[.ca] A Palestine Affair (ISBN 1400031222)

What are these characters doing in Palestine?:
The "occupation" of Palestine is the setting for Jonathan Wilson's new novel, "A Palestine Affair," but the occupying power is the British and those dealing with the consequences of living under the occupation are both Jews and Arabs. Against the background of a fluid period following the Great War, Wilson creates a tale of obsessive love, passion and intrigue that leaves characters and situations unresolved, just as the Middle East conflict is unresolved even today. The year is 1924, and the setting is Jerusalem. Mark Bloomberg, a disillusioned London painter, has just arrived in Palestine with his wife, Joyce, an ardent Christian Zionist sympathizer. Like so many new immigrants to the British mandate, they are thrown headfirst into their volatile surroundings when they witness the murder of a prominent Orthodox Jew near their Talpiot cottage. When suspicion falls on an Arab boy by the name of Saud, Mark is spirited away on a painting commission to the wonders of Petra in Transjordan, and Joyce is left, literally, in the arms of Robert Kirsch, the British policeman investigating the case. The novel thereby adopts the double entendre of its namesake, and its plot develops amidst the cultural, religious and political tensions between Jews, Arabs and the British. "A Palestine Affair" plays out not as a detective story, but as a collage of character interactions against the swirling browns, pinks and reds of one of Bloomberg's paintings. As a Washington Post review said, "the book's real center isn't 'whodunit?' but 'what am I doing here?'" In the end, the reader might just ask the characters exactly what they were doing in Palestine in the first place. What's good about the novel? Its depictions of British Mandate Jerusalem, where you can easily envision the Sudanese doorman at a Jaffa Road hotel, and smell the raw sewage flowing above ground near Meah Shearim. What's bad about the novel? Its overabundance of embarrassing sex scenes and the feeling that you will have after reading 257 pages, wondering if there shouldn't have been better closure for the characters and the story they told.

Romance, politics and murder in the Middle East:
Talk about a fast paced read! I got so involved in this novel I read it in almost one day! The Palestine Affair is an immensely fast and enjoyable novel, and also very British in its form and content. This isn't that surprising, since Jonathan Wilson was born and educated in England. In fact, the style and setting reminded me of Paul Bowles' The Sheltering Sky, with the theme of strangers trying to come to terms with being in a strange and foreign land. And like the Sheltering Sky, The Palestine Affair is a tightly plotted, gorgeously written, and sophisticated saga, which uses the immense beauty of the Middle East to startling effect. The struggles of the three main protagonists of the story - Joyce, her lover Robert and her husband Mark Bloomberg - are portrayed with a deft understanding, emotion and compassion. The only problems I had with the story was that I didn't quite believe the fact that Joyce, a nineteen twenties girl, would so readily enter into an affair with Robert, while she still seemed so devoted and committed to her husband. And I also felt that some of the supporting characters tended to fall into stock stereotypes, and they weren't developed as well the three main characters. Despite this though, The Palestine affair, is still an interesting and exciting mixture of three part love affair, espionage thriller, and murder mystery, using the history of Jews, Arabs and the English occupation of Palestine as a vivid backdrop - there is no doubt that Wilson has an immense passion and cultural understanding of this part of the world and it shows in his work. And like the artist Mark Bloomberg, Wilson writes as though he is painting a scene, and he really succeeds in bringing the sounds, smells and gorgeous visual imagery of Jerusalem and the surrounding areas to life, just Mark tries to do in his paintings. Some of the descriptions of the desert are stunning, lushly detailed and incredibly cinematic - just beautiful to read. This story also does a good job in evoking the kinds of troubles and religious conflicts that were facing Palestine at the time of the British occupation, and it does a fine job showing the "culture clash" between the Jews, Arabs and the occupying British, and the British's almost flippant attitude towards the different cultures of the area. You can see how many of today's troubles between the Israelis and the Palestinians have been festering for years and also how they both seemed to seethe under British rule. If you really want to have a cultural escape and by educated about this part of the world, you should read this book. But The Palestine Affair also works as a good, solid piece of work and a first rate literary thriller. Michael

Going Beneath the Surface:
While Jay Gatsby and Scott Fizgerald partied, 1920s Jerusalem saw very serious people indeed setting the stage for all that followed in birthing Israel from a reluctant Palestine. Bringing alive the days of the British Mandate after WW1, this love story cum suspense drama really delivers -- sex, loss and betrayal,as well as the little known beginnings of modern terrorism in the Middle East.

Fascinating history of a remarkable era:
Having once lived in Israel and read a great deal of historical fiction concering the place (both before and after the creation of the state), this is the first historical novel I have read dealing with the period of the early part of the British Mandate. The year is 1924, and Wilson draws an excellent portrait of the clash of three cultures--Jews, Arabs and British--with some Americans thrown in as well. I was fascinated at how the characters are all affected by World War I, not often a period that modern novelists dare to tackle. The writing is crisp and the narrative involving. We feel the agonizing sweat of a Middle East summer, the creak of the gear shift automobiles climbing up to Jerusalem or down to Jericho, the anguish of an artist who has clearly lost whatever it is that he thought he had that made him great, and we get to peer into the minds of a number of very well-realized characters. The most appealing one for me was British Jew and Jerusalem police officer, Robert Kirsch. I was suprised at how much I began to understand this man when I am used to books where British officers are cast in a most unforgiving light. I was left with the impression that this summer of 1924 was like looking into a crystal ball of what was to come for the next 25 years as the state of Israel was forming. In fact, it left me nostalgic in the way that stories do when you, the reader, know you can predict the future of these characters because you know what happens next... I would like to use this book in a book club that I run at my synagogue and I am sure the group would be able to get a good discussion going about it.

FIVE STARS:
Rare is a writer such as Jonathan Wilson, whose exquisite prose maps and overlays a gripping story. Perhaps the details of place, the tensions between factions, the struggle for possession of land are not so different in 2003. At the heart of Wilson's book, however, is an unforgettable human dilemma-- people caught in time , swept through a history that threatens to obscure their very lives. This book reminded me of THE ENGLISH PATIENT, but with a greater investment in the outcome of its characters. A must read. A brilliant book.