Elsewhere, Perhaps (Hebrew: Makom Acher) was published by Sifriat Poalim in 1966 — Oz’s first novel, written when he was twenty-seven and still living on Kibbutz Hulda, where he had grown up. The novel is set on a fictional kibbutz in the Huleh Valley, near the Syrian border, and follows the intersecting lives of several families over the course of a year.
The kibbutz in Oz’s rendering is both utopia and pressure cooker: a community dedicated to collective ownership, shared labor, and socialist ideals, but also a place where privacy is impossible, sexual jealousy festers in communal dining halls, and ideological commitment masks personal unhappiness. The central characters — Reuven Harish, an aging intellectual and kibbutz elder; his wife Noga, who may be having an affair with a younger man; Ezra Berger, a damaged Holocaust survivor; and a cast of teachers, farmers, and soldiers — are caught between the collective’s demands and their own unruly desires.
The Syrian border is a constant presence: the kibbutz is within artillery range, and the threat of violence — raids, shelling, the possibility of full-scale war — permeates daily life without dominating it. Oz’s point is that the border between inside and outside, safety and danger, is not just geographical but psychological: the kibbutz’s walls keep out external enemies but cannot contain the internal conflicts that threaten the community from within.
Collecting Elsewhere, Perhaps
First English edition (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York, 1973): Translated by Nicholas de Lange.
Market values:
- First English edition, fine/fine: $40–$100
- Very good: $15–$40