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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)