APCOM

A note in the dramatic situation of the Middle East. For the Israeli author, Amos Oz, today from the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts arrives a good piece of news. "The media does not talk about it but the majority of Israelis and Palestinians know that in the end there will be two states. Are they happy of this situation? The author asked himself; the answer is no. Will they be dancing on the streets? No. But they will know that there are two countries, divided and confining. On the times I do not know, I have no answers. It will depend a lot on the courage of the leaders of the two sides." Amos Oz, who is in Milano to take part on the cultural kermesse, La Milanesiana, does not seem to have particular faith in the current Israeli and Palestinian commanding classes and explains: "We will need a strong leadership and if they will push towards change they will become stronger , but I do not know if they will be able to".

In the writer's analysis, for Israel, at least two or three painful renounces will be necessary. "One will have to leave the West Bank, Oz said, recognize the right of the Palestinians to have the East German capital and the settlements will have to be abandoned. The Palestinians on their part will have to be satisfied with having Gaza and the West Bank as a territory of their State". Amos Oz then reflects on the condition of the Arab Israelis, "tragic by definition", and remembers a phrase, of a friend's of his, who lived the situation on his own skin: "My country is in war with my people". From such a dramatic contradiction, according to the writer, "one will be able to get out only after having reached the peace between Israel and Palestine, not before".

The "wall" wanted by Sharon is not liked by Amos Oz because "it is built in the wrong place. Sometimes, the writer explained, a wall between my garden and that of my neighbor is needed, but this one was built in between the garden and I think it was wrong". Oz also touches the question of Iran and the Israeli threats. "From the start of Israel's history, there has been someone that begged for its destruction: first Saddam Hussein, today Ahmadinejad's Iran. Israel is the only country in the world in which the right to exist is put in question". A military prevention action against nuclear scenes in Teheran is however useless according to the writer, because "in 10 or 15 years unfortunately every state will have access to nuclear weapons, not only Iran. It is a matter linked to technology and its diffusion, and there is nothing one can do about it. We will live in an atmosphere of reciprocal fear, as happened during the Cold War". And when he is reminded of the tiredness that seems to have hit the young Israelis, Amos Oz, answers: "The tiredness is a syndrome which often hits conflicts which are not resolved, but somehow disappears by exhaustion. But unfortunately - the author adds - fanatics are never tired, we are the tired ones".

Amos Oz also spoke of literature, which for him must be detached from politics. "Telling stories, he explained, does not expect political or ideological justifications. We need stories the same way we need to dream. It is an elementary need, which can not be reduced to ideologies. Narrating is not presenting a sole identity, but it is giving voice to many identities. With only one identity one has lyrical or confessional poetry, but to write a novel one needs more identities".

Oz also ventured in the secrets of his own literature, underlining that his narrative is born from moments of conflict. " When I find I am in perfect harmony with myself, I do not write novels, but some angry articles against the government. When instead I am not at peace with myself, when inside me there are many voices, then I feel ready for a novel". An interior polyphony, which comes out also in very different books. "My writing, Oz added, is sometimes therapeutic, sometimes hypnotic, sometimes musical, sometimes happy. There is not a sole formula for my writing".

There is however a necessity, which for Oz seems to be a moral imperative,: the social responsibility that writers have towards the use of words. The author remembered when in 1982 in Israel, the operation against Lebanon was called "Peace for Galilee" :One can not call war, 'peace'-Oz explained. I am careful of the role of words, when I hear human beings being referred to as 'parasites' or 'undesired elements' I scream. This is my sensibility towards language. War can be right or not, one can talk about it. But never define war as 'peace'.

His last novel, "Rhyming Life and Death" is a trip inside the head of a writer. "The same way I write stories on my life and everything that happens to me, Oz explained, the same way I write a story on how I write a story. It's a novel composed by three combining elements: curiosity, human comprehension, and sense of humor". It is a book in which Oz makes his literary alter ego say that the writer will undergo the same experiences as Lot's wife, "you are forced to look behind and with this your look will transform you and them in salt statues". A vision which could seem pessimistic, but Oz creates a more complex vision: "When I write, I don't think in terms of optimism or pessimism, not in a comical or tragic key. When I was young I though that tragedy and comedy were two different planets, today, instead I think that they are simply two different windows looking at the same panorama. The book is like life: something is lost, but something else is found".

Among the themes of "La Milanesiana 2008" there is the confronting between elements. "My element, Oz said, is the land of the desert. I live in the middle of the desert and this for me is a great stimulus to understand humility. In the desert I understand my life, my period, is extremely brief. I observe stones, rocks, here my words are not important, what counts is the silence. I believe, he added, that we come from silence and we will return to silence. Our life is a brief interval between two silences". Looking at the wrinkles and the firm but serene expression on the writer's face, even such a powerful phrase is less scary.

(Leonardo Merlini)