A healthy man is compelled to set out on journeys to the medical, urban,
professional and erotic regions that comprise his life. He gallops on
the horse of his anxieties, calculating when the End will come, delineating
the borders between memories of childhood, birth and parenting,
thoughts of divorce, bottles of liquor and lubricious descriptions of sex. At
the center of the book, there is a masculine consciousness very different
from that of the usual repertoire of Hebrew literature, one that aligns with
the heroes of modern world literature. In parallel with engagement with
the individual—the hero, the abundant, burgeoning descriptions create a
distinct geographical and urban space. All of this is accompaniment to the
process of taking leave, full of love but devoid of sentimentality, from his
mother who is living in a medical institution.
End is the first work of prose by Jacob Mishori, a painter of repute
and a teacher with a powerful presence on the Israeli artistic scene. Roving
recklessly between the tempting aspect of death and the alluring light of
life, this novel is a remarkable work of literature, audacious and outspoken,
a resolute dance between bourgeois cafes and gleaming pharmacies,
cacophonous streets and bustling inter-urban bus stations. The book
is unique and radical, from the language to the corporal and sensual
phenomenology that Mishori creates as if the words were paints on his
palette.