Saturday, April 11, 2009

Playwright David Hare on 'the hideous wall'

I read David Hare's "monologue" on the Wall on the train just now, and I can't say enough good things about it. First of all, it's great that the New York Review of Books is publishing a forceful piece from Israel/Palestine and making the Wall iconic. Especially after the publication went AWOL for Gaza. Second, the tone and manner of the piece are odd/lovely/original. Sort of an oral performance piece as journalism. Ragged but very real-feeling, you are there. The best thing about the piece, though, is the way it contrasts high-minded discussions that journalists always have with authors and intellectuals in cafes and backyards in Israel, with very vivid experiences of the occupied territories. Hare is truly interested here not in ideas but in experience, of knowing for a little while what occupation is like.

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