Amos Oz “Fima. The Third State” is the best novel by a classic of contemporary foreign literature.
Fima lives in Jerusalem, yet all his life he can’t shake the feeling that he must be somewhere else. Fima’s life included both secret love affairs and nontrivial ideas; in his youth, great hopes were attached to him—his debut collection of poems became a major event. But Fima preferred to think about how the world is arranged and how both he and his country were lost in the labyrinths of existence. He was always consumed by longing—varied and unending. And now he’s already past his fifth decade. Fima lives in a run-down apartment, struggles with everyday troubles, flounders in the web of love yearnings, and works as an administrator in a gynecological clinic. Everyone loves him, but everyone also puts up with him with difficulty. He is the man who let dreams and fantasies defeat reality.
Amos Oz draws a portrait of a person and a generation capable of astonishing dreams—but stuck in those dreams. This is one of the most “Russian” novels by the Israeli classic, in which echoes of Gogol and Chekhov are clearly felt, and beneath the fussing Fima you can plainly see the image of Oblomov.
In October 2018, Amos Oz was awarded the “Yasnaya Polyana” literary prize in the “Foreign Literature” category.