1avaland
If you have not read the information on the master thread regarding the intent of these regional threads, please do this first.
***16. Middle East I: Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel
***16. Middle East I: Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel
2avaland
Touch by Adania Shibli (T 2010, Palestinian author)
This is a tiny book, a novella, more like a prose poem - but not quite. It doesn't follow a straightforward linear narrative, but tells its story of a young girl's impressions - colors, sounds, movement - in small vignettes. There is a certain distance in the prose that makes this ultimately a sad book but it's beautifully done and I will look for the author's other book that has been translated.
edited to add: Shibli's earlier book, We Are All Equally Far from Love, will be forthcoming in 2011 from Clockroot books.
3whymaggiemay
Finished this weekend Bliss by O. Z. Livaneli which both takes place in Turkey and is written by a Turkish author.
A well written book with an unusual construction in that the author introduces you to each of the three characters individually, but for much of the book you have no idea how their lives will intersect.
Meryem is the character who grows the most, but then she's the youngest and has lived a very protected life. She has very little education and by culture has been separated from the men as have all the women in the town. She is brutally raped by her uncle, the local Imam, who then sentences her to death for her "filth". She is imprisoned in a barn, and left with a rope with which the townfolk expect her to hang herself. Though in her despair she considers doing so, eventually she refuses and her uncle then gives the job of disposing of her to his son, Cemal, who was a childhood playmate of Meryem. Cemal has very recently returned from military service in the civil war and has not had time to come to grips with how he has been changed by his experiences. He takes Meryem to Istanbul in the hopes that he can find a way to murder her in that city. Cemal is lost and is casting around for sure footing, but is not yet ready to take chances or make big changes in his life.
The third character is Isfan, a professor from Istanbul, who is undergoing a mid-life crisis and walks away from his marriage and work and tries to emulate a childhood friend who long ago sailed away in search of adventure and his place in life. Isfan's journey is one of self-discovery, but he seems incapable of really learning as much as he could.
A very satisfying read where I learned a good deal about Turkey, its problems, and its culture.
Note: Touchstone brings up incorrect book and wouldn't let me choose the correct one.
A well written book with an unusual construction in that the author introduces you to each of the three characters individually, but for much of the book you have no idea how their lives will intersect.
Meryem is the character who grows the most, but then she's the youngest and has lived a very protected life. She has very little education and by culture has been separated from the men as have all the women in the town. She is brutally raped by her uncle, the local Imam, who then sentences her to death for her "filth". She is imprisoned in a barn, and left with a rope with which the townfolk expect her to hang herself. Though in her despair she considers doing so, eventually she refuses and her uncle then gives the job of disposing of her to his son, Cemal, who was a childhood playmate of Meryem. Cemal has very recently returned from military service in the civil war and has not had time to come to grips with how he has been changed by his experiences. He takes Meryem to Istanbul in the hopes that he can find a way to murder her in that city. Cemal is lost and is casting around for sure footing, but is not yet ready to take chances or make big changes in his life.
The third character is Isfan, a professor from Istanbul, who is undergoing a mid-life crisis and walks away from his marriage and work and tries to emulate a childhood friend who long ago sailed away in search of adventure and his place in life. Isfan's journey is one of self-discovery, but he seems incapable of really learning as much as he could.
A very satisfying read where I learned a good deal about Turkey, its problems, and its culture.
Note: Touchstone brings up incorrect book and wouldn't let me choose the correct one.
4Trifolia
# 3 - Looks interesting. I've added it to my list for Turkey.
If you want to change the touchstone, you simply change the "93307" before the book-title by "1647001", which will make the right connection.
If you want to change the touchstone, you simply change the "93307" before the book-title by "1647001", which will make the right connection.
5avaland
>3 whymaggiemay: That does sound interesting, Maggie. I've get to get to my Turkey book, but better late than never.
6southernbooklady
>2 avaland: Shibli's Touch is a gorgeous little book. For Turkey/Lebanon, I really loved The Calligrapher's Night by Yasmine Ghata, which is a historical novel based on the author's grandmother, the woman calligrapher Rikkat Kunt.
7rebeccanyc
I have several Turkish books on my TBR and I meant to read at least one for the current theme read but, alas, I will just have to read something late. I am considering A Mind at Peace, which I received as part of my Archipelago Books subscription, and I also have an Orhan Pamuk I haven't read, The White Castle.
8arubabookwoman
ISRAEL:
Almost Dead (wrong touchst one)by Assaf Gavron
Eitan Einoch ("Croc") is the miraculous survivor of three terrorist attacks in one week, one in Tel Aviv, one in Jerusalem, and one on the road between the two cities. He becomes a national hero, even as his personal life is falling apart. His story is told in alternating chapters with the story of Fahlid, a Palestinian terrorist who lies in a coma after an unsuccessful suicide bombing.
This book explores serious issues with a sense of humor. (The blurb on the back of the book calls it "politically incorrect."). I've never been to Israel, but this book gives an even-handed sense of what it is like to live in constant fear of attack/loss of life, and what it is like to grow up and live in a Palestinian refugee camp. We come to know two sympathetic characters on opposite sides in a war that seems to have no solution.
Almost Dead (wrong touchst one)by Assaf Gavron
Eitan Einoch ("Croc") is the miraculous survivor of three terrorist attacks in one week, one in Tel Aviv, one in Jerusalem, and one on the road between the two cities. He becomes a national hero, even as his personal life is falling apart. His story is told in alternating chapters with the story of Fahlid, a Palestinian terrorist who lies in a coma after an unsuccessful suicide bombing.
This book explores serious issues with a sense of humor. (The blurb on the back of the book calls it "politically incorrect."). I've never been to Israel, but this book gives an even-handed sense of what it is like to live in constant fear of attack/loss of life, and what it is like to grow up and live in a Palestinian refugee camp. We come to know two sympathetic characters on opposite sides in a war that seems to have no solution.
9permaculture
TURKEY
I recently read Elif Şafak's The Gaze. The novel alternates between the story of a very fat woman and her dwarf lover in 1999 Istanbul and various historical sections (the Pera district of Istanbul in 1885; Siberia in 1648; France in 1868). The historical parts are stunning. I don't want to give anything away because part of the appeal was that I never knew where Şafak was going with these stories within the story. (There's also a 1980 Istanbul section near the end of the novel.) The 1999 sections are narrated by the (never named) fat woman, and her voice and story took a while to grow on me. I didn't think much of the first 20 pages. But the first historical interlude won me over, and when the novel returns to 1999, it starts to mix in entries from the dwarf's "Dictionary of Gazes," many of which are mini stories in themselves, and which add significantly to the "Turkishness" of the novel since the translator has retained the Turkish words being defined, providing (except when unnecessary) the English translation.
The novel is indeed about "the gaze." Şafak has cleverly—sometimes brilliantly—written many variations on that theme, but I imagine that the book could get tedious for anyone who prefers a novel driven by character or plot rather than hitting the reader over the head with a theme, or for anyone who doesn't find the gaze (seeing, being watched, the fear of being seen, hiding, ugliness, beauty, freak shows…) an interesting theme. Or is it inherently interesting? Did I mention freak shows?
For me, this was a good introduction to Turkish literature; it made me want to read more Turkish literature. I like Şafak's writing, and I plan to read more of her work.
I recently read Elif Şafak's The Gaze. The novel alternates between the story of a very fat woman and her dwarf lover in 1999 Istanbul and various historical sections (the Pera district of Istanbul in 1885; Siberia in 1648; France in 1868). The historical parts are stunning. I don't want to give anything away because part of the appeal was that I never knew where Şafak was going with these stories within the story. (There's also a 1980 Istanbul section near the end of the novel.) The 1999 sections are narrated by the (never named) fat woman, and her voice and story took a while to grow on me. I didn't think much of the first 20 pages. But the first historical interlude won me over, and when the novel returns to 1999, it starts to mix in entries from the dwarf's "Dictionary of Gazes," many of which are mini stories in themselves, and which add significantly to the "Turkishness" of the novel since the translator has retained the Turkish words being defined, providing (except when unnecessary) the English translation.
