He’s Losing His Mind. Maybe His Country Is Too? – The New York Times

THE TUNNEL
By A. B. Yehoshua

At the center of A. B. Yehoshua’s latest novel is a tender 48-year marriage. Zvi Luria is a retired engineer, the former director of the Israel Roads Authority. His wife, Dina, is a pediatrician who cares for both Israeli and Palestinian children. Zvi and Dina are a worldly, liberal, opera-loving couple who plan to remain active and involved citizens as they move into their 70s. What could go wrong?

The sad reality — we know this — is that the center can’t hold forever. Still, as much as we understand it intellectually, I wonder if there’s ever a time when the beginning of the breakdown doesn’t come as something of a shock. “The Tunnel” — translated smoothly from the Hebrew by Stuart Schoffman — is about how one couple copes with the initial news that from now on, everything is going to be different.

The novel opens in a neurologist’s office, never a place you want to be unless you’re the neurologist. Zvi has a small atrophy on his frontal lobe, a harbinger of dementia. He has been forgetful lately. First names are often beyond his grasp. And just the other day, when he went to pick up his grandson at day care, he nearly left with the wrong kid. The neurologist advises Zvi and Dina not to run from life — from any aspect of it, including sex — as passion need not vanish in the face of even the most devastating diagnosis. “Does it matter what day it is,” Dina asks, “if there is love every day?”

Even so, easier said than done. Live your life? How do you suddenly go about this with conscious intent? This is especially difficult given the stress of the early stages of dementia. Zvi has no idea when he’ll forget the ignition code to the car or get lost on the way home from the grocery store. Yet undaunted, at Dina’s insistence, he plunges headlong into re-engagement with a chaotic world, come what may.