A Woman in Jerusalem: A Passion in Three Parts [Kindle Edition]

"A Woman in Jerusalem" is a truly unique book. As other reviewers have said, it takes as its starting point the unknown victim of a suicide bombing, the only clue to whose identity is a pay slip from a large local company. When a journalist publishes an article decrying the inhumanity of her company for leaving her unclaimed for so long, the novel then follows the Human Resources Manager's attempts to identify her, to understand why she wasn't missed and to make amends by organising her funeral in her native land.

From its synopsis, this sounds like a corporate book, but it is really a novel about identity. Once named, the dead woman becomes the only person in the novel to have a name, everyone else is referred to only by their role (the Human Resources Manager, the Office Manager, the Owner, the ex-wife, the son, the Consul etc). As the Human Resources Manager uncovers more and more about the dead woman's life, so she becomes the only character we properly know anything about. Yehoshua juxtaposes living people that no one really wants to know against the dead woman the Human Resources Manager and the journalist seek to understand with increasing obsession.

It is also a novel about choices made by isolated people. Why does the woman choose to stay in Jerusalem when her family are not there? Why does the Owner care so much to make amends? Why does the Human Resources Manager determine to take such care over a woman he never knew? What in short, do the choices we make reveal about ourselves? There is an apt sense of loss running through the book; the Owner has lost his humanity, the Human Resources Manager is losing his family, the journalist - his moral decency etc. The characters are all strangely isolated, lonely people and the woman of the title comes to play an increasingly prominent role in bringing that into focus.

This is a beautiful little book, with lots to say about isolation, immigration, belonging, ownership and identity. Though, I for one found the ending a little bit clumsy, I would heartily recommend the book, it's a fascinating read.

A Jerusalem bombing results in the death of an unidentified woman, unvisited at the hospital during the last days of her life. Unmourned, she remains in the local morgue for more than a week, until she is finally traced to the bakery where she worked. An aggressive newspaper reporter breaks the story of the unmissed employee, and the bakery's eight-seven-year-old owner, furious at the story's accusations of callousness, assigns the human resources manager to learn about woman so that "a more tangible expression of regret from himself and his staff" can be made.The resources manager soon learns that Yulia Ragayev was a Russian engineer working on the bakery's night-time cleaning crew.

Creating empathy for Yulia, the author shows details about her life and those who have loved and abandoned her. He uses symbolic details to create parallels and contrasts--the warm, homey smell of the bakery contrasting with the horrors of the bombing, the abandoned doll of a barefoot monk in Yulia's shack providing a touching parallel to the cold poverty of her own life. Serious thematic questions arise: Who is responsible for Yulia in Jerusalem? And if she is not solely responsible for her own life, how much, if anything, does anyone else owe her?

Eventually, the bakery owner demands a dignified funeral for Yulia, and he assigns the resources manager to escort her body back to her Russian village so she can be buried there. The timid human resources manager soon learns more than he ever bargained for about Yulia, life, bureaucracy, and ultimately, about the human resources he himself possesses.

Wonderfully dark humor gradually emerges from the ironies that occur on the Russian journey, as Yehoshua emphasizes the continuing absurdity of life. The hostile newspaper reporter ("the weasel") and his photographer ("the snake") accompany the resources manager and the coffin to Russia. The manager is forced to pay bribes, both to the authorities and to Yulia's family, and as he travels farther into the bleak interior of the Russian steppes, a terrible winter storm approaches. While the manager stays underground, the coffin remains out in the open.

A full-scale slapstick comedy of noir elements results, with the manager announcing that "Atonement was turning into lunacy." Readers will celebrate the ending, as Yehoshua brings the action, themes, and characters full circle, showing the growth of the human resources manager, his pragmatism (learned on the trip), and his awareness of the larger mission with which he has been entrusted. This novel about "a dead temporary resident who believed in Jerusalem more than Jerusalem believes in itself" is one of the most satisfying novels I've read this year. Mary Whipple

an amazing tale - from a curious accident yehoshua manages to tell a deep story about people and feelings.
one of yehoshua's best books
i read it all in one go and reread it again soon after.