"There's something ridiculous about my generation, who grew up in the '70s and loved movies like' Conan the Barbarian 'and' Rambo. ' "We do not tweet to women on the street. But deep down, in the core, there is still the old man who shouts, 'Do not forget the superhero you once wanted to be,'" says Amos Shavit, whose first book, "Sick 096," is currently being published by Shatayim.
Shavit says that he and his contemporaries "are still the men who want to save the world. Participate in cycling groups, run marathons, register for the Iron Man competition, try to fulfill all the unfulfilled desires of the little boy we were. The feeling is that age 50 is the age of the last chance. "Do the great thing. If it does not save the world, then at least write a book."
Superhero, anti-hero
The gap between the macho masculine model, who still dreams of being a superhero, and contemporary masculinity and its greyish tasks, finds a solution in Shavit's book precisely with the help of the corona: time is March 2020, in the midst of the first wave, and the protagonist - a completely average man , 50, in a relationship, with three children and two dogs - wakes up at Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon after eight days during which he was anesthetized and respirated.
He's Corona Number 096 - among the first, but not first enough to become a "Corona Celeb".
But while recovering from his illness at the hospital, he receives a mysterious phone call from the institution's representative: she offers him a trip abroad to donate plasma cells - it turns out he has a rare type of blood, and his corona antibodies can be a cure for severe patients.
And so, soon, the protagonist of the novel finds himself participating in a daring operation by the Mossad, which also involves British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and valuable medical equipment that Israel is trying to get its hands on.
The Corona opens up for "Patient 096" an opportunity to become a superhero.
Does the corona make him a superhero?
"Every superhero has his own superpower. So my hero's unique power is not his muscle mass but his rare blood type, and the antibodies he has. He doesn't have to do anything: all it takes is to be alive. Just lie down. "In his hospital bed, and give the vein. I wanted to produce the most anti-superhero possible: a superhero who didn't get out of bed."
Shavit describes the character he wrote about as the "ultimate anti-hero, who flirts with the character of James Bond - the one who does not sweat, is not afraid, is not emotional, and surrounds himself with small women. In" Casino Royale "which came out in 2006, one of the women says To Daniel Craig, ‘Even if you just remain your little finger, you will be more of a man than any other man.’ But even Bond has changed since then, and in the new film released this year, Bond is already crying, weak, sweaty, emotional, and the women with him have become strong.
"If Bond is 007, my hero is totally sick 096. Unlike Bond's mythological character, he saves the world without getting out of his hospital bed. He remains passive, while those who are active are the women around him, who make deals to save the State of Israel from the plague. ".
Why am I with a rag in my hand?
Amos Shavit, a former journalist, born in 1970, lives with his family in Modi'in, and is currently the director of the Friends of Kaplan Medical Center. At the height of the epidemic, since the second wave in September 2020, he was the spokesman for Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon. The hospital had four active wards for Corona, and I was there every day because there were a lot of events related to the media arena. I was usually in the sterile area of the corona wards, and the patients were on the other side of the glass window. I saw so much unhappiness there. "
He recounts extreme situations, "of sick children who put them in, along with the hospitalized parents, because there was no one to take care of them. There were doctors who broke down in tears because their patient had died and they thought things could have been done differently. There was a 38-year-old man who died, and left Behind him was a woman with corona and a baby girl, who had to plan a complete operation to bring her to the hospital with the baby in a protected manner and inform her that her husband was dead. A terrible and terrible way to end life. "
Shavit himself did not become infected with corona, but his father fell ill, and even received plasma treatment for recovery - such as the one contributed by the book's protagonist - before he passed away, a few months after recovering from the virus.
The death of his father, he says, was one of the factors that caused the book to mature.
"Every decade I wrote a book. At the age of 20 I wrote a book, but it was very bad and unpublished. At the age of 30 I wrote and did not publish, at the age of 40 - even though I was already a mature person - I wrote a silly story and never published again. "My father, because of the age of 50, came out to me."
Age 50 and the corona joined together to remind the body boundaries?
"I look in the mirror and panic - I do not recognize myself. Who is this person in the mirror? And I say to myself, I could have done more in my life. In a moment you will not be in the world, and if you do not now, go without leaving any mark. Second before the corona, January 2020, I did the Iron Man competition in Eilat, and I was happy. I hung the medal by the bed. But it was not enough for me. In February 2020 there was a Tel Aviv marathon. "Crazy. Closure, sick. That's where the book was brewed. The book is also a kind of 'Iron Man'."
Is this the James Bond masculinity model that is hard to give up?
"Look, if I come out of the interview and get a call, 'Hello, talk A' from the institution, we need you, you are the most suitable '- I will not go? Obviously I will go. Dead to go. And I think most men my age will go."
You wrote a character who solves her complex with the male model, but with you it is still unresolved.
You're still waiting for a call from the institution.
"That was my motivation to write. I'm not a big macho, I'm a trained and very institutionalized creature. When I'm told 'these are the new codes' I accept, do not argue. But was I able to completely exterminate the previous male model? We are a flawed generation. I very much hope. "That my son's generation will no longer be damaged, because they have grown into a different masculinity. But I still sometimes have the old man's fuse that says 'something here does not make sense, how I am with the rag in hand and washing dishes'.
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