What Makes an Apple?: Six Conversations about Writing, Love, Guilt, and Other Pleasures

by Amos Oz

Overview

Revelatory talks about art and life with internationally acclaimed Israeli novelist Amos Oz

In the last years of his life, the writer Amos Oz talked regularly with Shira Hadad, who worked closely with him as the editor of his final novel, Judas. These candid, uninhibited dialogues show a side of Oz that few ever saw. What Makes an Apple? presents the most revealing of these conversations in English for the first time, painting an illuminating and disarmingly intimate portrait of a towering literary figure.

In frank and open exchanges that are by turns buoyant, introspective, and argumentative, Oz explains what impels him to begin a story and shares his routines, habits, and challenges as a writer. He discusses the tectonic changes he experienced in his lifetime in relationships between women and men, and describes how his erotic coming of age shaped him not only as a man but also as an author. Oz reflects on his parents, his formative years on a kibbutz, and how he dealt with and learned from his critics, his students, and his fame. He talks about why there is more humor in his later books and gives his exceptional take on fear of death.

Resonating with Oz’s clear, honest, and humorous voice, What Makes an Apple? offers unique insights about Oz’s artistic and personal evolution, and enables readers to explore his work in new ways.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691219905
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	06/07/2022
Pages:	152
Sales rank:	1,105,273
Product dimensions:	5.60(w) x 8.60(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Amos Oz (1939–2018) was a world-renowned novelist, essayist, and short-story writer. His many books include A Tale of Love and Darkness, Scenes from Village Life, and How to Cure a Fanatic (Princeton). Shira Hadad is an acclaimed editor of contemporary Israeli fiction and a screenwriter. She edited works by such writers as Amos Oz and Zeruya Shalev, and created TV dramas for various networks. Jessica Cohen is the translator of Amos Oz’s Dear Zealots and of works by such writers as Etgar Keret, Ronit Matalon, and Nir Baram.

Date of Birth:

May 4, 1939

Date of Death:

December 28, 2018

Place of Birth:

Jerusalem

Place of Death:

Tel Aviv, Israel

Table of Contents

Preface vii

A Heart Pierced by an Arrow 1

Sometimes 30

A Room of Your Own 66

When Someone Beats Up Your Child 86

What No Writer Can Do 104

The Lights Have Been Changing without Us for a Long Time 121

Acknowledgments 139

Notes 141

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“These revealing conversations between Amos Oz and Shira Hadad, who became friends when she edited his last novel, offer insight into the complex personality of a major literary figure. Their talks range over a wide variety of topics, from writing to sex to death, conveying a vivid sense of a man taking stock of his life and painfully aware of its approaching end.”—Robert Alter, author of Nabokov and the Real World

“This is such a beautiful book. Moving, elegiac, and masterfully edited, What Makes an Apple? will occupy a special place in Oz’s body of work as his final words on his own writing.”—Barbara E. Mann, author of The Object of Jewish Literature: A Material History

“Shira Hadad brings out a more relaxed and personal side of Oz than he ever revealed before. Here his vulnerability and humor are touching and delightful. Full of broader insights about life and art, and superbly translated by Jessica Cohen, this book feels like a final letter addressed to Oz’s readers.”—Yael Halevi-Wise, author of The Retrospective Imagination of A. B. Yehoshua

Editorial Reviews

01/31/2022

Six conversations between Israeli novelist Oz (1939–2018) (A Tale of Love and Darkness) and screenwriter Hadad come together in this pleasant if scattershot collection. Their chats touch on such topics as Oz’s childhood (“I was an only child and I did not have any friends”), his adult relationships, writing habits (“My main ritual is to have everything in its place”), and the Israel-Palestine conflict (Oz calls “reality strikes” such as intifadas and bloodshed much more influential on how people see the situation than op-eds). Among the most memorable commentary is on the writer’s craft; in reflecting on his writing, Oz says that “no writer... can write about a person more intelligent than him or her,” nor can they persuasively depict someone with a better sense of humor than themselves. These two limitations notwithstanding, Oz suggests that he relishes writing about characters who are different from him. Though there are many such insightful comments, it’s hard to tell what the point is—at times the only thing holding the conversations together is Oz’s personality, which won’t be enough for those not already enamored of the author’s work. For his fans, though, this works as a quick fix. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"[A] wonderful little book."—-Robert Siegel, Moment Magazine

From the Publisher

2021-11-30
Perspectives on life and literature from one of Israel’s most celebrated authors.

In 2014, Hadad edited Judas, the final novel by Israeli novelist Oz (1939-2018). After that, their conversations continued periodically during the final four years of Oz’s life, resulting in “dozens of recorded hours” of occasionally contentious conversations. In these six chats, Oz lyrically addresses such topics as his motivations as a writer, writing process, views on sexuality, decades on a kibbutz, and the ways in which his writing changed from early successes to later works such as A Tale of Love and Darkness (2005). Ask an opinionated person like Oz for opinions, and one is likely to get provocative answers, but most of his responses are benign, as when he states that writing never gets easier: “writing is like driving with one foot on the gas and one on the brakes the whole time.” More disturbing are comments on “militant feminism” and his fear that the #MeToo movement “is in danger of sliding down the slippery slope from understandable and justifiable revolutionary zeal to Bolshevik cruelty.” In another conversation, Oz complains that much of modern literature “is nothing but agendas or a cunning attempt to disguise agendas” and executed with a “totalitarian steamroller,” a shift that makes the teaching of literature “like being an explosives specialist neutralizing a suspicious object.” Readers can decide for themselves whether they concur with him or, like Hadad, strongly disagree. Fortunately, most of the book consists of witty observations on writing and more, and Oz shares a reassuring analogy for writers who get frustrated when the work goes poorly: “What you do is actually similar to a grocer’s job. You come to work in the morning, you open up the shop, you sit there and wait for customers. If there are customers, it’s a good day. If there aren’t, you’re still doing your job by sitting there waiting.”

Memorable viewpoints guaranteed to evoke strong feelings.

Kirkus Reviews