THE EXTRA
A novel by A. B. Yehoshua
A. B. Yehoshua stands tall among contemporary novelists and
in the company of wonderful Israeli writers like Amos Oz and David Grossman.
They paint personal portraits of compelling characters, and, in Yehoshua’s
case, often women, who face universal challenges – intimacy, family, the tug
between near and far – always as a reflection of the challenges of their
homeland.
Israel is unique. A tiny country, only 68 years old, dedicated
to Judaism but largely secular, forever on the defense for aggressively defensive
tactics, and a country being steadily taken over by the ultra-conservative, due
in no small part to their birthing rate: orthodox Jews take their mandate to go
forth and multiply quite seriously.
So it is no surprise that Noga, the fiercely independent
protagonist of this novel, a harpist, an instrument so often in the background, has chosen to
remain childless, to the chagrin of her parents and the humiliation of her
husband, who left her nine years earlier for this reason.
At the start of the novel, Noga’s father has
passed away and her mother, urged by Noga’s brother, has to choose to either stay in Jerusalem, in an area of the city being overtaken by the orthodox community,
or to move to a senior center in Tel Aviv, a lively cosmopolitan city. Noga,
who migrated to The Netherlands many years before and is featured with the
symphony there, returns to Israel for three months to live in her mother’s
apartment while her mother tries on the arrangement, because the apartment is
rent-controlled and will otherwise revert to a greedy landlord.
To pass the time and to earn a little money, Noga works as
an extra for films and theater there, a perfect setting as she has become an
extra to her own life. Her relationships are not satisfying, she rarely sees
her brother and mother, and she has been disconnected from her Israeli roots. During
this time, she develops unexpected relationships with old and new neighbors,
encounters a husband still struggling with her choices, and a number of other
extras with challenges of their own.
