Product Description

1947: One year before the Israeli War of Independence and Palestine is still under the British Mandate. However, young Israelis are flocking to the leadership of Menachim Begin and his Irgun terrorist movement in an attempt to overthrow their rulers. Two British sergeants are kidnapped by the Irgun. They will be executed unless there is a widespread amnesty for the Irgun freedom fighters - and so begins a hunt throughout Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and the whole of Palestine to find and liberate the two innocent young men. Based on a true story, THE SERGEANTS' TALE illuminates an historical episode, and also has enormous contemporary poignancy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #684614 in Books
• Published on: 2004-10-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 217 pages

Review
"Rubens' splendid novel breathes new life into the familiar theme of love versus duty and, in the process, sheds fresh light on the perennial tragedy of the Middle East" Mail "Rubens brilliantly rehearses the moral anguish of compromising one's identity." Guardian "Her novel is serious, moving, and painful." The Scotsman

About the Author
Bernice Rubens was born in Wales. Her novels include the Booker-Prize winning THE ELECTED MEMBER and A FIVE YEAR SENTENCE, which was shortlisted for the same award.

Customer Reviews

.....facts are for historians...
Whereas I have previously enjoyed Bernice Rubens' writing, her latest novel is a disappointment.
Once again there is a Jewish theme to her work - but her description of conflict in Israel over the years was unconvincing. Admittedly, she gives herself a let-out clause in the first chapter for her lack of research when the narrator suggests that "chronology...is very boring and lies in the dull province of historians and their obsession with facts."
Despite the stated intention to convey the "nub" of the story, the characters in this novel were left strangely undeveloped and it was difficult to identify with them. In particular her clue-dropping throughout the story about Will's sexuality was clumsy and inept. This was a great disappointment after "Yesterday in the Back Lane" and "I Sent a Letter to my Love" where one suspects that the author is treading more familiar ground.
Even her narrator's comment about terrorists becoming freedom-fighters was poorly developed.
In "The Sergeants' Tale" we get the feeling that Bernice Rubens is straying into territory where Graham Greene would have produced something memorable.

Gripping but badly written.
The story is a good one, but the book is very badly written. Most of the characters are unconvincing stereotypes with simplistic dialogues that amounts to little more than than sloganeering. The main characters are, however, atypical (as far as the story goes), but their dialogue is equally unconvincing.
The book makes for a quick, easy, evocative and gripping read, but as a historian, don't mistake this book for any kind of history. The books tries to be a history, a novel and a polemic, but fails on all counts.
I wouldn't be surprised if this was made into a supposedly controversial but equally mediocre film.
I'd like to give this book two and half stars. I can't bear to give it three, but it's slightly better than a two.

Can you care about both sides?
Based on a true incident during the British occupation of Palestine, this novel sits uncomfortably between an acknowledgement of the difficult task the British faced and a condemnation of their often brutal administration.

The precise geographical boundaries of the Mandate, and whether or not it was wholly intended that a "Jewish National Home" should be created have historically been disputed, with conflicting and shifting British promises to Jewish and Arab interests. However, the conflicts within Palestine and the increasing power of Jewish nationalists decided the question, leading to the Mandate being abandoned after WWII in 1947.

With this complex and politically charged atmosphere Bernice Rubens' novel introduces a note of welcome, informative and lucid simplicity. Rubens sites her novel in 1946, squarely in the centre of the action, with depictions of a Jewish family, some of whose members are active in what were then deemed `terrorist' circles; but she also depicts two naïve British sergeants, whose dabbling in Intelligence activities leads to their kidnap. The background of the soldiers is fictitious, as is that of the Jewish family but what happens to them is based on real events.

I could not quite enjoy this novel, though I felt it was as much of an accurate picture of the time and the politics as it would be possible to write. Readers are asked to care about what happens in both sides of a very thorny historical dispute and I felt that the general reader would not have enough background knowledge. Certainly the account given of thousands of Jewish refugees being turned away from what they believed was their homeland, representing safety in a world which had just witnessed the murder of six million of them, was hard to understand. Just why the British were involved in the first place is linked to the history of colonialism. The whole question seems unsuited to a novel which cannot not help but break down the complications into an `us' or `them' kind of compromise of truth. I salute Rubens' bravery in tackling this subject, but it is not a comfortable read.