The novel is indeed about "the gaze." Şafak has cleverly—sometimes brilliantly—written many variations on that theme, but I imagine that the book could get tedious for anyone who prefers a novel driven by character or plot rather than hitting the reader over the head with a theme, or for anyone who doesn't find the gaze (seeing, being watched, the fear of being seen, hiding, ugliness, beauty, freak shows…) an interesting theme. Or is it inherently interesting? Did I mention freak shows?
For me, this was a good introduction to Turkish literature; it made me want to read more Turkish literature. I like Şafak's writing, and I plan to read more of her work.
10kidzdoc
White Masks by Elias Khoury (Lebanon, read in 2010)
In White Masks, Khoury uses the murder of Khalil Ahmad Jaber, an ordinary civilian with no known enemies or suspicious alliances, as a vehicle to describe the lives of those affected by the Lebanese civil war in 1980. Several family members, neighbors, and others who have come into contact with him are interviewed to learn more about this senseless killing, and we come to learn about the hardships, despair and frustrations that plague civilians caught between the shifting factions. The following excerpt effectively characterizes the views of the average person:
Khoury effectively uses several metaphors throughout the book to describe the decay and breakdown in Lebanese society, and the accounts of the characters provide vivid descriptions of the effects of the war on those who survive the daily carnage. White Masks is a stunning and essential literary achievement, which nearly reaches the brilliance of his later novel Gate of the Sun.
In White Masks, Khoury uses the murder of Khalil Ahmad Jaber, an ordinary civilian with no known enemies or suspicious alliances, as a vehicle to describe the lives of those affected by the Lebanese civil war in 1980. Several family members, neighbors, and others who have come into contact with him are interviewed to learn more about this senseless killing, and we come to learn about the hardships, despair and frustrations that plague civilians caught between the shifting factions. The following excerpt effectively characterizes the views of the average person:
What is happening to us is very strange...One wonders if it is the result of unexplained mental disorders...No one is able to control all the crime...It's grown into an epidemic, a plague devouring us from within...I suppose that is what is meant by social fragmentation in civil conflicts—I've read about it, but somehow this seems different...you'd think they positively savored murder, like a sip of Coke. Poor Khalil Jaber! But it's not just him...he, at least, has found his rest...what about the rest of us, the Lord only knows how we will die...
Khoury effectively uses several metaphors throughout the book to describe the decay and breakdown in Lebanese society, and the accounts of the characters provide vivid descriptions of the effects of the war on those who survive the daily carnage. White Masks is a stunning and essential literary achievement, which nearly reaches the brilliance of his later novel Gate of the Sun.
11Samantha_kathy
I just read The Amazing Mrs. Pollifax and I think it's a wonderful book to get to know Turkey as a country. It takes the main character through big cities like Istanbul and Ankara, small farm villages, and a wide variety of the landscapes of Turkey.
In contrast with this, The Sultan's Seal, which I read last year, is a great book to get some insight in the culture of Turkey. The author, Jenny White, is an antropologist who specializes in contempary Turkey. Her blog at kamilpasha.com is about social and cultural news about Turkey.
In contrast with this, The Sultan's Seal, which I read last year, is a great book to get some insight in the culture of Turkey. The author, Jenny White, is an antropologist who specializes in contempary Turkey. Her blog at kamilpasha.com is about social and cultural news about Turkey.
12kidzdoc
Little Mountain by Elias Khoury
This poetic novel is set in a neighborhood in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, and is narrated by three men: an Arabic soldier in the Lebanese National Movement; a government employee caught in the middle of the crisis; and an intelligent and idealistic young man who is also participating in the conflict. I found the narrative difficult to follow, as it was often surrealistic and at times overly repetitive, and I skimmed the last half of the book.
This poetic novel is set in a neighborhood in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, and is narrated by three men: an Arabic soldier in the Lebanese National Movement; a government employee caught in the middle of the crisis; and an intelligent and idealistic young man who is also participating in the conflict. I found the narrative difficult to follow, as it was often surrealistic and at times overly repetitive, and I skimmed the last half of the book.
13wandering_star
Iron Earth, Copper Sky by Yashar Kemal.
I bought this without realising that it was the second book of a trilogy. However, I think it stands well enough alone. It's set in a poor Turkish village, at the start of a bitter winter. This is a world where an old woman can make a vow never to speak to another living soul, and stick solemnly to it, or where a beggar can speak incoherent words which are taken for prophecy.
The villagers have been unable to harvest enough cotton in the summer to pay off their debts to the town shopkeeper, and are terrified by his unforgiving reputation (the story goes that the last time a village couldn't pay their debts, he arrived with his men and took everything of value, down to the drawers the women were wearing). They make all sort of preparations for his visit... but he does not come. This puts the village into such a pitch of terrified hysteria that all sorts of coincidences start to look like portents, and all of a sudden, one of the villagers - a man called Tashbash - is being hailed as a man with holy powers who will deliver them from their troubles. Tashbash himself doesn't want to have anything to do with this. But he happens to be a bitter enemy of the town's headman, who takes the whole thing as a plot against him - will Tashbash be able to extricate himself?
This was an interesting story, with wonderful descriptions of village life and the surrounding mountains. It's a deceptively light read, which I enjoyed, although the deliberate folkloric simplicity of the style is not really my thing.
Recommended for: anyone who wants to read about a world outside their experience.
I bought this without realising that it was the second book of a trilogy. However, I think it stands well enough alone. It's set in a poor Turkish village, at the start of a bitter winter. This is a world where an old woman can make a vow never to speak to another living soul, and stick solemnly to it, or where a beggar can speak incoherent words which are taken for prophecy.
The villagers have been unable to harvest enough cotton in the summer to pay off their debts to the town shopkeeper, and are terrified by his unforgiving reputation (the story goes that the last time a village couldn't pay their debts, he arrived with his men and took everything of value, down to the drawers the women were wearing). They make all sort of preparations for his visit... but he does not come. This puts the village into such a pitch of terrified hysteria that all sorts of coincidences start to look like portents, and all of a sudden, one of the villagers - a man called Tashbash - is being hailed as a man with holy powers who will deliver them from their troubles. Tashbash himself doesn't want to have anything to do with this. But he happens to be a bitter enemy of the town's headman, who takes the whole thing as a plot against him - will Tashbash be able to extricate himself?
This was an interesting story, with wonderful descriptions of village life and the surrounding mountains. It's a deceptively light read, which I enjoyed, although the deliberate folkloric simplicity of the style is not really my thing.
Recommended for: anyone who wants to read about a world outside their experience.
14wandering_star
The School Of War by Alexandre Najjar - Lebanon
This is a sort of memoir in short scenes, of the author's early years during the civil war in Lebanon (which started when he was 8 and ended when he was 23). He has now returned after many years away, and all sorts of everyday things bring back memories, from filling his car with petrol to watching a football match, or seeing an old man gardening. A chance find of his school photograph reminds him of a time he was captured by militia at a roadblock, but one of the masked men whispered that they'd been at school together and allowed him to escape. (This is not his only brush with death - he has a bullet lodged in his body from a time when his school bus was fired on.) But the stories are not all terror and destruction - family, friends, love and adventure are also there in this child's-eye-view of war.
Sample sentence: Eleven o'clock at night. The radio has just announced that bombing has resumed. I leave the house and travel the two hundred yards to the shelter. Along the way, I come across dozens of men in pyjamas and women in nightgowns filing past in the darkness like ghosts.
