Rona, the protagonist of Noa Yadlin's new book, is a new mother, a writer who promises that a short story written by her has won praise, and now she is having a hard time writing her first book.
She is talented, opinionated and smart, and what stands in her way is mainly the fear that she will not meet the standard she herself set when she published the same story.
The blessing of the success of novice writers is also their curse, for from now on they will be asked to meet the same standards, to prove that it was not a one-time flash, to confirm and validate their talents.
Rona's fear is compounded by Gidi, her husband's total trust in her abilities.
She does not see her belief in him as the support of a devoted spouse, but as a crippling factor, which leads her to avoid writing, for fear of disappointing and being revealed as an impostor: "The more she suspected his love; "Fraud, based on false information. Maybe not fraud, should not be exaggerated. But a misinterpretation."
It seems that if you want to bring about the failure of an idea, all you have to do is trick expectations into it.
Encouraged by her friend Gitit, Rona discovers the world of romantic literature and is gradually drawn to it.
First she reads, then she responds in a Facebook group dedicated to the genre, then she sends a romantic text she wrote for the contest - and wins it, and then she receives an offer from a publisher to publish a book in the genre, with which she maintains a pull-back relationship.
This is a brilliant plot decision by Yadlin, for several reasons.
First, it promotes a series of fascinating, complex occurrences, some of them surprising.
Second, it provides a behind-the-scenes look at the world of literature, the process of publishing and marketing a book, and the dilemmas of a writer.
Third, and this is the most significant point, it raises a socio-cultural issue that concerns both literature and the arts as a whole: the perception that still exists, and divides culture into highs and lows.
Throughout the writing of her book Rona is reluctant, indulgent in writing, and her attitude to romantic literature is characterized by arrogance and contempt.
She generally wanted to write beautiful literature, as she repeatedly emphasizes, and she does not appreciate the genre, those who write in it and the readership, and feels embarrassed to be signed to a book "of this kind."
The embarrassment is so intense that Sharona is not content with adopting a pen name that will not reveal her true identity, and chooses to hide the writing of the book from everyone, even - and perhaps especially - Magidi, her husband.
The counter to this view is given by Gitit, her friend who eagerly devours these books, and Meirav, her publisher, who allows Rona to see romantic literature in a different light.
The worldview that Yadlin offers here towards cataloging and stereotyping is reserved not only for the cultural world, but also for political life.
Gidi is an academic, who defined himself as a leftist, and over the years has changed his political leanings and adopted right-wing positions.
The grants and support that Gidi receives are received and taken according to the political current with which he is identified.
Moreover, Rona herself has difficulty with her new identity as a chemist, and so do their relatives.
"In nice moments they would laugh at it: she would say, you deceived me, you sold me a leftist to get married, and he would say, worked for me. But sometimes she really wondered about the marriage contract. "A measure, or maybe, in the same way? Not to infinity, that's for sure."
Yadlin provides a possible explanation for our need for cataloging and hierarchy: they instill confidence in us, allow us to be safe in our place.
If we challenge that division of the world, or offer it a different interpretation, we will drop under our feet the solid foundation on which we have hitherto walked.
Although the plot focuses on the world of literature, it is not a book that addresses only the bronze milieu but is expected to interest a wide audience of readers, and is written with wit and humor.
Meirav, Rona's publisher, talks about the fact that elements of life should also appear in books that are written. If we continue this line of thought, then most of our lives are not foreign films screened at the Cinematheque. The dichotomy that divides a culture into highs and lows, of quality and mass, is not only flawed in snobbery, but also unfaithful to reality. To be like this and another time, to love and want both. We are allowed to change, to keep a promise that we have made in our ears, not the one that others have seen in us.
If we associate Yadlin's books with the genre, all of them, except the first, can be defined as beautiful literature - like the one Sharona wants to write and on the shelves she wants to settle.
In Yadlin's previous libraries, too, she often deals with social stratification and the way in which society is perceived as class, as composed of elites: economic, academic, literary, at whose doorsteps stand gatekeepers and divide people into those deemed suitable to pass through the gate and gain the coveted and non-esteemed ones.
"Shelf life" is dedicated to the literary and journalistic arena, to the power relations they have and to the desire to gain recognition in a competitive environment.
In "The Landlady" and "Stockholm" the spotlight is on academia and other environments where reputation can be accumulated, and in "People Like Us" we are presented with the details of a social affiliation that is partly based on exclusion: which neighborhood is considered and which less, how we are compared to others, And sentences like "This is no longer the population of yesteryear" are prevalent in it.
The brilliance and wit of Yadlin's writing is evident in all of them, and the themes that occupy her find expression in various fields.
Yadlin is definitely innovating, and from a book to a book you can see how the worldviews related to symbolic, cultural and social capital, expressed in Israeli society, are perfected and shaped.
Consistently, Yadlin makes a sharp distinction on these issues, and continues to do so successfully and with interest in her new book as well.
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Noa Yadlin / The Wrong Book, Kinneret Zmora Dvir, 352 pages
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