becomes beautiful, and shakes off the shackles of her moribund existence. And she finds dear too. Lavi Maimon is the same historic period as her, but they have more in common. He too is alienated, hovering on the margins of social life, entertaining thoughts of suicide. His fate changes one day, though, when he looks out of the window of his flat, and becomes the sole witness to the set on that never was. Armed with the truth, he plucks upwardly the courage to approach Nofar, sets up a appointment with her. Information technology'south a relationship of sorts; merely in different ways, each draws forcefulness from the other.
Raymonde/Rivka also reaps the benefits of her new-plant status of victim, Holocaust victim. At first, they are relatively small—the trip abroad, the first plane journey she has taken in her life and indeed the spark for the deception. But as time goes by and she settles into her new status, the benefits begin to accumulate. From the students of the delegation, recognition and admiration; and then subsequently, from Arieh, love and affection. She meets him at an event for survivors of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, which she had attended to "deepen" her new-found identity. Thus the ii mirror images, Nofar and Raymonde, become the center of attention, possessors of a valuable social status enhanced by love and companionship.
Liar is anchored by 2 social arenas, ostensibly representing the two ends of the trajectory of mature adult life: high schoolhouse, infused with the liberty of youth; and the retirement home, defined by old age, gratuitous time, and ultimately death. The reader quickly comes to understand that these 2 arenas are reflections of one another—as Rivka, the real Rivka, puts it, "the retirement dwelling is like loftier schoolhouse for adults." What is information technology like to exist old, Nofar asks Raymonde/Rivka? To be completely solitary, she replies. So much so, i makes upwardly things merely to be less alone. Nofar is disappointed by her answer—it seems to suggest, she thinks, that old age isn't very much different from being seventeen.
Information technology's an interesting point. Past presenting the young daughter and the one-time woman on similar social and emotional axes, stripping from the latter the wisdom that we presume accrues with the passage of time, Gundar-Goshen illuminates the postmodern game that the two are a part of. The globe of Liar is one in which identity is stripped of historical, social and biographical detail. Instead, identity becomes a commodity, symbolic upper-case letter by virtue of one'southward status as a victim—the ultimate victim of the Holocaust, or the more contemporary victim of the #MeToo movement. Liar does non actually criticize this phenomenon, just rather documents this desire for public standing and status, fueled by the hunger for recognition and visibility. Each and every i of the chief characters of this book craves their own 15 minutes of fame—they need it to define their own existence. Fifty-fifty people seeking to create their victimhood through expiry want to exist on the front page of the newspaper, as we empathize with Lavi Maimon's perchance romanticized thoughts of suicide.
The postmodern orientation of the narrative is apparent elsewhere, and not to the credit of the book. The language and fashion of Liar lacks depth, which somewhat serves to emphasize a narrative flatness and arbitrariness. In Poland, for case, Raymonde fears that she will exist revealed every bit a fraud: just, on the 2nd day of the trip, "when she finished speaking and everybody was standing in front of the showers, passing round tissues as though they were popcorn at the cinema, [Raymonde knew] the guide was already completely hers."
This comparison, between watching a movie at the cinema and the testimony of Holocaust survivors, only serves to underline just how completely reality has been tuckered of all substance. Popcorn at the cinema, crying at the horrors of the Holocaust: both are subsumed on the same emotional level, expressions of a reality in which everything has go commercialized: emotions, memories, identity itself.
To be fair, Gundar-Goshen captures the postmodern situation well. Merely: over again and once again, a sense of unease manifests while reading the book. Does Liar seek to expose this reality as an endeavor to present something of substance to the reader? It does seem that dressing up this reflection of postmodernism with literary sensibilities sacrifices a more poignant consideration of life every bit it is lived, complexities and all. Perhaps Liar is, in its ain way, mimicry of a mimicry, and thus merely part of the same structure that it seeks to depict.
Ayelet Gundar-Goshen,Liar(Tran. Sondra Silverston), Pushking Press, pp. 283.
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