Sea of Lights by Yael Remen (2009)

Sea of Lights is novel about the author's father, Avraham Binder. He was born in Vilna, Lithuania in 1906 and his live spanned nearly a century. He died in 2001 in Israel. During his lifetime, he experienced pogroms in his native land, felt the effects of the Holocaust, and survived the Israeli wars of independence. He was a bookbinder by trade and an accomplished artist. There should be an interesting story in here somewhere.

Unfortunately, this book suffers from the lack of a good editor. In addition to numerous spelling errors, there was much extraneous materials. While reading this 600+ page tome, I often felt like I was living Avraham Binder's life in real time. After reading the first few chapters, I felt that I had a bad translation from the original Hebrew. Unfortunately, the book was not a translation; the original had been written in English. Although the author was born in Israel, she has lived in the United States for many, many years.

Avraham immigrated to Israel on the eve of World War II. He had been involved in the Zionist movement, but his primary objective was to attend the prestigious Bezalel art school in Jerusalem. After a few lessons, he realized that his artistic philosophy differed too greatly from that of the school and he withdrew. He found himself in Tel Aviv where he opened a bookbinding business. He continued his painting and got involved in the Tel Aviv art scene.

His parents and younger sister eventually join him in Israel. Tzila, his younger sister, is a painter in her own right. She meets and falls in love with the married Israeli poet, Natan Alterman. They have a long-term relationship, which is wife is apparently aware of and does not actively disapprove.

Avraham was madly in love with the beautiful Rachel, however, she marries his close friend. This devastates him. He begins a relationship with his landlady, who is considerably older than him. When she becomes possessive and jealous, he leaves her. She later commits suicide. Avraham eventually meets and marries Sara. His wife and mother do not get along. The author's depiction of Sara is not kind. She seems like a selfish woman.

The author seems to want to provide, in addition to her father's story, the history of modern Israel. Unfortunately, this does not work well. Events are described without a clear connection to the characters. It is too bad, because there is probably a very interesting story about Avraham Binder.


Read: April 3, 2010