Elsewhere

Description

On one level Elsewhere is a satire that takes aim at a number of sacred cows: identity, nationalism, Holocaust commemoration and the moral obligation to remember, collective guilt and amnesia, victimhood, Israel and Zionism, and anti-Semitism. But it's also a heart-wrenching family drama and a very funny novel. Ethan Rosen is a brilliant, opinionated academic, as is his rival, Rudi Klausinger. Klausinger catches Ethan Rosen out in one of his many self-contradictory pronouncements and an ugly public spat ensues, soon complicated by a web of family revelations. 'Truth' in Doron Rabinovici's novel, everyday experience - especially politics - is relative and inscrutable. It changes depending on who speaks it and where and when it's spoken.