This is a sort of memoir in short scenes, of the author's early years during the civil war in Lebanon (which started when he was 8 and ended when he was 23). He has now returned after many years away, and all sorts of everyday things bring back memories, from filling his car with petrol to watching a football match, or seeing an old man gardening. A chance find of his school photograph reminds him of a time he was captured by militia at a roadblock, but one of the masked men whispered that they'd been at school together and allowed him to escape. (This is not his only brush with death - he has a bullet lodged in his body from a time when his school bus was fired on.) But the stories are not all terror and destruction - family, friends, love and adventure are also there in this child's-eye-view of war.
Sample sentence: Eleven o'clock at night. The radio has just announced that bombing has resumed. I leave the house and travel the two hundred yards to the shelter. Along the way, I come across dozens of men in pyjamas and women in nightgowns filing past in the darkness like ghosts.
15labfs39
60. The Liberated Bride by A.B. Yehoshua
Wanted: Editor for 568 p. book. Must like minute by minute personal accounts and family drama. Action seekers need not apply.
16Polaris-
#15 - Hi, what did you think of The Liberated Bride? I read some of his books some years ago and really enjoyed them - The Lover is an excellent piece of period literature set during the 1973 Yom Kippur War - but I've not read this one yet.
17rebeccanyc
#15 Too funny, and thank you!
18labfs39
#16 Well since you asked, I pasted the rest of my review below. I think Yehoshua is a good writer, and I enjoyed A Woman in Jerusalem, I just think he missed the mark with this one. I will look for The Lover, thanks for the recommendation. Edited to add: there is only one very short review for The Lover, hint, hint.
The Liberated Bride
I wanted to enjoy this book, but after 300 pages, I realized that would not happen in this lifetime. It took another lifetime to finish the book. Besides desperately needing to be edited, the story meanders for 500 pages and then tries to make the plot come together in the last couple of chapters. I started off thinking that Yochanan Rivlin, the main character, was charming, but after reading about his every move (including urination), thought (even the drivel), and action (usually inane) for several hundred pages, I was ready to strangle him and make this a murder mystery.
Yochanan is obsessed. His son, Ofer, was abruptly divorced five years ago, and neither son nor daughter-in-law will divulge why. Yochanan cannot let it go, and despite injunctions from his wife, his daughter-in-law’s family, and his son, he continues picking at it. When not busily pestering people about the divorce, Yochanan hangs around his office at Haifa University, unable to finish the book he is working on, and refusing to buckle down and write a paper for his elderly mentor’s jubilee publication. Although incapable of finishing his own writing, he refuses to give a recalcitrant Arab student her degree until he knows the intimate details of her life, family, and loves.
Yehoshua can write a good line and is insightful into the day to day interactions between Arabs and Jews. What I couldn’t seem to find in this book was a point. It was a struggle to finish, and I’m not sure why I pushed on. My recommendation: don’t bother with this one.
The Liberated Bride
I wanted to enjoy this book, but after 300 pages, I realized that would not happen in this lifetime. It took another lifetime to finish the book. Besides desperately needing to be edited, the story meanders for 500 pages and then tries to make the plot come together in the last couple of chapters. I started off thinking that Yochanan Rivlin, the main character, was charming, but after reading about his every move (including urination), thought (even the drivel), and action (usually inane) for several hundred pages, I was ready to strangle him and make this a murder mystery.
Yochanan is obsessed. His son, Ofer, was abruptly divorced five years ago, and neither son nor daughter-in-law will divulge why. Yochanan cannot let it go, and despite injunctions from his wife, his daughter-in-law’s family, and his son, he continues picking at it. When not busily pestering people about the divorce, Yochanan hangs around his office at Haifa University, unable to finish the book he is working on, and refusing to buckle down and write a paper for his elderly mentor’s jubilee publication. Although incapable of finishing his own writing, he refuses to give a recalcitrant Arab student her degree until he knows the intimate details of her life, family, and loves.
Yehoshua can write a good line and is insightful into the day to day interactions between Arabs and Jews. What I couldn’t seem to find in this book was a point. It was a struggle to finish, and I’m not sure why I pushed on. My recommendation: don’t bother with this one.
19Polaris-
#18 - Thanks for your review. I read The Lover nearly 20 years ago, and I don't think I could really write a review that would do it any justice really. From what I remember it certainly does have a point though, being a love story (unsurprisingly), set as I say in the days of the Yom Kippur war (though the war itself doesn't feature prominently) mainly in and around the coastal city of Haifa. It struck me as being highly atmospheric and well written, and I think it was the work that cemented ABY as a major voice in Israeli literature.
20kidzdoc
ISRAEL
Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
This collection of short stories by Amos Oz is set in an apparently fictional historical village in Israel that has been populated by Jews for roughly a century. The characters in the first seven stories all know each other, and those who are the center of one story will often appear in a minor role in one or more other ones. The stories are about the lives of the characters within their families and community, and focus on the loneliness and barely hidden frustration and despair that plague each of them. Each character is in a search for something, often without knowing what it is they are looking for or why, and the stories are dreamlike, haunting, and often mildly uncomfortable and menacing.
In the longest story, "Digging", a middle-aged widow lives with her cantakerous and difficult elderly widowed father, along with a shy and introspective Arab university student who lives in a shed on their land in exchange for performing household chores. The elderly man is awakened each night by the sound of digging underneath the house, yet no one else seems to hear it. Other stories feature a single doctor who expectantly waits for her ill nephew; a divorced woman pursued by a lovestruck and lonely teenager; an older man who lives in peace with his infirm mother at the edge of the village, until an intrusive stranger who claims to be a relative urges him to sell his mother's property; and the town's mayor, who receives a mysterious note from his wife. Oz does not provide the reader or his characters with straightforward resolutions to their dilemmas or searches, which made the stories that much more memorable and powerful.
The last story is quite unlike the others, as it is set in a different place at another time (past? present?), in a town whose structures are decaying and whose citizens are dying despite the best efforts of the official who is charged with their welfare.
The stories are wonderfully written, with simple yet evocative language, and I slowly savored each passage, such as this one from the elderly man in "Digging", as the Arab student plays a haunting Russian melody on his harmonica on one summer evening:
Scenes from Village Life is an unforgettable book, which is one of my favorite reads of the year, and one I look forward to returning to in the near future.
Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
This collection of short stories by Amos Oz is set in an apparently fictional historical village in Israel that has been populated by Jews for roughly a century. The characters in the first seven stories all know each other, and those who are the center of one story will often appear in a minor role in one or more other ones. The stories are about the lives of the characters within their families and community, and focus on the loneliness and barely hidden frustration and despair that plague each of them. Each character is in a search for something, often without knowing what it is they are looking for or why, and the stories are dreamlike, haunting, and often mildly uncomfortable and menacing.
In the longest story, "Digging", a middle-aged widow lives with her cantakerous and difficult elderly widowed father, along with a shy and introspective Arab university student who lives in a shed on their land in exchange for performing household chores. The elderly man is awakened each night by the sound of digging underneath the house, yet no one else seems to hear it. Other stories feature a single doctor who expectantly waits for her ill nephew; a divorced woman pursued by a lovestruck and lonely teenager; an older man who lives in peace with his infirm mother at the edge of the village, until an intrusive stranger who claims to be a relative urges him to sell his mother's property; and the town's mayor, who receives a mysterious note from his wife. Oz does not provide the reader or his characters with straightforward resolutions to their dilemmas or searches, which made the stories that much more memorable and powerful.
The last story is quite unlike the others, as it is set in a different place at another time (past? present?), in a town whose structures are decaying and whose citizens are dying despite the best efforts of the official who is charged with their welfare.
