In April 2023, Meir Shalov, an Israeli writer, journalist, playwright and publicist, passed away. His books have accompanied us for over forty years, but one of my favorite books to which I return time and time again is "Ginat Bar".
In Wild Garden, Shalev describes his "romance" with the wild garden he created, the wild flowers, the trees, the birds, the animals and the people who came to visit (those who were invited and those who were not...). The words are also accompanied by wonderful illustrations and drawings by Raphaela Shir.
With love and humor, Meir Shalev tells about the colors, the smells and the sounds that rise from his garden, about the cycles of the seasons and the change of time, about his thoughts during the germination, the wilting, the blooming and the weeding. He describes the gathering and sowing of the bulbs and poppy seeds, his war with the mole, the earth and man. In the margins of things He teaches a little literature, history and mythology, predicting rains, picking sabras, how to make limoncello and picking olives." (from the back of the book).
In his unique way, Shalev describes with a lot of humor the life of an Israeli gardener, the joy and happiness of spending time in the garden, collecting bulbs and onions, the abundance of plants and many other things that when I read them I felt as if they were written about my experiences.
I loved the way Shalev describes his war with the mole and I sat on the sofa and sobbed with laughter... for the description is painfully parallel to our lost war in our local tyranny known as "the Yemeni mole" after the "Yemenait Zhug", the hot peppers not to mention the hot Chuma peppers that we wasted on him, after one The gardening groups on Facebook recommended hot pepper as a known mole repeller... not ours, he enjoyed them and continued to dig tunnels throughout the farm.
A book that is always fun to return to and read again and again.
Comments