Three Floors Up Nevo

Three floors up by eshkol nevo 283 pp.

Three floors up nevo.

By eshkol nevo. A father suspects that his 8 year old was molested by the elderly neighbor who sometimes babysits for her. Her husband has died her son is estranged and she must build a new life for herself. Nevo uses devora to remind us not so subtly that these three characters match up rather neatly to freud s model of consciousness.

The read er the unac knowl edged lis ten er to these one sided out pour ings comes to know arnon hani and devo ra inti mate ly but can not pro vide the respons es they so ardent ly want. Three floors up. By now many who read this will be aware that the three floors of the apartment house represent the three aspects of freud s vision of man the id arnon on the first floor the ego hani on the second floor and the superego devora on the third floor a point that author nevo also emphasizes about two thirds of the way through the book as he addresses the reader about what he. Three floors up by eshkol nevo translated by sondra silverston reviewed by marina sofia other press 2017 examining society s ills via the metaphor of an apartment building is not a new venture but it works every time.

Nevo has given us the id the ego and the superego all in one novel. Ballard s high rise to the yacoubian building of egyptian writer alaa al aswany from bernard malamud s. On the first floor a retired army officer clearly suffering from ptsd relates a tale to an unseen army friend about his young daughter who is left in the care of a possibly dementia afflicted neighbor. From the hebrew by sondra silverston.

The sto ries are very loose ly linked and progress up the three floors each deal ing with a sit u a tion that comes clos er to res o lu tion as the nov el goes up a floor. Devora a retired judge lives on the third floor. Three floors up is a confessional three confessionals to be precise. Best selling israeli novelist nevo his hebrew fluidly translated by sondra silverston cleverly infuses these quotidian albeit schadenfreude inducing dramas with numerology everything is in threes freudian analysis the three floors up of id ego superego the power of secrets plus the greater threat of revenge and the literary necessity for confessions if there is.

Other press 16 95 trade paper 304p isbn 978 1 59051 878 6. Israeli bestseller nevo.