The stories are wonderfully written, with simple yet evocative language, and I slowly savored each passage, such as this one from the elderly man in "Digging", as the Arab student plays a haunting Russian melody on his harmonica on one summer evening:
'That's a lovely tune,' the old man said. 'Heart-rending. It reminds us of a time when there was still some fleeting affection between people. There's no point in playing tunes like that today: they are an anachronism, because nobody cares any more. That's all over. Now our hearts are blocked. All feelings are dead. Nobody turns to anyone else except from self-interested motives. What is left? Maybe only this melancholy tune, as a kind of reminder of the destruction of our hearts.'
Scenes from Village Life is an unforgettable book, which is one of my favorite reads of the year, and one I look forward to returning to in the near future.
21Polaris-
#20 - Thank you so much for this review. Oz is one of my favourite authors and I'm very much looking forward to reading this latest collection. Only thing is, I can't decide whether to read it now - on loan from the library - or wait a little bit longer to buy a copy for myself (I have a shelf that is three quarters just Oz's work - I'm a bit of a collector....).
22kidzdoc
>21 Polaris-: You're welcome, Paul. Several other members of the 75 Books group are also planning to read it this month, namely avatiakh/Kerry (who is reading it now), Citizenjoyce, EBT1002 and Smiler69. I might suggest waiting until one or more of their reviews are in; Kerry is a member of Reading Globally, so hopefully she'll post a review here, as well.
23kidzdoc
ISRAEL
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret (3½ stars)
The first collection of short stories by Israeli writer Etgar Keret published in English starts out brilliantly, with several surreal and fantastic tales that seem to be a witches' brew of the best of Jorge Luis Borges, mixed with a splash of Julio Cortázar and José Donoso. In the title story, a principled but misunderstood bus driver invokes a higher calling to serve one of his passengers, though with an unexpected result. In "Uterus", a young man despairs when his mother's organ, preserved for prosperity in a local museum, is sold and then hijacked by eco-terrorists. And, in "A Souvenir of Hell", a young Uzbek woman works at a convenience store which primarily serves the residents of Hell, who emerge from its mouth for one day of freedom every 100 years. However, the stories in the latter half of the book, particularly the lengthy Kneller's Happy Campers, were very disappointing to this reader. Despite this, I was sufficiently impressed and enthralled with many of Keret's stories, and despite my mediocre rating of The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God I will eagerly search for more of his books soon.
The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God and Other Stories by Etgar Keret (3½ stars)
The first collection of short stories by Israeli writer Etgar Keret published in English starts out brilliantly, with several surreal and fantastic tales that seem to be a witches' brew of the best of Jorge Luis Borges, mixed with a splash of Julio Cortázar and José Donoso. In the title story, a principled but misunderstood bus driver invokes a higher calling to serve one of his passengers, though with an unexpected result. In "Uterus", a young man despairs when his mother's organ, preserved for prosperity in a local museum, is sold and then hijacked by eco-terrorists. And, in "A Souvenir of Hell", a young Uzbek woman works at a convenience store which primarily serves the residents of Hell, who emerge from its mouth for one day of freedom every 100 years. However, the stories in the latter half of the book, particularly the lengthy Kneller's Happy Campers, were very disappointing to this reader. Despite this, I was sufficiently impressed and enthralled with many of Keret's stories, and despite my mediocre rating of The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God I will eagerly search for more of his books soon.
24StevenTX
TURKEY
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
First published in Turkish 1949 as Huzur
English translation by Erdağ Göknar 2008
"What is it that should be done?" This is the central question of A Mind at Peace at both the public and personal levels. The novel is set on the eve of World War II in Istanbul, Turkey. Its protagonist, Mümtaz, is a young, unmarried academic and would-be novelist. He is principally occupied at the moment, however, with caring for his older cousin İhsan who suffers from what appears likely to be a fatal case of pneumonia. İhsan had been Mümtaz's guardian and mentor ever since the latter's parents died as a result of the Greek invasion of Anatolia in 1919--events which Mümtaz recalls at the beginning of the novel.
Mümtaz also reflects ruefully upon his recently broken love affair with Nuran, a divorced woman slightly older than Mümtaz. In the long walks he takes to escape from the sick room, every sight and sound seems to recall the times he spent with Nuran.
After this prologue, the novel shifts back a year or more in time to Mümtaz's first meeting with Nuran. It is a relationship we know is doomed to failure, but not how or why. In the meantime, the two lovers, enraptured with one another, spend many idle hours in all seasons exploring their city--from palaces to bazaars, from waterways to ancient ruins. Eventually Mümtaz even wonders "Do we love each other or the Bosphorus?"
On a par with their passion for Istanbul is the pair's enthusiasm for traditional Turkish music. There are lengthy discussions about it, as well as sessions where Nuran's uncle, a noted vocalist, and his friends perform for guests. (It's a shame that the novel couldn't have included a CD to satisfy readers' inevitable curiosity about the folk music described in such rapturous terms.)
Notwithstanding the love story and travelogue, A Mind at Peace is essentially a novel of ideas. It is August 1939, and the world is obviously on the brink of another great war. The Turks have no reason to expect that they won't be involved, but should they just let the currents of history carry them into another bloodbath? What is the responsibility of the individual, especially of the intellectual, at times like this? After long talks with his cousin, Mümtaz asks himself: "Maybe İhsan does have a point! This society wants ideas and maybe even a struggle out of me. Not romantic posturing! But to achieve this end must I forget about Nuran?"
There is obviously much of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be..." in Mümtaz's dilemma. Readers of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities will also find themselves on familiar ground with a protagonist full of ideas but lacking in direction. In contrast to Mümtaz there is Suad, a key character introduced fairly late in the novel, who is his mirror image: a man of intellectual attainment but impulsive, irresponsible, self-indulgent and proud of his Sadean amorality. Nuran, in contrast to both of these men, is centered on her feelings, her family, and her cultural roots. In the author's words, "Nuran depended on a minimum level of selfhood. She lived through her milieu."
A Mind at Peace is a great novel that brings forth ideas of epic scale out of an intimate story, and does so against an unforgettable historical and cultural backdrop. The principal characters, notwithstanding their penchant for philosophical abstracts, are convincingly complete and complex. The author's prose, beautifully translated, has an evocative and lyrical quality in keeping with the musical theme running through the novel. Here, for example, is a passage describing Nuran:
A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar
First published in Turkish 1949 as Huzur
English translation by Erdağ Göknar 2008
"What is it that should be done?" This is the central question of A Mind at Peace at both the public and personal levels. The novel is set on the eve of World War II in Istanbul, Turkey. Its protagonist, Mümtaz, is a young, unmarried academic and would-be novelist. He is principally occupied at the moment, however, with caring for his older cousin İhsan who suffers from what appears likely to be a fatal case of pneumonia. İhsan had been Mümtaz's guardian and mentor ever since the latter's parents died as a result of the Greek invasion of Anatolia in 1919--events which Mümtaz recalls at the beginning of the novel.
Mümtaz also reflects ruefully upon his recently broken love affair with Nuran, a divorced woman slightly older than Mümtaz. In the long walks he takes to escape from the sick room, every sight and sound seems to recall the times he spent with Nuran.
After this prologue, the novel shifts back a year or more in time to Mümtaz's first meeting with Nuran. It is a relationship we know is doomed to failure, but not how or why. In the meantime, the two lovers, enraptured with one another, spend many idle hours in all seasons exploring their city--from palaces to bazaars, from waterways to ancient ruins. Eventually Mümtaz even wonders "Do we love each other or the Bosphorus?"
