We first met Michael Oren as a historian and the author of best-selling history books such as "Power, Faith, and Fantasy" and "Six Day War." He then reinvented himself as a diplomat, serving as the ambassador of the State of Israel to the United States. Now we know Oren as a storyteller. "The Dark Night Archer and Other Stories" (Post Hill Press / A Wicked Son Book) is a collection of 51 short stories, each of which is carefully crafted and reveals profoundly.
Oren was born in New York in 1955, became Aliya in 1979, and served as a paratrooper in the Lebanese War in 1982. All these waypoints in his biography are involved in his short stories, sometimes straightforward, sometimes indirect, but always related to precision and influence. "They are frankly American," he wrote when describing his story, "their passion is Israelis, but paradoxically, they are always Jewish." So, for example, the title story of the series introduces us to With an archer from the Battle of Agincourt, the narrator imagines this character as a comrade in arms fighting with insomnia every night.
"We have never met, but you are with me every night," Oren wrote. "In the place where most people saw angels or flocks gathered together as a sign of peace, I caught a glimpse of an army full of spears and sharp blades, screaming for war."
Each story in the series is told in gem-like prose, but the diversity of themes is dizzying. There are ghost stories, crime stories, science fiction stories, love stories, adventure stories, Bible stories, war stories, childhood and death stories, suffering and salvation, and even a newer bubbe meise ("old Osifagus"). What they have in common is Oren's mastery of compressed narrative, his ability to put the reader at the core of the story from the first page or even the first line. The here and now and the background story have become the focus.
The fact that Oren stood out for the first time in historical research is a clue to understanding what caught his eye and occupied his mind. Even if the narrator of the story is a ghost, such as in "Ruins", Oren's historian always insists on his point of view. "We don't scream, we don't whimper," the narrator observed. "We are just observing and witnessing. Ghosts, you see, are not scary. People are scary." And, in the story titled "The Secret of 16/B", archaeologists found one in the process of searching for historical relics. The ancient secret also sparked a contemporary conflict: "Ultra-Orthodox Jews protested against the desecration of the bones of their ancestors and Palestinian Arabs protested attempts — they saw — Israel’s demand for their land.”
The diversity of subjects is dizzying. There are ghost stories, crime stories, science fiction stories, love stories, adventure stories, bible stories, war stories, childhood and death stories, suffering and salvation, and even a newer Babimes.
These stories rarely directly involve the customs of Judaism, which can be ironic when they do. "Afikomen" is an example. The 13-year-old narrator’s task was to hide the afikomen at an otherwise boring family dinner, but the hiding place he was looking for had been used by his father. What the boy found there was nothing less than shattered. "I want to watch longer, I don't want to watch at all, forever" the boy recalled. However, the boy turned this moment into his benefit as a compensation for the pain he will surely suffer for the rest of his life.
It is also ironic that Oren unabashedly proposed a stroke on Genesis in the "eighth day". When God thinks that he has completed his work of creation, Satan hides in the Almighty. "Why is it rash," he said. "Maybe you have other things you can do." At his urging, God bestows additional gifts on mankind-awareness of the certainty of death, the ability to love and hate, hope and fear. "In short," said Satan, "we must give them souls." As a result, the conclusion of the story is that it is difficult for God to listen to our prayers. "It was the noisy bird song and lion cry that drowned them, accompanied by Satan's laughter."
Many stories are short and lengthy, but some are more complete. For example, "Aniksht" is a story that began with a little girl in a village in Lithuania during World War II. Her father was "a man with secrets" and she succeeded in discovering some of these secrets, and she also has her own secrets. Her father was an atheist, and her mother went to Shure, but she imagined herself as Dalia, the "pagan goddess of destiny". The forest where she sought comfort turned out to be a place where secrets were revealed. She witnessed what we call crimes against humanity, but for this little girl, it was a crime against her father, mother and little brother Emmanuel.
"No more quarreling," she meditated, "no more weeping—even if Emanuel still does—no books or prayers, no God or truth."
However, the story only starts from the moment of loss. Oren took us back and forth in time and place, taking us from Lithuania to Israel, and then back again. Finally, a man named Dudu re-established contact with the lost and forgotten souls of his dead family in the same place where Daria had witnessed their deaths. He is an outstanding Israeli politician who knows the media and secular wisdom, but he cannot resist the call to return to the past. "Butterfly, like the hand of a glowing child, beckoning," the story ends. "'Come on,' they called him,'Come on.'"
Oren revealed that writing is actually his first mission. When he was 12 years old, he was inspired to write a poem entitled "Who Cries for the Dove's Soul?" What is important is that young Oren began to understand that writing is essentially an exercise in imposing ideas and experience on others. . In the introduction of Night Shooter, he let us know that his writing method and his political method are essentially the same. "Unfettered freedom is tyranny," he admitted, but he also insisted that "unfettered freedom is chaos."
His literary creed helps explain why Oren is rooted in the center-right of Israeli politics, but he claims that it embodies a higher truth: "[F] Freedom through imprisonment is not just a method," Oren claim. "On the contrary, like monotheism and universal morality, it is obviously a Jewish idea." Of course, the balance between freedom and confinement is still open to question, but we can all be in the "dark night archers" Find something worthy of appreciation, taste, and enjoyment.
Jonathan Kirsch, author and publishing attorney, is the book editor of The Jewish Journal.
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