... by Amos Oz is a semi-autobiography about a childhood in Israel, a land of love and darkness ...
"He considered all human beings to be reckless children who brought great disappointment and suffering upon themselves and each other, all of us trapped in an ending, unsubtle comedy that would generally end badly. All roads led to suffering. Consequently virtually everyone, in Papa's view, deserved compassion and most of their deeds were worthy of forgiveness, including all sorts of machinations, pranks, deceptions, pretensions, manipulations, false claims and pretences. From all these he would absolve you with his faint, mischievous smile, as though saying (in Yiddish): Nu, what".
