I thoroughly enjoyed this book, in which Meir Shalev writes about his family and their roots in Nahalal, Israel's first moshav. The Jezreel valley setting and the characters were familiar, as Shalev has set some of his fictional works here. This time the story is a memoir, using his family for the cast and his unique grandmother, and her vacuum cleaner, as the stars. I enjoyed the mixture of family lore with history, and the delightful anthropomorphisms that Shalev uses. In My Russian Grandmother and her American Vacuum Cleaner Meir Shalev writes a love letter to his grandma Tonia. Tonia is a Russian woman living in Palestine and waging war on dirt. Every doorknob and handle has its own dust rag to keep dirty hands off and dust at bay. Showers are taken outside to keep the bathroom clean and only the most honored guests are allowed in the house. Great Uncle Yeshayahu sends Tonia a vacuum cleaner all the way from America (the land of degenerate gum chewing, dangerous music and women with painted fingernails). At first Tonia loves the svieeperr, until she learns it keeps the dirt inside - making it dirty itself. She takes it apart so she can clean it, then locks it in the bathroom with the fine linens and glassware she never uses. Shalev grows up hearing stories of the svieeperr but never seeing it until he was 22 and it was even more glorious than the family stories. It took me a while to get into this book, but as I neared the end I did not want to get out of it. I didn't know anything about this time or place in history, but I got to know the people and it is the people I wanted to spend more time with. I wanted to hear more of the smart, lock picking, flying jennet, the Gypsies and Uncle Yitzak, all the family stories that start with "this is how it was"... January 2012
What do You think about Het Zat Zo (2009)?
"This is how it was"...A-warm-wonderful-family story!
—yuuki11
