Some comments on individual vignettes in #AmosOz - "Scenes from Village Life"
"Heirs" - The arrival of a stranger who won't leave reminds me of a story by... Flannery O'Connor? Eudora Welty? Regardless, I wasn't expecting an opening so unsettling.
"Relations" - More estrangement, more loneliness. These vignettes are portraits so far and Oz packs a lot of vivid characterization into fairly short spaces. We see more of the village and its residents/neighbors but it is still (mostly) background here.
"Digging" - Not as unsettling as "Heirs" but still haunting. We see more of Tel Ilan's past and present here, and it is no coincidence that anxieties over Arab land claims are prominent here.
If these characters are largely unlikable and test your sympathy, they are also very human and *familiar*.
