The Liberated Bride by A. B. Yehoshua

I started this book at my parents' house because I had finished Next sooner than I expected.  Though Mom hadn't liked this very much, I remember seeing poetry books by Yehoshua in Jenne's bookcase in college so I decided to give it a try.

There are a lot of layers to this book and I believe I missed some of Yehoshua's point of view.  On the surface, the story is about a father who is obsessed with finding out what happened to his son's marriage after an abrupt divorce.  There are also several storylines and characters representing different parts of the Arab-Israeli conflict.  Finally, there is a significant portion of the book devoted to the relationship between the man and his wife.

I enjoyed reading this book most of the time.  There are a few sections where Yehoshua incorporates folk tales and poetry into the story and I was a little bored by those.  Perhaps if I had discussed this book with other people who had read it at the same time I would have been able to understand the symbolism - because I do believe that I did not "get" the book in its entirety, not that Yehoshua missed the mark.

I did enjoy reading the descriptions of modern-day Israel.  Particularly, the characters visit parts of the Middle East near Israel that are Arab several times in the book and I was fascinated by the descriptions of those visits.  I also enjoyed reading the sections about the main character and his wife because I thought they represented a realistic marriage although what do I know about what it feels like to be 30+ years in??  The main story about the son and his divorce was well-crafted.

Overall I think this was a good book but that I would have benefited from reading it with a group or at least with someone to talk to about it.