Israeli Author Amos Oz's Autobio "Tales of Love & Darkness" His Life and Israel's Birth as a Nation

Amos Oz, (b Jerusalem 1939) is a world renown writer, journalist & lecturer.  Oz has received many literary & humanity awards.  He's extolled by many as Israel's most famous living author.  Oz's autobiography "Tales of Love & Darkness" (now a movie starring & directed by Natalie Portman) is a very dense, verbose, erudite account of his entire life, commencing from age 2.  Oz's memory for detail & literary prowess are incredulous.  Yet, I assume the minutia of material he draws from his life to be factual and contend his literary skill as omnipotent.  Although, the over abundance of flotsam and jetsam makes its reading laborious.  What carries the tenancious reader to enriching & enlightening historical discoveries are his boyhood, 1st hand accounts of the birth and near destruction of Israel.  Just minutes after Israel is voted its sovereignty in 1948, without war being declared, the infantry & artillery of the Arab nations poured into the country intending to raze the entire population.  Four years later, having survived, the State of Israel consisted of more than 1,000,000 citizens.  A 1/3 of the population were penniless refugees.  Oz contends the Israelis were proud of their victories and felt entrenched in the justice of their cause and their feelings of moral superiority.  He also considers the plight of hundreds of thousands of Arabs who lost their homes & became refugees.  Many of whom, and for generations, have remained refugees today.  Oz eloquently recounts his coming of age alongside the multitudes of lifestyles & growing pains in the nation of Israel.  These miraculous & embattled years were also shrouded by his mother's lengthy mental illness & suicide.  Amos shares his bibliophilic zeal, proclivity towards writing & literary epiphanies for contributing to his literary career.  I admired Amos' sagacious & melancholic writing.  "Tales of Love & Darkness" is a treasure trove jewels floating amongst a somber ocean of history.  Within a ubiquitous feeling of oppressiveness there are glimmers of optimism. "People will always go on making plans because otherwise, despair would take over."