James Michener’s Israel of the early sixties is a placid place.

On those terms, a few things surprised me. through the eyes of my novel’s protagonist, and also as a cultural artifact. I was reading a particular American writer’s perception of the history of a particular few square miles of the Galilee, which (post Jesus) he begins to call The Holy Land.įor me, reading a novel like The Source is an exercise in double-think.

After 1080 pages of this weirdly compelling information-dump, at some point, I realized that I wasn’t reading Zionist propaganda.

Well, reader, it was a slog, but I finished it. With present-day Israel as starting point, the novel travels the fifteen levels of the Tel from the bottom up, reaching back to the Stone Age– each with their piece of what I now know is called “ Material Culture“, a primitive scythe, a fertility goddess, a glass vial for perfume, a golden menorah, and so-on– leading to Israel’s ’48 war and a battle to “liberate” Safad. This one is excavated by an Irish American, and two Israelis (an academic, and a sexy female authority on ceramic shards), with assistance from a friendly Arab with a British accent. Published in 1965, The Source is a door-stop of a novel, designed to take us through the history of the imaginary Tel Makor, an archaeological site in the Galilee.Ī Tel is a mound formed by layers of ruined settlements. I considered carrying it around in a paper bag. Indeed, for me, reading The Source in public felt a little embarrassing, like wearing a Young Judea tee shirt that doesn’t fit anymore. My parents must have had a copy of that novel, along with Golda Meir’s My Lifeand Moshe Dayan’s Living with the Bibleon their shelf just belo w their very scary portrait of David Ben Gurion. Of course, my character would have read The Source. What are the rhythm of her thoughts– this theoretical girl of mine? How would she see the world? The key thing early on is this: getting inside my character’s head. I begin generally, write most of a draft, and save specifics for a point when I better know the direction of my story. When I begin to research a novel that takes place in the past, I tend to use what I call the sandwich method. She’s smart and single-minded, and even if I don’t share her politics, I like her a lot and am curious to find out what will become of her as she heads to Israel for a year of volunteer work on an archaeological dig. My new novel will take place in 1970, and a central character is a young American Jew, and a member of the Zionist Youth Group Habonim.

Book the source james michener