I finished reading "The Seven Wonderful Years of Me" over the weekend. The author, Aga Kelley, is a well-known Israeli short story writer. Before reading this book, I actually didn't know much about this author, and I didn't even know that he is an Israeli. I only spent about ten minutes a day reading a few of them, and I read them intermittently. At first, I only thought that this is an interesting author, with a very interesting way of storytelling. When I started to think about what I wanted to write about, I realized that each article conveyed a different aspect of life in a war-torn country.
Each story is based on the author's own life, and while the stories are light and humorous, in fact almost every one of these stories has a connection to Israel, the war, and the Jewish context. Most of the stories are interspersed with a dash of inattentive hopelessness, and some of the stories can be read with the sadness of an essay's conclusion without looking too closely. I can't help but admire the author's writing style.
There is a satire on war and politics in these stories, but you don't see the satire explicitly, it's more like a natural and accidental portrayal of reality. His tone doesn't give you the impression of dissatisfaction, or even the prickly politeness of an Englishman; it really reads as simply the author telling his own story. You don't question the facts as he presents them, although if you take them out of context you realize the absurdity of war. But naturally at some point we think, "Ha, yeah, that's it.
Then on the one hand, those who are unfamiliar with Israel may read on and suddenly realize that this country has been so deeply affected by the war. From the first chapter of the book, the author talks about the day of his son's birth, and then there is a conversation between nurses discussing terrorist attacks. One of my favorite stories is about angry birds. The author's mother saw a family playing with angry birds and thought that angry birds were like suicide bombers. We are reading about the life of a resident of Tel Aviv and naturally learn about the daily life of a resident of a city at war. The author writes with such a light touch, so light that you may not even realize that this is a dialogue that was created in a war zone.
Occasionally, there are a few stories that are a little heavier, for example, one of them is about the author and his wife taking their son to escape from an air raid, in order to coax the child to get down and say that they want to play a game of sandwiches. Because of the air raid, the war seemed to be closer, and it was only in this story that I really realized that Israel was still at war. Even so, I still feel more about family after reading it.
Some of the chapters also bring in the history of the Jewish people, especially the part about his mother who used to live in Poland. It is natural for the reader to accept the everyday context of the story of massacres and exodus to which Jews have become accustomed, as if we lived in Tel Aviv and knew many of our family members and friends who had lived through that period of history.
Some people think that Aga Kelley is an anti-Israeli writer, but I still maintain the feeling that the author is just telling a story after finishing the book. Perhaps because he is talking about life in Tel Aviv, he accidentally creates another layer of meaning, which is exactly the face of the civilian life in Israel under the war, which is rarely discussed. He writes very close to the truth.
Even if you take away the war, The Seven Wonderful Years of Me is a light-hearted account of deep feelings for family members with a touch of humor and everyday life. Just reading the realistic and imaginative storyline of Agatha Kelley will cheer you up.
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