"I won't call you anymore, Eshkol Nevo." / Lily Milat grabs a shelf

As I see it and from my experience, an early morning phone call never bodes well. The first time the phone rang like that at my parents' house, was in the days when there was only landline, the 80s. After that phone call there were too many events and voices. I got out of bed to the next room. I remember that my older brothers were awake in their beds but, unlike our habit in those days, they did not have the expression on their faces of planning childish schemes. And mother stood between them. What a difficult role parents have, they have no discounts, no one to do the work for them. and I saw And I knew. But I didn't know who. 

Aunt Farha died in her sleep at night, after winning a crushing victory over David Sassoon in a match and called father to brag. The Iraqis don't like to lose, but David Sassoon gave in and must have made a joke, as is his custom.

In a sharp transition to the second decade of the 2000s, when he was still continuing without her into the digital world she didn't know, I came with my father to the Carmel Castle for a visit. In Aunt Farah's wallet, which he kept as if only yesterday she was with him, there were new, taut five shekel bills. Yes, before there was a new shekel. And David Sassoon decided, perhaps realizing in advance that this was his last year with us, to distribute the bills.

My brother and I got a souvenir from my aunt's purse when she passed away, and the recipe for the cheese sambusk went with her for many years until mom tracked it down, but that's a story for another day.
The five shekel bill from the 80s, adorning the face of Levi Eshkol and in a somewhat metaphorical way, I received the bill when I was already living in the kibbutz of which he was one of the founders. Levy Eshkol, blessed memory, did not get to know his grandson, who is named after him and whose books we gathered here - the author Eshkol Nevo.

Four houses and longing/ Eshkol Nevo

On December 24, 2018, I finished a book by Eshkol for the first time, after which I wrote on my Facebook account that 'I will not read any more books by Eshkol Nevo'. It was after I finished his book Four houses and longing. Why did I make such a sharp statement? Here are all the reasons I listed:
"I will not read any more Eshkol Nevo books.
I will not read any more Eshkol Nevo books this year.
Or until I finish writing my current book.

I know. I waited a long time until I got to this book. But he got to me just in time.
Since Little Women Joe, no one has reminded me why and why I want to be a writer.
Eshkol Nevo reminded me why and also reminded me why Hebrew. He manages to do with her what I aim at.

Maybe it's the rhymes that work for him, maybe it's the polyphony of the characters in the book that also characterizes my books. Maybe it's just the feeling that someone does understand.
Perhaps due to all these and more I will not run today to look for the rest of his books, because for the first time I have a fear that I will lose my inner voice in his writings.
I won't read you anymore, Eshkol Nebo.
Because that's how good you are.
Thanks."

So yes, I loved you Four houses and longing And especially the writing of someone who grew up in our city Haifa and it appears in many of his books. At that time I was in the midst of writing my first book of prose and still searching for my exact voice as a writer. When I read Eshkol, I was so captivated by his writing that I was afraid to continue reading, lest I adopt his voice before finding my own. But as soon as I finished writing my book, I felt safe enough and for my birthday I asked for "every book by Eshkol Nevo, will be welcomed."

 The last hope in Siberia / Eshkol Nevo

I spent the last weekend in the company of The last hope in Siberia. The book took me on a trip to the graves of tzaddiks mixed with the Russian Aliya and how such different worlds of religion and culture meet with chess for baptism in the mikvah. No, I didn't make a mistake. You will have to read for yourself and see that I did indeed write a syntactically correct sentence when I came to briefly describe the story.

Quotes I liked:
"His ability to speak as if he writes the words in his head and arranges them beautifully before they come out of his mouth."
"Old friends are home. And sometimes they are also a prison."
And in the spirit of this week's elections: "The memory of voters in Israel is as short as "Uzi".

in answer to the question remaining או loose In my private library? 
In my life I planned to write loose, because I have enough Eshkol books in my bag, like Newland, that you will kill me if I remember why I stopped reading it a few years ago on page 362, and if I want to return to it I will probably have to start from Genesis.

And there is also you One wish to the right, which I received as a present on that birthday and I leave you with a quote that only those who lived in Haifa in those years will understand:
"Every Saturday morning, in an open field at the entrance to the city (on which today a mall has already grown), fathers and sons would get together to fly buzzing airplanes." It takes me straight to Saturdays of old, abandoned cars on the outskirts of the moment before Freud's ascension and airplanes in the air.

So as of writing these lines, I still don't know definitively what I'm doing with these three books, but I can tell you for sure that his book The last interview Keep a place of respect and appreciation in my library and it is for sure remaining. As a writer, I have many books that are 'about writing'. This book by Eshkol is unique, because in reverse it tells about the life of a writer, but it is not certain that it is his own and in a fascinating way of answering the questionnaire, a novel is obtained that I have so many quotes to keep from it.

And it was difficult, but I chose only one for you, tough, boxing in the stomach during this period in particular:
"I didn't answer. I didn't argue. I didn't claim that love conquers any force that stands in front of it, including ideology. Or that love is the ideology. I kept watching TV all night. I waited for names. 
I had a gut feeling. Like mothers have before the representatives of the city officer knock on the door."

Three generations of the Eshkol family, grandfather, daughter and grandson, touched my life in some literary way. daughter, Ofra Nevo-Eshkol wrote the book about her father A cluster of humor, which I met as a child in the library at my parents' house. Later, when I edited the The 100th anthology of Degania b, I personally met Ofra during the Corona days in Haifa, after she wrote a family story for an anthology. And in the stories, as in life, the kibbutz and the cities of Haifa are intertwined.

Details of the books: 

One Wish to the Right by Eshkol Nevo, Kinneret Publishing House, Zamora-Beitan, Dvir, 2007.
Newland by Eshkol Nevo, Kinneret Publishing House, Zamora-Beitan, Dvir, 2011.
The Last Hope in Siberia by Eshkol Nevo, Kinneret Publishing House, Zamora-Beitan, Dvir, 2013.
The last interview by Eshkol Nevo, Kinneret Publishing House, Zamora-Beitan, Dvir, 2018. 

Pleasant reading and may good words be by your side always,
Lily