Electronic Intifada, 14th June 2013
The Wall also features the usual personal angst of teen novels. But again, they suggest bigger issues. Despite the aggressively masculine ideologies of the settlement — epitomized by boys who long for their conscription papers and bully their classmates in the meantime — Joshua has remained boyish and weedy. It is physical labor on the land — helping out Leila’s family, with whom he has developed ultimately dangerous relationships of debt and loyalty — which brings him “real” manhood, building muscles and calloused “man’s hands” but also a sense of duty and responsibility.
Sutcliffe’s portrayal of Joshua’s environment is also highly suggestive. The settlement is described as new — “like it’s just been unwrapped from cellophane” — and in terms which repeatedly imply artificiality and a sharp misfit with its surroundings. It is explicitly not “normal.”
The full article is here.