On a par with their passion for Istanbul is the pair's enthusiasm for traditional Turkish music. There are lengthy discussions about it, as well as sessions where Nuran's uncle, a noted vocalist, and his friends perform for guests. (It's a shame that the novel couldn't have included a CD to satisfy readers' inevitable curiosity about the folk music described in such rapturous terms.)
Notwithstanding the love story and travelogue, A Mind at Peace is essentially a novel of ideas. It is August 1939, and the world is obviously on the brink of another great war. The Turks have no reason to expect that they won't be involved, but should they just let the currents of history carry them into another bloodbath? What is the responsibility of the individual, especially of the intellectual, at times like this? After long talks with his cousin, Mümtaz asks himself: "Maybe İhsan does have a point! This society wants ideas and maybe even a struggle out of me. Not romantic posturing! But to achieve this end must I forget about Nuran?"
There is obviously much of Hamlet's "To be, or not to be..." in Mümtaz's dilemma. Readers of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities will also find themselves on familiar ground with a protagonist full of ideas but lacking in direction. In contrast to Mümtaz there is Suad, a key character introduced fairly late in the novel, who is his mirror image: a man of intellectual attainment but impulsive, irresponsible, self-indulgent and proud of his Sadean amorality. Nuran, in contrast to both of these men, is centered on her feelings, her family, and her cultural roots. In the author's words, "Nuran depended on a minimum level of selfhood. She lived through her milieu."
A Mind at Peace is a great novel that brings forth ideas of epic scale out of an intimate story, and does so against an unforgettable historical and cultural backdrop. The principal characters, notwithstanding their penchant for philosophical abstracts, are convincingly complete and complex. The author's prose, beautifully translated, has an evocative and lyrical quality in keeping with the musical theme running through the novel. Here, for example, is a passage describing Nuran:
"Not a single spot existed on her small face with which he wasn't familiar. For Mümtaz, her face became his panorama of the soul: the way it blossomed to love like a flower, closed definitively upon a despairing smile--the metallic radiance burning in her eyes asquint--and not least of all the way her face changed by degrees like a daybreak over the Bosphorus.... With a look, she dressed him up and stripped him down, at one moment turning him into a pitiful, forsaken malcontent with no recourse but Allah, and at the next into the very master of his fate."For both its profound discussion of ideas central to the human condition and its vivid portrayal of a place, a time and a people, A Mind at Peace is highly recommended.
25Polaris-
Thought I'd give this thread a bump - and also realised that I'd not posted up a review here that I'd meant to at the time I wrote it last year:
ISRAEL
Only Yesterday by Shmuel Yosef Agnon - originally published in Hebrew 1946, English edition by Princeton University Press 2002.
I wanted to read a book that many consider to be Agnon’s masterpiece, as well as others who claim it to be one of the finest examples of modern Hebrew literature. I was not disappointed at all. It took me quite a while to finish ‘Only Yesterday’ as apart from being particularly busy in recent weeks, I found that I wanted to read each page quite slowly, savouring the folkloric language and making sure that I had fully absorbed what the author wanted to say.
On the surface this is a tale of one man’s passage to the Land of Israel from his home village in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The pre-WWI Ottoman Palestine he arrives in is a world far removed from his naïve imaginings. Our ‘hero’ – Isaac Kumer – is a young and impoverished Zionist of the Second Aliyah. This was the period of renewed zeal amongst the (mainly Russian) Jews of the pogrom and persecution-beset old country, and although relatively small in number, the wide-ranging influence of its pioneers on subsequent generations in the founding of the State of Israel is beyond compare. Agnon charmingly weaves into his plot many historic (and also the future historic) figures alongside the fictional cast of many. Initially finding his feet in the bustling port town of Jaffa, Isaac eventually makes the trip up to Jerusalem. At either end of this journey Agnon lavishly portrays the fascinating world of these two very different towns – the former being coastal, politicised, and predominantly secular, the latter being of the interior, traditional and overwhelmingly orthodox. If nothing else, this book serves as a wonderfully valuable portrayal of a world now gone. The co-mingling of European Jews and their indigenous brethren, the urban and the rural, the liberal and the conservative, at a time when the very soul of the future Jewish state was in gestation, is fascinating to behold.
After many early setbacks in his attempts to find the work on the land that he had dreamed of {One aspect of ‘Only Yesterday’ was the nearly complete absence of the Arabs of the country. An exception to this is in reference to those farmers preferring to employ the cheaper Arab labour to that of the Jewish immigrant. They’re referred to in other places, but so scantily that I can only conclude that they did not figure largely in the day to day life at that time of either Agnon himself, or those contemporaries of the period that he is portraying.} – Isaac stumbles on another way to earn a living as a painter.
As his early years in the land are told – sometimes the narrator is from Isaac’s point of view, sometimes detached from Isaac as an omnipotent observer, and sometimes in the lives of others altogether – the novel starts to develop simultaneously on several levels. As well as the tale of Isaac’s days, the reader is aware of the question of being a stranger in a strange land. In Jaffa Isaac is a Galician among the Russians. In the fields he is a Jew among the Arabs. In Jerusalem he is a ‘modern’, or a Zionist, among the Hasidim. And so on. Questions of identity and purpose are constantly in Isaac’s mind as he is also caught between the only two women he has ever known outside of his family – one in Jaffa and the other in Jerusalem.
Agnon has a great sense of humour and mischief as well, as we discover mid-story when he introduces an almost magical or Kafkaesque element in the guise of a stray dog. Balak, the dog, suffers the misfortune to be the butt of Isaac’s tomfoolery in a moment of boredom. The repercussions of the joke are so consequential to the story that I can’t say more. Suffice to say, in every chapter when Balak takes the lead, the reader is treated to an alternate view of the universe from a lonesome dog’s perspective.
Agnon’s writing is soaring and beautiful in as many places depicting the mundane and the ugly of everyday life as it is the wondrous and mystical. The imagery of his tale is powerful and will stay with me for a long time to come. An unforgettable story.
PS:
A description of the artwork on the cover: "Pinwheel Vendor" by Reuven Rubin (1923). It is taken from a catalogue for a Rubin exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art entitled "Dreamland". I include it as it is of some interest considering the publisher's choice and that it seems to express with great subtlety something of the story itself:
An Arab of Sudanese descent sits facing the sea while a Jewish pioneer stands beside him. The Sudanese man’s pose, his elevated chin and the fixed gaze focused on a faraway point on the horizon create the sense of a character operating within the dimensions of “inexhaustible time” – time which is not measured in the units of “here and now” but by means of an hourglass in which the sand grains do not run out. The Sudanese man has so much time that he does not even bother to blow at his pinwheels. Sooner or later, the wind will come. If not sooner, then later. And if not later, then after later. The pioneer at his side stands barefoot like the natives and carries a hoe – a symbol of Zionist activism – on his shoulder, his back turned to the sea. The Sudanese man looks as if he could keep crouching on his heels for a long time. He is in no hurry, and patience is the trait ensuring his survival. He operates in another temporal sphere. By contrast, the “New Jew” – bearded and wearing a European hat – is full of movement and impetuosity. He has no time, and must begin his task.
(five stars)
ISRAEL
Only Yesterday by Shmuel Yosef Agnon - originally published in Hebrew 1946, English edition by Princeton University Press 2002.
I wanted to read a book that many consider to be Agnon’s masterpiece, as well as others who claim it to be one of the finest examples of modern Hebrew literature. I was not disappointed at all. It took me quite a while to finish ‘Only Yesterday’ as apart from being particularly busy in recent weeks, I found that I wanted to read each page quite slowly, savouring the folkloric language and making sure that I had fully absorbed what the author wanted to say.
