The Retrospective: Book summary and reviews of The Retrospective by A. B. Yehoshua

The Retrospective Summary

An aging Israeli film director has been invited to the pilgrimage city of Santiago de Compostela for a retrospective of his work. When Yair Moses and Ruth, his leading actress and longtime muse, settle into their hotel room, a painting over their bed triggers a distant memory in Moses from one of his early films: a scene that caused a rift with his brilliant but difficult screenwriter - who, as it happens, was once Ruth's lover. Upon their return to Israel, Moses decides to travel to the south to look for his elusive former partner and propose a new collaboration. But the screenwriter demands a price for it that will have strange and lasting consequences.

A searching and original novel by one of the world's most esteemed writers, The Retrospective is a meditation on mortality and intimacy, on the limits of memory and the struggle of artistic creation.

The Retrospective Reviews

"Starred Review. Yehoshua's intelligent and refined novel...about an aging Israeli director reviewing both his films and his life..recalls once again Faulkner's famous dictum that 'the past isn't dead. It isn't even past.'"- Kirkus

"In interviews, Yehoshua has mentioned Faulkner as an influence, and it shows. Some sentences are daunting in length and indicate the self-indulgence of the work as a whole. The author's insights into realism and surrealism, religiousness and secularism, and the creative process deserve greater exploration." - Publishers Weekly

"Fascinating...beautiful." - Ha'ir, Israel

The information about The Retrospective shown above was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's online-magazine that keeps our members abreast of notable and high-profile books publishing in the coming weeks. In most cases, the reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author of this book and feel that the reviews shown do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, please send us a message with the mainstream media reviews that you would like to see added.

The Retrospective Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

A. B. Yehoshua Author Biography

One of Israel's preeminent writers, Abraham B. Yehoshua was born in Jerusalem in 1936 and today lives in Haifa. He is among the most widely recognized Israeli authors internationally, and is best known as a novelist and playwright. He has been awarded the Israel Prize, the Koret Jewish Book Award, and the National Jewish Book Award. Yehoshua's works include A Late Divorce, The Lover, Mr. Mani, and Open Heart.

Author Interview

Other books by A. B. Yehoshua at BookBrowse