The Seven Good Years – Keret’s wisdom packs a punch

IN A NUTSHELL

• The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret (Riverhead Books, 2015)
• In 40 words or less: Keret captures life’s small moments and profound truths in the period from the birth of his son through his father’s death. An extraordinary writer, his brilliance is seen in his brevity.
• Genre: Memoir
• Locale: Israel and travels
• Time: Current
• Book Group Potential: Each short piece (4 or 5 pages) focuses on a specific aspect of life. There is truly something for everyone.

From the moment I started the first page of Keret’s wonderful book I tried to ration my reading to make it last longer.  Each of the seven years between the birth of his son, Lev, and the death of his father has its own section, providing natural breaks to savor. The book is a compilation of essays, most originally appearing in a variety of well-respected publications. Some poignant, others laugh-out-loud funny, taken together they bring to mind Joni Mitchell’s song The Circle Game.

As those who have become parents know, there is a cosmic shift in one’s world view as soon as your child is born. One’s sense of responsibility grows, the dangers in the world may seem more profound and there is often a much greater respect for the intelligence and sacrifice of one’s own parents. In this regard, Etgar Keret is like most of the rest of us but has the knack for conveying these messages through the quirky details of daily life.

Beyond his reputation as a writer of absurd, wry and ironic short stories and screenplays, Keret is a voice of modern life in Israel. There is a flavor in many vignettes that is uniquely Israeli, with a fatalistic humor born of decades of conflict. Reading about a conversation among parents of toddlers regarding the compulsory military service of their children fifteen years away would seem ridiculous were there not such a sense of foreboding, since every Israeli family has been touched by the wars and attacks. On the flip side, the reporting of the ongoing exchanges with the telemarketer from the satellite TV company has a small town feel unlike any spam calls I’ve received this century.

Throughout the book we meet other members of Keret’s immediately family. His wife, an acclaimed artist in her own right, is seen as his partner and the mother of his child. Maintaining a relationship with his ultra-orthodox sister mirrors the complexity of the religious and secular conflicts in Israeli daily life. His childhood friends and the people on the street fill out the picture of life he paints.

Bit by bit, Keret shares his admiration for the way his father has chosen to live his life. Born in Poland, Keret’s father was forced into hiding in a hole for over a year during WWII. He shares his father’s audacity in Italy prior to heading to Palestine. Despite the trauma he suffered, he is described as a man who cultivated an attitude of gratitude for all things in his life. The final sections of the book follow family shifts as his father is diagnosed with cancer and makes choices on how to spend his remaining time.

Whether at home or speaking or writing while abroad, Keret’s love for and impatience with Israel are clear.  Nowhere is it more poignant than when he walks along the Mediterranean in Italy and realizes both share the same sea but very different feelings of security. And he is more than a dutiful son when he visits the area of Poland his family called home before it was taken away by the Nazis.

Buy The Seven Good Years as a gift for yourself. It is a book to keep on your nightstand for a brief refresher course in what it means to be human.

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