On the surface this is a tale of one man’s passage to the Land of Israel from his home village in Austro-Hungarian Galicia. The pre-WWI Ottoman Palestine he arrives in is a world far removed from his naïve imaginings. Our ‘hero’ – Isaac Kumer – is a young and impoverished Zionist of the Second Aliyah. This was the period of renewed zeal amongst the (mainly Russian) Jews of the pogrom and persecution-beset old country, and although relatively small in number, the wide-ranging influence of its pioneers on subsequent generations in the founding of the State of Israel is beyond compare. Agnon charmingly weaves into his plot many historic (and also the future historic) figures alongside the fictional cast of many. Initially finding his feet in the bustling port town of Jaffa, Isaac eventually makes the trip up to Jerusalem. At either end of this journey Agnon lavishly portrays the fascinating world of these two very different towns – the former being coastal, politicised, and predominantly secular, the latter being of the interior, traditional and overwhelmingly orthodox. If nothing else, this book serves as a wonderfully valuable portrayal of a world now gone. The co-mingling of European Jews and their indigenous brethren, the urban and the rural, the liberal and the conservative, at a time when the very soul of the future Jewish state was in gestation, is fascinating to behold.
After many early setbacks in his attempts to find the work on the land that he had dreamed of {One aspect of ‘Only Yesterday’ was the nearly complete absence of the Arabs of the country. An exception to this is in reference to those farmers preferring to employ the cheaper Arab labour to that of the Jewish immigrant. They’re referred to in other places, but so scantily that I can only conclude that they did not figure largely in the day to day life at that time of either Agnon himself, or those contemporaries of the period that he is portraying.} – Isaac stumbles on another way to earn a living as a painter.
As his early years in the land are told – sometimes the narrator is from Isaac’s point of view, sometimes detached from Isaac as an omnipotent observer, and sometimes in the lives of others altogether – the novel starts to develop simultaneously on several levels. As well as the tale of Isaac’s days, the reader is aware of the question of being a stranger in a strange land. In Jaffa Isaac is a Galician among the Russians. In the fields he is a Jew among the Arabs. In Jerusalem he is a ‘modern’, or a Zionist, among the Hasidim. And so on. Questions of identity and purpose are constantly in Isaac’s mind as he is also caught between the only two women he has ever known outside of his family – one in Jaffa and the other in Jerusalem.
Agnon has a great sense of humour and mischief as well, as we discover mid-story when he introduces an almost magical or Kafkaesque element in the guise of a stray dog. Balak, the dog, suffers the misfortune to be the butt of Isaac’s tomfoolery in a moment of boredom. The repercussions of the joke are so consequential to the story that I can’t say more. Suffice to say, in every chapter when Balak takes the lead, the reader is treated to an alternate view of the universe from a lonesome dog’s perspective.
Agnon’s writing is soaring and beautiful in as many places depicting the mundane and the ugly of everyday life as it is the wondrous and mystical. The imagery of his tale is powerful and will stay with me for a long time to come. An unforgettable story.
PS:
A description of the artwork on the cover: "Pinwheel Vendor" by Reuven Rubin (1923). It is taken from a catalogue for a Rubin exhibition at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art entitled "Dreamland". I include it as it is of some interest considering the publisher's choice and that it seems to express with great subtlety something of the story itself:
An Arab of Sudanese descent sits facing the sea while a Jewish pioneer stands beside him. The Sudanese man’s pose, his elevated chin and the fixed gaze focused on a faraway point on the horizon create the sense of a character operating within the dimensions of “inexhaustible time” – time which is not measured in the units of “here and now” but by means of an hourglass in which the sand grains do not run out. The Sudanese man has so much time that he does not even bother to blow at his pinwheels. Sooner or later, the wind will come. If not sooner, then later. And if not later, then after later. The pioneer at his side stands barefoot like the natives and carries a hoe – a symbol of Zionist activism – on his shoulder, his back turned to the sea. The Sudanese man looks as if he could keep crouching on his heels for a long time. He is in no hurry, and patience is the trait ensuring his survival. He operates in another temporal sphere. By contrast, the “New Jew” – bearded and wearing a European hat – is full of movement and impetuosity. He has no time, and must begin his task.
(five stars)
26Polaris-
ISRAEL
Between Friends by Amos Oz
On our kibbutz, Kibbutz Yekhat, there lived a man, Zvi Provizor, a short fifty-five year old bachelor who had a habit of blinking. He loved to transmit bad news: earthquakes, plane crashes, buildings collapsing on their occupants, fires and floods.
With these opening two sentences I am there. I know exactly who Zvi Provizor is, and I know who we're dealing with in the opening story of Amos Oz's latest collection of short stories. These are a series of eight vignettes set in a fictional collective settlement of late '50s or early '60s Israel. It's a place that the reader will come to know surprisingly well for so slim a volume. The tales are above all about humanity.
I lived on a kibbutz once for several years, and no one of those communities is quite like another. That said, there are though certain traits and themes and character types that do tend to crop up in every one I ever encountered or heard about. Oz has captured with an amazing economy of words, and a clarity that is so satisfying, precisely who might live there and what preoccupies them.
In "The King of Norway" our blinking bachelor Zvi and Luna Blank, a widow, fall into a new routine - talking every evening. "Two Women" exchange letters - Osnat the launderess has recently become separated, and Ariella, who works in the chicken coop and heads the culture committee, is the tall, slim divorcée to whom Boaz has run. The title story sees Nahum, a widower of about fifty, approaching the subject of his only remaining child, Edna, having moved in with David Dagan, a teacher and one of the kibbutz founders and leaders - a man his own age.
"Father" is a story which I think is the most autobiographical: Sixteen year old Moshe is a 'boarder' newly arrived at Yekhat after his mother has died, and father and now uncle have both fallen ill. With the greatest poignancy we see Moshe finish work early one day and make the difficult trip to visit his ailing father. To anyone who has read Oz's 'A Tale of Love and Darkness' - this is a glimpse of what might have happened next. I was extremely moved.
"Little Boy" is another heartbreaker: The emotional volatility of the shared children's housing hits dad Roni in a way that doesn't quite affect mum Leah the same way. "At Night" sees Yoav the kibbutz general secretary turn night guard for the week. Nina needs his help with a problem that won't wait until morning. In "Deir Ajloun", Yotam the young adult son of another widow, Henia, receives an invitation from Uncle Arthur to study in Milan. Whatever will the general assembly have to say?
The final story, "Esperanto", is about an older member of the kibbutz - Martin, a holocaust survivor who hid from the Nazis in Holland. Martin is the community shoemaker and is a former Esperanto teacher; he has trouble breathing and is dying. He is an anarchist to the very end:
And once, when two brisk nurses came in to change his pyjamas, he grinned suddenly and told them that death itself was an anarchist. 'Death is not awed by status, possessions, power or titles; we are all equal in its eyes.'
All of the characters we've met are present in this final tale, though they crop up here and there in the other stories - maybe on the path, or making a speech in a meeting - just as they do on any kibbutz. Amos Oz has written a first class and moving collection of interwoven stories. The final mosaic is a piece of art to behold. I had to pace myself to read this book as slowly as I could, I wanted to savour its quality for as long as possible. (Perhaps I should have just torn through it and reread it immediately?) Five stars and highly recommended.
Between Friends by Amos Oz
On our kibbutz, Kibbutz Yekhat, there lived a man, Zvi Provizor, a short fifty-five year old bachelor who had a habit of blinking. He loved to transmit bad news: earthquakes, plane crashes, buildings collapsing on their occupants, fires and floods.
With these opening two sentences I am there. I know exactly who Zvi Provizor is, and I know who we're dealing with in the opening story of Amos Oz's latest collection of short stories. These are a series of eight vignettes set in a fictional collective settlement of late '50s or early '60s Israel. It's a place that the reader will come to know surprisingly well for so slim a volume. The tales are above all about humanity.
