A review by shanviolinlove
The Seven Good Years by Etgar Keret

3.0

Etgar Keret's most recent collection, Fly Already, as well as his breathtaking film Jellyfish, won me over to reading more of his work. Each essay in The Seven Good Years functions with a vignette and/or bemused observations about the conditions of the war, global relations, humanity in general, parenthood, and so forth. I do think the essays need to be longer, as most of them wrap up the main idea two sentences after really introducing it. So many adhere to the same structure of anecdote+food for thought+moralizing with ideal or sardonic hypotheticals that quickly they become a bit predictable. Along the same vein as David Sedaris, the writing is wry, the humor is light, and the writing doesn't make you think much as even the heavy stuff (as I mentioned earlier) wraps up quickly before it provokes too much deliberation or conviction, and the majority rests on the quirkier nature of Keret's life, from normalizing the threat of death and attacks by playing pastrami sandwich games during air raids to spending a night in a museum. The reader gets what he cares about, that he is ultimately happy (though happiness is elusive), and that the history and culture of what defines him are things he's also (re-)discovering as he goes.