What is it about the WW2 years that cause novelists and civilian writers of memoirs who write in English about the British Mandate of Palestine to skate over them?.
I have had people tell me that nothing interesting happened in those years so they wouldn't want to read about it anyway but I would argue that the events of 1942 are as eventful as any, marking as they do a watershed in British -Zionist relations. I consider the formation of the Palmach by the British as a resistance group against probable German Invasion and the subsequent disbandment order was one of the single biggest factor leading to the post war mess. Yet people seem to know nothing about those events
Golda Meir probably had an excuse for skating over the period in her memoir in that the war years covered painful events in her marriage,
Moshe Dayan also had an excuse in his memoir. He was in prison from 1939 and then so severely wounded in Syria in 1941 that he confined his life to his own family for three or so years.
Other people who became famous were on war service outside Palestine but there were others
who stayed in Palestine who must know their importance. A small part of it may still be covered by the official secrets act but most of it is in the public domain.
Perhaps it is because of the paucity of memoirs that novels set in that period appear to be non-existent.
My outburst is caused by today's delivery of two well-written novels by Dvora Waysman. I had been looking forward to their arrival for some time. One covers events from 1951 onwards but the other The Pomegranite Pendant is a saga that covers the period 1890 -1950. I turned to it eagerly only to discover that the events of WW2 occupy about a page and a half.
It makes me all the more determined to hone my writing skills sufficiently to get the second novel in my trilogy spanning the years 1942-1945 published.
Monday 23 February 2009
Monday 9 February 2009
Snow here and now, snow there and then
A whole lot of activities have been cancelled here in Leicester due to a few inches of snow and colder whether than we have experienced for over 20 years. This gave me more time for writing. In my last post I spoke of my discoveries about November 1945. Those had given me 6000 words. It was now time to move on from Givat Hayim. The carastrophic event had caused a rift between my diverse characters and I needed to get them together again. The best way to do that in Palestine is via a wedding. The wedding I chose was of the Greek Orthodox variety. For plot purposes wedding invatations needed to appear to appear early in January. I thought I should leave at least eight weeks between invitation and wedding so hit on on the first Wednesday in March as the wedding date. That would provide me with an opportunity to describe a host of spring flowers. Luckily I had not wasted too much time in word-painting Palestine Spring before I realised my whopping error. I had not taken into account Great Lent.
Since Great Lent starts over 40 days before Greek Orthodox Easter Day my first task now was to determine the date of Eastern Orthodox Easter in 1945 - which proved nothing so simple as adding a fortnight on to Western Easter or co-inciding it with Jewish passover. I found two web sites claiming to calculate Orthodox Easters from way back. Unfortunately each arrived at a different date, so I used Nazareth tourist guide logic and plumped for the more convenient date. During the research into Greek Orthodox rituals I had come upon another perinent piece of information. Orthodox weddings generally take place on a Sunday. Employing a modicum of maths, I discovered the wedding would have to take place on February 17th.
Snow was piling up on my garden and the top of my car as I clicked my way through the Palestine Post, searching for news of political importance. I discovered a real coincidence. On Sunday 17th Fenruary 1945 snow had blanketed Jerusalem and made roads leading to it impassible. So that, I thought, was the weekend we had built our snowman abd Dad had wanted to take us sledging by Rachael's tomb but we hadn't been able to get out. That too,according to the Palestine Post was the week end every chemist in Jerusalem sold out of camera film, which explains why, when the elderly show you their favourite snaps of Palestine, you are tempted to think of el Quds as a city built inside the arctic circle.
Since Great Lent starts over 40 days before Greek Orthodox Easter Day my first task now was to determine the date of Eastern Orthodox Easter in 1945 - which proved nothing so simple as adding a fortnight on to Western Easter or co-inciding it with Jewish passover. I found two web sites claiming to calculate Orthodox Easters from way back. Unfortunately each arrived at a different date, so I used Nazareth tourist guide logic and plumped for the more convenient date. During the research into Greek Orthodox rituals I had come upon another perinent piece of information. Orthodox weddings generally take place on a Sunday. Employing a modicum of maths, I discovered the wedding would have to take place on February 17th.
Snow was piling up on my garden and the top of my car as I clicked my way through the Palestine Post, searching for news of political importance. I discovered a real coincidence. On Sunday 17th Fenruary 1945 snow had blanketed Jerusalem and made roads leading to it impassible. So that, I thought, was the weekend we had built our snowman abd Dad had wanted to take us sledging by Rachael's tomb but we hadn't been able to get out. That too,according to the Palestine Post was the week end every chemist in Jerusalem sold out of camera film, which explains why, when the elderly show you their favourite snaps of Palestine, you are tempted to think of el Quds as a city built inside the arctic circle.
Wednesday 21 January 2009
Palestine Post and Researching November 1945
I realised the other day when looking through the first draft of the third book in my trilogy that no scene takes place in November 1945 and as far as I was aware, nothing interesting happened in Palestine that month. Then I realised that I spent most of that month on board the liner Caernarvon Castle, travelling from Durban to Suez. Nowadays people travelling on liners may be able to keep in touch with what is happening anywhere in the world, but not so in 1945.
Even when we had landed and in Suez and had travelled on to Palestine to meet my father, whom we had not seen for two and a half years, for the rest of November I was too immersed in settling into our new home on Mt Carmel and into my new school.