I lived on a kibbutz once for several years, and no one of those communities is quite like another. That said, there are though certain traits and themes and character types that do tend to crop up in every one I ever encountered or heard about. Oz has captured with an amazing economy of words, and a clarity that is so satisfying, precisely who might live there and what preoccupies them.
In "The King of Norway" our blinking bachelor Zvi and Luna Blank, a widow, fall into a new routine - talking every evening. "Two Women" exchange letters - Osnat the launderess has recently become separated, and Ariella, who works in the chicken coop and heads the culture committee, is the tall, slim divorcée to whom Boaz has run. The title story sees Nahum, a widower of about fifty, approaching the subject of his only remaining child, Edna, having moved in with David Dagan, a teacher and one of the kibbutz founders and leaders - a man his own age.
"Father" is a story which I think is the most autobiographical: Sixteen year old Moshe is a 'boarder' newly arrived at Yekhat after his mother has died, and father and now uncle have both fallen ill. With the greatest poignancy we see Moshe finish work early one day and make the difficult trip to visit his ailing father. To anyone who has read Oz's 'A Tale of Love and Darkness' - this is a glimpse of what might have happened next. I was extremely moved.
"Little Boy" is another heartbreaker: The emotional volatility of the shared children's housing hits dad Roni in a way that doesn't quite affect mum Leah the same way. "At Night" sees Yoav the kibbutz general secretary turn night guard for the week. Nina needs his help with a problem that won't wait until morning. In "Deir Ajloun", Yotam the young adult son of another widow, Henia, receives an invitation from Uncle Arthur to study in Milan. Whatever will the general assembly have to say?
The final story, "Esperanto", is about an older member of the kibbutz - Martin, a holocaust survivor who hid from the Nazis in Holland. Martin is the community shoemaker and is a former Esperanto teacher; he has trouble breathing and is dying. He is an anarchist to the very end:
And once, when two brisk nurses came in to change his pyjamas, he grinned suddenly and told them that death itself was an anarchist. 'Death is not awed by status, possessions, power or titles; we are all equal in its eyes.'
All of the characters we've met are present in this final tale, though they crop up here and there in the other stories - maybe on the path, or making a speech in a meeting - just as they do on any kibbutz. Amos Oz has written a first class and moving collection of interwoven stories. The final mosaic is a piece of art to behold. I had to pace myself to read this book as slowly as I could, I wanted to savour its quality for as long as possible. (Perhaps I should have just torn through it and reread it immediately?) Five stars and highly recommended.
27Korrick
Any recommendations for Syria? The country doesn't seem to have popped up in this thread yet.
28Polaris-
ISRAEL
*
Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
(First published in Hebrew 1980, English 1981. 2013 English edition by Europa Editions - World Noir, translated by Kim Parfitt & Mildred Budny.)
There's something to be said for not writing a review as soon as you finish a book. Let it settle, digest what's been taken in and reflect a little. When I closed Minotaur my initial feeling was one of having been blown away by the taut and refined writing style, the way the plot unwinds gradually, revealing part of the truth, only then to be quickly snapped back like a spring to an earlier scene in the protagonists' stories - revealing more as it went. At least a week has passed and now I find on reflection a sense of depth to the plot that didn't immediately occur to me as I was reading. This is one that I think I'd like to one day return to afresh.
Tammuz' book chiefly involves four main characters - all brilliantly drawn - and the book is divided into four extended chapters covering each's story from their particular perspective. There is a lot of overlap, and more than a touch of mischief at play as the author teases the reader with subtle misdirections - almost as the characters in his story will at times play with each other's emotions.
Alexander Abramov is a mid-20th century Israeli secret agent, but he is not really the hero, or even anti-hero of the spy thriller that I was expecting to read. It is his 41st birthday, and he is alone in rain-soaked London, finding himself living in isolation and distanced both physically and metaphorically from his wife and children, his home and his origins. Into his life appears Thea, an unnervingly young beauty with dark copper coloured hair, who he instantly infatuates himself with. At a distance, Abramov observes her going about her life as his obsession grows. The manipulative techniques of his profession allow him to make her existence an inseparable part of his own; an increasingly despairing one that depends on a perpetually out-of-reach and exponentially damaging and unbalanced love affair. But it would be wrong to dismiss Abramov as a creepy stalker. Yes, he can certainly creep with the best of them, but his irregularly frequent letters to Thea - the pair have never met face to face, necessitating an elaborate Le Carresque arrangement via post restante collections - are anticipated by her with a flattered and romantic sensibility that is somewhere between bemused fascination and distracted fantasy.
The years, and letters, pass and we learn of Thea's other suitors, thankfully more conventional than the strange and melancholic Abramov. There is GR - a somewhat preppy and straight contemporary, who is supposedly more suitable, as well as the enigmatic Greek intellectual and academic Nikos Trianda, who also, like his fellow Mediterranean Alexander, falls in love with Thea at first sight. She is entirely convinced that he is in fact her mysterious and "anonymous friend" himself.
The author's spare style, and poetic prose, successfully moves the story along at a fair old pace - it is very well written. By the halfway mark of this slim novel, I was amazed at quite how much ground had been covered by the writing, and the years that had passed in its story.
The final and longest chapter (almost half the book) takes the reader back initially to Alexander's childhood, and his parents' stories of Europe and their self-imposed exiles of sorts in Ottoman/Mandate-era Palestine. The elements of his earlier life that formed his character become ever clearer against a background of isolated privilege, distant parents, nascent Israel, first loves, and existential wars.
Ostensibly a beautifully penned book about obsession and where it might stem from, as well as unfulfilled love, there are many passages that subtly suggest there could be more on Tammuz' mind. I'm not sure, but think that (writing in 1979) he is also saying something about Israel's place in the Levant, and in turn perhaps raises questions of isolation, belonging, and acceptance. I don't know if the last sentence will mean anything to anyone but myself, but Minotaur certainly made me ponder far more than I bargained for when Graham Greene's "The best novel of the year" blurb caught my eye. Have to say also that I kept on thinking what a terrific film this would make in the hands of the right director. Well worth the diversion, and I'll gladly read anything else by Benjamin Tammuz.
*A post script of praise for the jacket design with this one - by Emanuele Ragnisco. It is after all both eye-catching and stylish - and deftly drops the very merest hint of the story within: a man sitting alone, in an apparently enticing location, face hidden, somehow lost in thought, possibly unhappy, or both?
*Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
(First published in Hebrew 1980, English 1981. 2013 English edition by Europa Editions - World Noir, translated by Kim Parfitt & Mildred Budny.)
There's something to be said for not writing a review as soon as you finish a book. Let it settle, digest what's been taken in and reflect a little. When I closed Minotaur my initial feeling was one of having been blown away by the taut and refined writing style, the way the plot unwinds gradually, revealing part of the truth, only then to be quickly snapped back like a spring to an earlier scene in the protagonists' stories - revealing more as it went. At least a week has passed and now I find on reflection a sense of depth to the plot that didn't immediately occur to me as I was reading. This is one that I think I'd like to one day return to afresh.
Tammuz' book chiefly involves four main characters - all brilliantly drawn - and the book is divided into four extended chapters covering each's story from their particular perspective. There is a lot of overlap, and more than a touch of mischief at play as the author teases the reader with subtle misdirections - almost as the characters in his story will at times play with each other's emotions.
