LITERATURE AND NATION IN THE MIDDLE EAST

shai ginsburgTrumpeldor informed the interpretation of Shamir’s novel. Finally, I argue thataddressing the reception history of the novel opens a space that allows us toexamine the formation of literary meaning itself as mythical.Many critics saw Shamir’s He Walked in the Fields as an exemplary expressionof hegemonic Zionist ideology and culture, which its characters not only fullyaccept but also attempt to realise in life and death. Such an ideological commitmentwas applauded as a necessary component of the Jewish struggle for independence.14 A few critics, however, censured the novel for precisely this reason.They denounced what they identified as the characters’ unreflective acceptanceof both Social-Zionist ideology and the historical circumstances in which thecharacters find themselves. Baruch Kurzweil, for instance, sees in Uri ‘a goodfellow, primitive, willing for self-sacrifice’ and argues that ‘Shamir raises theprimitive young man to a level of an ideal. In this he, together with all thosethat approve of the work, participates consciously or unconsciously in a certainspiritual process that succeeded in destroying a considerable portion of thevalues of culture’ (Kurzweil 1982: 143). Overall, Kurzweil blames Shamir forfailing to create an epic plot that would transform the immediate reality that hedescribes into an aesthetic work that would affirm cultural values.For my purposes here, however, another group of critics is of greater intereststill. Shamir’s He Walked in the Fields was harshly attacked by critics who wereidentified with the cultural establishment of the left. 15 In fact, criticism wasraised against the novel even before its actual publication. Shamir wrote thenovel when he was a member of a kibbutz belonging to Ha-Shomer Ha-Tsa’ir, aMarxist Social-Zionist movement, and he was to print and distribute his novelthrough the publishing house of the movement. 16 However, Meir Yaari andYaakov Hazan, two of the most prominent leaders of the movement, refused toauthorise its publication, since, among other reasons, they felt that the novelrepresented the kibbutz and its life in a negative light. As a result, the novel wasshelved for some four months before its printing was finally allowed. 17Following the publication of the novel, critics further blamed the novel forfailing to represent accurately the social processes that led to the establishmentof the State and for misrepresenting the Hebrew youth. Sh. J. Pnueli complains,for instance, that Shamir:exposes Uri and empties him of every human dignity. He has eyes, but he does not seeman’s sorrow; he has a heart, and he does not know love; he has a brain, but he isenslaved to his own egotism. He is a kind of an ancient-modern man, who knows theart of war […] and the rest of his qualities are but like the rooster’s male feathers […].Is this the truth of man in the kibbutz, […] is this our youth and is this its face?(Pnueli 1950: 76)Pnueli goes on to affirm that, despite its rough appearance, the Hebrew-Israeli youth is full of hidden virtues: ‘devotion, love, grace, kindness, God’s— 118 —www.taq.ir