Keret explained his impact on the literature in Israel somewhat like this:
The
written word has not changed in Israel in thousands of years. Authors who write
in English worry about seeing their book up on a shelf next to Shakespeare.
Israel’s authors worry about seeing their book next to the Bible. (Also, as I
learned while in Israel, anything with Hebrew writing on it does not get thrown
away, rather archived or buried.) Yet, while the written word has carried
through, the spoken language has changed. It is common in Israel, when saying
something like “see you later,” to say, “Tov
yalla bye.” This phrase is a combination of three languages: Hebrew,
Arabic, and English. (Tov meaning
“good,” yalla meaning “come on” or
“hurry up.”) Keret incorporated Hebrew slang into his writing, which was
unheard of, and caused quite a reaction in the Israeli community.
This
was an incredible story, especially since I recently went to Israel, but mostly
because this is so different from writing in English. When studying creative
writing I have always been told to get the dialogue as close to what people
actually say as possible. A common writing exercise is to go to a public place
and just listen to people, recording it all down, because this informs the veracity of the writing.
Not
to mention their reading selections were fabulous.
No comments:
Post a Comment