Speaker: Reut Ben-Yaakov, Center for Jewish Studies , Duke University - Academia.edu

Abstract: »Amos Oz represents a major stream of writing and interpretive reading, which, in some ways, represents the canon of Hebrew literature in recent decades. It is the literature that I want to call insinuative. Oz's early stories – “Nomad and Viper”, resulting with a doubtful rape, and “Where the Jackals Howl”, which revolves around a possible incestuous connection – evoke a link between the position of suspicion and doubt, and elements of sexual aggression. These stories will be at the center of my lecture.
The questions I would like to raise and discuss in this paper are what kind of reader is “created” by these texts, and what position do these insinuations ask (or expect or demand) of the reader to take. I would like to argue that Oz uses the special attention given by the reader to the many clues and inuendo, in order to pass on to the reader some of the author's responsibilities and authorities. Thus, he repeatedly avoids clarity, and instead uses only clues that make the reader imagine and doubt. This supposedly interpretive authority causes the reader to question her reading: “Should I suspect Geula (for example in “Nomad and Viper”)? Why do I suspect her narrative?”
In my lecture, I will illustrate and examine this claim in two of Oz’s short stories, and also by comparing the two published versions of “Nomad and Viper” (from 1965 and1976), showing that while the 1976 version is more explicit in many ways, the question of the credibility of the rape claim is obscured. I will also point out the textual performativity of Oz's stories with the help of Judith Butler’s and Leigh Gilmore’s theories as well as a poetic-linguistic examination of deictic demonstratives and their insinuative role in the stories.
Reading Oz’s stories this way forms the impression that in order to criticize the collective narrative of the Kibbutz, one is supposed to be suspicious of women. And, whoever does not join the suspicion game will not be included in that desired circle of “us”.« (Source: Online Program)

Wikipedia: History of Asia: History of Israel | Literature: Fiction about rape | Literature: Israeli literature / Amos Oz | Sex and the law: Rape / Rape in Israel