I've been on a Jews/Israel reading jag lately, and as part of this, I decided that rereading Exodus might be worth it. I had read it when I was much younger and I remembered being pretty enthralled by the adventure story aspect of the novel, but I also suspected that I might find other aspects of the narrative more problematic this time around...Well, the adventure part holds up. One thing I will say for this story is that it remains a, albeit sappy and silly, page turner. I couldn't help myself, I did in fact enjoy the experience of reading this book, even if I would never rate it as "good" writing from a technical standpoint. Nevertheless OH BOY is this a problematic book. It is, to put it diplomatically, a book of its era, propagating a very specific and Western-centric narrative about the virtuous Jews of Israel redeeming the land of their answers. More simply, it is CRAZY RACIST against Arabs. The Palestinians of Exodus are dirty, backward, lazy and at times, viciously violent against the Jewish settlers. Even the adopted Arab "brother" of the Jewish protagonist, cannot ultimately overcome his "baser" nature and dies an unheroic death because of it.More subtle, but just as present in the book is this weird level of anti-Semitism. The main Jewish protagonist is Ari Ben-Canaan, a Palestinian born superman who is about as from the traditional Jewish stereotype of "weak" and "intellectual" as you can get. He is the definitive sabra (Israeli native), strong, brave, and silent. Karen, one of the other Jewish main characters, is an unusually pretty and well spoken girl, who constantly attracts well mean adults who want to take care of her. Whats heavily implied is that she is pretty enough and well spoken enough to "pass" in the Christian world. Christian outsiders (both in the story, and among the novel's readers) are able to identify with her,and thus empathize with Jewish suffering. I really mean what I said above, this book is absolutely an artifact of its time. I get that the themes I've been picking up on are all part of much larger Israeli themes. I understand that early Zionism was designed to be a rejection of the traditional images of "weak" European Jews, and I also know that this led to many Holocaust survivors moving to Israel after the war and then suffering because of the prejudices of native Israelis. I also understand that this book picks up on the almost overwhelming need by the Israel state of the 50s and 60s to establish a founding narrative and mythology as part of the process of creating a new state in the face of intense difficulties. "Exodus" is basically that narrative, packaged as an adventure novel.Personally, I subscribe to the school of thought that much of the intransigence of the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict has to do with conflicting narratives of past events, and the inability to reconcile one version of history with another. The Palestinians absolutely have their own, very valid version of the events surrounding the founding of the State of Israel and thus far the Israeli narrative has shown precious little interest or will in making room for an opposing understanding of events. Is it really very productive then, to keep retrenching the traditional Israeli side of the story, without at least trying to make room for something else? So fine, read Exodus. Enjoy it on its surface level as a cheesy page turner. But understand it in its historical context, and be clear that its far from the only story out there about what happened during this period in world history
I loved this! Now I'm sad I put it off -- I was falling behind a bit during the week I was supposed to read this for my challenge, and since this book was so long I figured if I skipped it I could catch up faster than if I'd skipped one of the skinnier books.And when I did get to it, I decided to get the audio version from Audible. That was a great decision also - the narration is excellent, and it allowed me to parallelize and have this chunky book going at the same time as I went through a few others in the paper version.Anyway, the actual book! It is a fictionalized telling from the point of view of a set of Jewish people covering a time period from somewhat before WWII until the formation of Israel and some of the ramifications of that. As far as I can tell, the details are fairly historically accurate - the author was a war correspondent during this time period so much of the story is based on his personal recollections. It even turned out that parts of the book that I had expected to be fictionalized were real events, such as the Exodus itself, a ship converted to be able to carry Jewish passengers from other countries into Palestine.It's interesting. During middle school, high school, and undergraduate college years I took American History a bazillion times. But it turns out that history teachers are uniformly bad at planning -- every class started back with Columbus, events leading up to the Revolutionary War, etc, and never did make it to World War I. One class I was in made it into the 1920s, but we skipped over the war and instead talked about flappers and the stock market crash. I suppose WWI was more Europe centered, but still. WWII never made it into any of my course work. So this book was one of my first exposures to anything other than the events that happened in Germany and Poland. I feel like this should be required reading in high schools! It'd be much more interesting than the text book.The main characters in the novel are fictional, although they interact with real historical figures and events. Uris does a great job of bringing them to life and making them feel real though - I was sad when the novel ended and feel as though I will miss them! Ari is definitely one of my favorite fictional characters. There is romance and love, betrayal, and of course sadness and death. The characters all react in different but believable ways to the events around them, and they generlaly change and become stronger throughout the course of the novel.I highly recommend this book, and the audio version if you are into them. There are a few parts that I spaced out on, mainly where it got more into some of the political aspects, which I know are important but just not as exciting as hearing what the characters were up to throughout that time. But they are few and far between given the length and topic of this book... that combination could have led this to be very dry indeed, but Uris avoids that and creates what I'd call a historical masterpiece.