Once I realised why I had no interesting memories, I looked through a few timelines on the internet and found one that claimed terrorists had bombed CID HQ in Jerusalem on November 25th.
As is my custom when finding an entry so close to home I brought up the relevant issues of the Palestine Post to read reports and comments. I found nothing in November about the blowing up of any CID station but as I skimmed through a story emerged of escalating violemce culminating in the most deplorable happenings in the Hefer Valley area. It was hard to believe that such a disaster could have occured while I was in Palestine and that it had passed me by.It would not have done so two and a half years earlier, nor would it have done so a few weeks later when I had once more become accustomed to discussing current affairs with my father.
A word here about the Palestine Post. It was an English language paper published by a Jewish firm but read by all the British, because its front pages and editorials not only concentrated on internationl news but also reported on British football matches and county cricket. It covered Palestinian affairs as well, of course and in the least overtly biased way of any Palestinian paper.
Comparing it to contemporary English papers, it had more in common with the Manchester Guardian than the Daily Mirror.
It is now readily accessible to all. Formerly, if I wanted to read an item in the Palestine Post, I had to travel to the British newspaper library at Colindale where I might wait hours for a microfiche reader to become available.
Now however, I just click on the favourites button on my computer and I can browse through all the extant issues.
This is thanks to the University of Tel Aviv's Jews of Islamic Countries Archiving Project , established by Prof. Yaron Tzur. In personal terms I am extremely grateful to the technology manager, Shaul A. Duke (fka Shaul Garcia), who has helped me so often when I changed to a new browser.
Even when we had landed and in Suez and had travelled on to Palestine to meet my father, whom we had not seen for two and a half years, for the rest of November I was too immersed in settling into our new home on Mt Carmel and into my new school.
Once I realised why I had no interesting memories, I looked through a few timelines on the internet and found one that claimed terrorists had bombed CID HQ in Jerusalem on November 25th.
As is my custom when finding an entry so close to home I brought up the relevant issues of the Palestine Post to read reports and comments. I found nothing in November about the blowing up of any CID station but as I skimmed through a story emerged of escalating violemce culminating in the most deplorable happenings in the Hefer Valley area. It was hard to believe that such a disaster could have occured while I was in Palestine and that it had passed me by.It would not have done so two and a half years earlier, nor would it have done so a few weeks later when I had once more become accustomed to discussing current affairs with my father.
A word here about the Palestine Post. It was an English language paper published by a Jewish firm but read by all the British, because its front pages and editorials not only concentrated on internationl news but also reported on British football matches and county cricket. It covered Palestinian affairs as well, of course and in the least overtly biased way of any Palestinian paper.
Comparing it to contemporary English papers, it had more in common with the Manchester Guardian than the Daily Mirror.
It is now readily accessible to all. Formerly, if I wanted to read an item in the Palestine Post, I had to travel to the British newspaper library at Colindale where I might wait hours for a microfiche reader to become available.
Now however, I just click on the favourites button on my computer and I can browse through all the extant issues.
This is thanks to the University of Tel Aviv's Jews of Islamic Countries Archiving Project , established by Prof. Yaron Tzur. In personal terms I am extremely grateful to the technology manager, Shaul A. Duke (fka Shaul Garcia), who has helped me so often when I changed to a new browser.
Sunday 18 January 2009
An introduction
Land of Broken Promises is the name I gave to the trilogy of novels I planned many years ago to be set in the British Mandate of Palestine covering the years 1938-1948. I chose to concentrate on this period and this location because I spent my childhood in Palestine when it was being governed by the British. So far only the first novel in the trilogy has been published and in some ways I wish it hadn't (although I was grateful at the time for the money received from the publishers!)
The trouble is, once one part of a trilogy is set in stone, it limits what one can do with the rest. One can't change the names of the main characters, nor alter their previous history, however convenient it would be for the novel one is currently writing.
The title of the novel that has been published is Struggling Free and covers the period 1938-1941. It centres on three very young women, one English, one Jewish and one Arabic who between them are unintentionally responsible for the death of two men.
The second novel has the working title Spreading Tattered Wings and covers the period 1941-1945 It has not yet been published. I learnt my lesson on that with Struggling Free.
I am working on the third novel (working title Home to Roost) and am about two thirds of the way through. It will cover the period 1945-1948.
Some people seem to be able to dash away at their novels and do their research later. I can't do that. I do my research first but am constantly discovering while writing how much more research I need to do and find can't continue writing until the facts are clear
In the course of this blog I hope to show some of the things, not necessarily of a literary nature that I have learnt during the years I have been writing this trilogy
The trouble is, once one part of a trilogy is set in stone, it limits what one can do with the rest. One can't change the names of the main characters, nor alter their previous history, however convenient it would be for the novel one is currently writing.
The title of the novel that has been published is Struggling Free and covers the period 1938-1941. It centres on three very young women, one English, one Jewish and one Arabic who between them are unintentionally responsible for the death of two men.
The second novel has the working title Spreading Tattered Wings and covers the period 1941-1945 It has not yet been published. I learnt my lesson on that with Struggling Free.
I am working on the third novel (working title Home to Roost) and am about two thirds of the way through. It will cover the period 1945-1948.
Some people seem to be able to dash away at their novels and do their research later. I can't do that. I do my research first but am constantly discovering while writing how much more research I need to do and find can't continue writing until the facts are clear
In the course of this blog I hope to show some of the things, not necessarily of a literary nature that I have learnt during the years I have been writing this trilogy
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