- Paperback: 217 pages
- Publisher: Arcadia Books; 1st ed. edition (3 Jan 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1900850621
- ISBN-13: 978-1900850629
- Product Dimensions: 21.4 x 13.4 x 1.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,443,079 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Synopsis
House of Windows is a compelling evocation of Jerusalem seen through the prism of the neighbourhood where Hoffman has lived for nearly a decade since moving from the United States. By focusing on the day-to-day rhythms of this close-knit community - practically a self contained village within the bustling urban landscape - Hoffman offers a rich, precise and refreshingly honest portrait of a city that is often reduced to generalization and cliche. This view of life along the border between the western (Jewish) and eastern (Arab) sides of the city will be a revelation to many readers accustomed to the symbolically overburdened Israel of news headlines and ancient historical sites. The narrative consists of a series of interlocking sketches, a constellation of intimate portraits: a Sephardic grocer, an ageing civil servant, a Palestinian gardener, a nosy mother of ten, and others.Its gaze and ambition gradually widen to take in larger questions of identity and exile, whether that of the once (and in some cases still) poor Moroccan-Jewish residents of the area, of the formerly well-to-do and now dispossessed Palestinians who founded the neighbourhood and lived there until 1948, or of the writer herself, transplanted to her new home in the Middle East.
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
with its flight of worn limestone steps, its slender columns and iron banisters, rising at intervals into delicate archways, the house called to mind a host of mismatched objects and structures, the entire assortment of which might suggest, together, something of its quirky elegance, but none of which alone does justice to the building's eccentric proportions. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
with its flight of worn limestone steps, its slender columns and iron banisters, rising at intervals into delicate archways, the house called to mind a host of mismatched objects and structures, the entire assortment of which might suggest, together, something of its quirky elegance, but none of which alone does justice to the building's eccentric proportions. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I'd give it ten stars if i could!,
By
This review is from: House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighbourhood (Paperback)
I absolutely loved this book. The author is honest, witty and the writing had me hooked. I'd say it's quite slowly paced (but not in a boring way!) it almost makes you feel like you know the people shes descibing and you're in Jerusalem. It's been a long time since i read a book then immediatly started it again!
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.5 out of 5 stars (18 customer reviews) 14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Real Life in Jerusalem,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood (Hardcover)
One of the many things I hate are books about foreigners who come to Jerusalem and through exploring the city find themselves. "The Book of Windows" is most definitely not one of those horrid books. Yes, Ms. Hoffman is a newcomer to the city, but the lovely book she's written is not one of neurotic American soul-searching but a minutely crafted portrait of a couple of streets she lives in that just happen to be in Jerusalem. Of course, as a Jerusalem resident I recognize the stories she tells as possible only in Jerusalem and nowhere else in the world. But Ms. Hoffman doesn't try to make any of the characters or events she so evocatively describes stand for anything except for themselves - there are no cheap attempts to turn the everyday occurrences of a tiny neighborhood and its residents into either "The Story of Jerusalem" or "The Story of Adina Hoffman". Instead, Ms. Hoffman has given us a series of small events which constitute the daily drama of living in Jerusalem: meeting the neighbors, food shopping, planting a garden. There are no earth-shattering revelations here, but the quiet, steady rhythm of real life which is far more satisfying and enjoyable.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Softer Jerusalem,
By Bryon Sales - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood (Hardcover)
I read this book while visiting Israel last summer. It is gentle. The writer has a poetic soul and now, reading it from USA, it gives us a vision of Jerusalem that isn't at war, a nice image if unfortunately not a true one-- not now. But there is a lyrical rhythm to this book that I recommend. 4 Stars.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
House of Windows is low keyed, poetic, important,
By Gertrude Wellikoff - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: House of Windows: Portraits from a Jerusalem Neighborhood (Hardcover)
I read this book a month ago and it had a calming effect on me. I think the writer intended this, intended to slow life down, even life in Jerusalem, which is not a slow moving city. She succeeds in drawing us readers slowly into a world she found, but one suspects it's also a world she made. Look for the next book by a talent that is bound to grow.
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