What do You think about Exodus (1983)?
I honestly am not sure how I feel about this book. It is historical fiction on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and it is hugely pro-Israeli. That doesn’t bother me, since it is a fictional story but some of its pro-arguments would not hold up today. I am not an expert on this subject, but if it made me question the validity of its arguments with my extremely limited knowledge, it begs the question, 'what would someone think who has actually done their homework?'It was definitely well written. Some of this was so gripping and graphic, it made me want to weep. And some of it was blindly annoying. Both sides have done awful awful things in the name of religion, but it didn’t really cover the Israeli side of that equation. The “ah shucks, we have had a difficult existence” card was played way too much, as well as the “we are God’s chosen people” card like they are entitled. Every time that was used, it felt like they thought the readers were going to have a V-8 moment and do the head smack before falling into line.I like books that make me think and that make me feel something, so in that aspect it was great. But I just didn’t agree with some of it. I had to keep telling myself that it wasn’t a factual non-fiction work. It was just a fictional story with fictional characters. So how do I rate it, is my question. And I just don’t know. I will go with 3 stars for now...but that may change once I have mulled it over.
—Donna
I read this when I was a young teenage girl. There are no other words to say about this book than it was compelling. I was born only years after this conflict between the Israelis and British and Palistine. I grew up knowing how hard Isreal was working to gain their full autonomy and watched as they went through the 6 day war. To have read this book and many others about the Holocost and put the Jews struggle into perspective and why they needed their own land. I absolutely loved the book for the books sake and for the stories of the people - the tender love stories, the tense action, and the intrigue. How could anyone not love such a book as this. When you are done reading the book, then watch the movie not before. This is a book which is hard to let go of in your mind even over 40 years later.
—Susie
Among the top five books I have ever read, and also one of the most important. A poignant and beautifully-told story that shares a painful struggle in Jewish history - one of the many that goes untalked about in modern history classes. This book should be mandatory reading in all highschools. Although it is a novel, it is completely framed in historical facts (I know because the stuff I read was so unbelievable, I had to look it up for myself to see if it was true - I even found publically-available UN documents and British-Mandate-period testimonies that verified the governmental meetings and other events Uris mentions). This is one of the few books in my life that made me cry almost every time I picked it up...to the point that after awhile, I just learned to grab the tissue box whenever I would pick up the book. It is heart-breaking to read what a hard time the Jewish people had. Even though Israel only takes up 1/10 of 1% of the land in the M.E., at least they finally have a nation of their own again, after centuries of persecution and slaughter that made the Jewish population there dwindle to almost nothing. The Jews painstakingly found their way back (well the Holocaust kind of left little choice since they had already been kicked out of so many countries) and some surviors who lost everything literally WALKED to Palestine from countries like Russia and Poland. And just like they always have, the Jewish people used their strength of mind and spirit to keep going, and once again made Israel into the beautiful nation it once was. They built it back up from almost nothing with (literally) their own blood, sweat and tears. This story of perseverance, hope, and what could almost be deemed a miracle is so moving and so inspiring you will feel like cheering at the end. Truly cathartic.
—Laura
