SOURCE: Schacham, Chaya. “Novellas under This Blazing Light: Transformations in the Novella Writing of Amos Oz.” Orbis Litterarum 53, no. 5 (1998): 318-35.

In the following essay, Schacham asserts that Oz's novellas have developed over the course of his literary career from traditional to experimental to iconoclastic.

I.

In a talk given in 1972 and later included in Amos Oz's first collection of essays entitled Under This Blazing Light (which was also the title of the collection), the author spoke of the possibilities of flowering of great literature. He stated that “the best works of literature are written in times of ending and destruction” and that “the times are not propitious for the creation of great literature,” mainly owing to the fact “that the light in Israel at the moment is the light of midday, of midsummer, a bright blue light […] What can a storyteller do in this light, with this overwhelming...