No Degrees of Separation

With her firm control over the act of writing, Noga Sklar produced in No Degrees of Separation something that is not an epistolary novel, nor poetic prose, nor fiction, nor a diary — albeit it contains elements of all those — while, at the same time, shamelessly exhibiting the autobiographical source that feeds it. It might be the case to affirm that, with No Degrees of Separation, Noga has written the post-post-modern version of Solomon’s Song of Songs. As in that ancient text, one of the very first in erotic literature, Noga follows the delicate thread that unites the written word to eroticism. By alternating the voices of the two passionate lovers (Noga and Alan) in a dialogue that draws them near and intertwines them, but without ever confusing them (they never cease to mingle with each other, while successfully remaining themselves, a man and a woman, Noga and Alan, incessantly hungry for each other) she shows us how eroticism and the written word fertilize each other and are made consubstantial. The two main characters, Alan and Noga, practice what Martin Buber had described as an I-Thou relationship: they are deeply involved in "mutual animated describing."