I haven't written a novel, I wrote an orgy. But it is set in a way that should remind us all that even on the slopes of an erupting volcano, there still may be everyday life. There still may be desire and loneliness and longing and death and desolation. These are the everlasting materials of life and they will be with us, I assure you, long after both Sharon and Arafat and Bush and bin Laden are forgotten histories.
—Amos Oz, Israeli author, speaking of his novel The Same Sea