Touch the Water, Touch the Wind

by Amos Oz

Book Overview

"A profusion of delightful passages couched in unfailingly lovely language." -- New York Times Book Review

1939. As the Nazis advance into Poland, a Jewish mathematician and watchmaker named Pomeranz escapes into the wintry forest, leaving behind his beautiful, intelligent wife, Stefa. After the war, having evaded the concentration camps, they begin to build new lives, Stefa in Stalin's Russia and Pomeranz in Israel, where, as they...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156907720
• ISBN13: 9780156907729
• Release Date: March 1991
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

an eccentric look at the destruction

An eccentrically lyrical novel of the Holocaust, Oz treats the destruction of Europe's Jews in a mythical vein. The main character is drawn as a cross current between science and religion; cast as a Christ-like figure, his ability to defy the laws of nature is balanced by his rationalism. In keeping with the title, the novel has a strange kind of levitation on the level of language; a kind of realism, it skims the surface of the reality it paints, giving the reader no deep insight into the psychology of the characters. This is not a flaw in Oz's writing. Rather, it is a lesson in metaphysics and mysticism. Touch the Water Touch the Wind is a mediation of what language can and can't explain in human experience.