Past Perfect (novel)

Past Perfect is a 1984 novel by Israeli novelist Yaakov Shabtai.

The original Hebrew title, Sof Davar (Hebrew:סוף דבר) can be translated literally as The End Result or Epilogue. Shabtai died in 1981, before completing a final draft. The novel was published posthumously, edited for publication by the literary scholar Dan Miron and Shabtai's wife Edna. An English translation was published in 1987 by Viking Press.^[1]

Plot

The novel focuses on Meir, a 42 years old architect from Tel Aviv, who at the beginning of the novel is suddenly stricken with the fear of dying. The novel's plot surrounds the changes in his life following this realization of his mortality, including an affair with his doctor, the death of his mother, and a trip to Europe. The novel ends with a birth following Meir's death, which could be seen as Meir's reincarnation as a baby, or else as a return to his own birth, following Nietzsche's concept of the eternal return.

Style

The novel serves as an indirect continuation of Past Continuous in terms of narrative, prose style, and themes. Unlike Past Continuous, which was written as a single book-long paragraph (broken up in the English translation), in Past Perfect the narrative has been broken down into four parts, and divided further into paragraphs, albeit lengthy ones. The first part is written in the same Stream of Consciousness mode as the earlier novel, moving seamlessly between Meir's thought and external events. The later parts of the novel move away from this style, towards a more varied narration, until the very end, when Meir's death and rebirth are described in a lyrical, almost magical-realist style.

References