Alexander Abramov is a mid-20th century Israeli secret agent, but he is not really the hero, or even anti-hero of the spy thriller that I was expecting to read. It is his 41st birthday, and he is alone in rain-soaked London, finding himself living in isolation and distanced both physically and metaphorically from his wife and children, his home and his origins. Into his life appears Thea, an unnervingly young beauty with dark copper coloured hair, who he instantly infatuates himself with. At a distance, Abramov observes her going about her life as his obsession grows. The manipulative techniques of his profession allow him to make her existence an inseparable part of his own; an increasingly despairing one that depends on a perpetually out-of-reach and exponentially damaging and unbalanced love affair. But it would be wrong to dismiss Abramov as a creepy stalker. Yes, he can certainly creep with the best of them, but his irregularly frequent letters to Thea - the pair have never met face to face, necessitating an elaborate Le Carresque arrangement via post restante collections - are anticipated by her with a flattered and romantic sensibility that is somewhere between bemused fascination and distracted fantasy.
The years, and letters, pass and we learn of Thea's other suitors, thankfully more conventional than the strange and melancholic Abramov. There is GR - a somewhat preppy and straight contemporary, who is supposedly more suitable, as well as the enigmatic Greek intellectual and academic Nikos Trianda, who also, like his fellow Mediterranean Alexander, falls in love with Thea at first sight. She is entirely convinced that he is in fact her mysterious and "anonymous friend" himself.
The author's spare style, and poetic prose, successfully moves the story along at a fair old pace - it is very well written. By the halfway mark of this slim novel, I was amazed at quite how much ground had been covered by the writing, and the years that had passed in its story.
The final and longest chapter (almost half the book) takes the reader back initially to Alexander's childhood, and his parents' stories of Europe and their self-imposed exiles of sorts in Ottoman/Mandate-era Palestine. The elements of his earlier life that formed his character become ever clearer against a background of isolated privilege, distant parents, nascent Israel, first loves, and existential wars.
Ostensibly a beautifully penned book about obsession and where it might stem from, as well as unfulfilled love, there are many passages that subtly suggest there could be more on Tammuz' mind. I'm not sure, but think that (writing in 1979) he is also saying something about Israel's place in the Levant, and in turn perhaps raises questions of isolation, belonging, and acceptance. I don't know if the last sentence will mean anything to anyone but myself, but Minotaur certainly made me ponder far more than I bargained for when Graham Greene's "The best novel of the year" blurb caught my eye. Have to say also that I kept on thinking what a terrific film this would make in the hands of the right director. Well worth the diversion, and I'll gladly read anything else by Benjamin Tammuz.
*A post script of praise for the jacket design with this one - by Emanuele Ragnisco. It is after all both eye-catching and stylish - and deftly drops the very merest hint of the story within: a man sitting alone, in an apparently enticing location, face hidden, somehow lost in thought, possibly unhappy, or both?
29SassyLassy
ISRAEL
To Know a Woman by Amos Oz translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange, in collaboration with the author
first published as La-da'at ishah in 1989
Who better to understand the physiology of secrets than an Israeli agent? When Yoel's wife was electrocuted in the back yard of their Jerusalem building, with the next door neighbour dying beside her, Yoel came home from his mission in Helsinki. He stopped his clandestine work and set out to deconstruct the riddle that was his family.
Grief is a curious thing though. No matter how competent and detached we may feel, it is working away deep down inside us in its own secret ways. Yoel's immediate response had been to sell the apartment and move to Tel Aviv. There he leased a house and moved in with his teenage daughter, his mother, and his mother-in-law.
Yoel was a man whose very survival had depended upon his ability to read people, total strangers, immediately. "His perceptional life had been so sharp in those years, and now everything was blunt." He had felt that the bond between him and his wife Ivria was shared knowledge, a deep and profound knowledge of each other. Had he really known her, this woman who locked herself in a room all day long to write about the Brontes, this woman who slept apart from him every night?
Now he retreated into routine and busywork to block his thoughts, although the sharp sense of observation that had served him so well in his professional life stayed acute.
Oz writes with a flat almost laconic style that grated at first. It seemed nothing would ever happen and perhaps nothing ever really did. Gradually the narrative took over and became almost hypnotic. Gradually Yoel worked his way through the idea of secrets in family life, finally acknowledging their existence, without having to know their content. For "What was the extent of the resemblance or difference between different people's secrets? Yoel knew there was no way to know. Even though the question of what people really know about each other, especially people who are close to one another had always been an important one for him and had now become an urgent one"
He realized that sleepwalking through life was not the answer, that he had to come to life again. It was another death that enabled this transformation, a death that made him realize that like King David, with the deaths of Saul or Uriah or even Absalom, the news of death "brought him relief and sometimes even rescue".
This is a quiet book that keeps the reader thinking long after it is finished.
To Know a Woman by Amos Oz translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Lange, in collaboration with the author
first published as La-da'at ishah in 1989
Who better to understand the physiology of secrets than an Israeli agent? When Yoel's wife was electrocuted in the back yard of their Jerusalem building, with the next door neighbour dying beside her, Yoel came home from his mission in Helsinki. He stopped his clandestine work and set out to deconstruct the riddle that was his family.
Grief is a curious thing though. No matter how competent and detached we may feel, it is working away deep down inside us in its own secret ways. Yoel's immediate response had been to sell the apartment and move to Tel Aviv. There he leased a house and moved in with his teenage daughter, his mother, and his mother-in-law.
Yoel was a man whose very survival had depended upon his ability to read people, total strangers, immediately. "His perceptional life had been so sharp in those years, and now everything was blunt." He had felt that the bond between him and his wife Ivria was shared knowledge, a deep and profound knowledge of each other. Had he really known her, this woman who locked herself in a room all day long to write about the Brontes, this woman who slept apart from him every night?
Now he retreated into routine and busywork to block his thoughts, although the sharp sense of observation that had served him so well in his professional life stayed acute.
He had nothing to do all day long. The days were all alike. Here and there he made various improvements in the house. He fixed a soap dish in the bathroom. A new hat and coat rack. A lid with a spring on the dustbin. He hoed the soil around the four fruit trees in the back garden. He lopped of some redundant branches and painted the wounds with a black paste. He prowled around the bedrooms, the kitchen, the car-port, the balcony, clutching the electric drill with its extension lead always plugged in, like a diver attached to his oxygen tube, with his finger on the trigger, looking for a spot to thrust the tip in.... He rewashered all the taps in the house... He oiled the hinges of the doors to stop them squeaking. He took Ivria's pen to be cleaned and to have the nib changed.
Oz writes with a flat almost laconic style that grated at first. It seemed nothing would ever happen and perhaps nothing ever really did. Gradually the narrative took over and became almost hypnotic. Gradually Yoel worked his way through the idea of secrets in family life, finally acknowledging their existence, without having to know their content. For "What was the extent of the resemblance or difference between different people's secrets? Yoel knew there was no way to know. Even though the question of what people really know about each other, especially people who are close to one another had always been an important one for him and had now become an urgent one"
He realized that sleepwalking through life was not the answer, that he had to come to life again. It was another death that enabled this transformation, a death that made him realize that like King David, with the deaths of Saul or Uriah or even Absalom, the news of death "brought him relief and sometimes even rescue".
This is a quiet book that keeps the reader thinking long after it is finished.
30SassyLassy
Just a note that the suggestion thread for Reading Globally 2016 theme reads is now up. What would you like to read?
http://www.librarything.com/topic/205764
http://www.librarything.com/topic/205764
31rocketjk
ISRAEL
I recently finished A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman. This compelling narrative is as rooted in the human condition as much as in the experience of growing up Israeli. I highly recommend this novel for readers with an enthusiasm for, or at least tolerance of, books focusing more ion character than on plot. The writing itself is often breathtaking, or at least I found it so.
I recently finished A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman. This compelling narrative is as rooted in the human condition as much as in the experience of growing up Israeli. I highly recommend this novel for readers with an enthusiasm for, or at least tolerance of, books focusing more ion character than on plot. The writing itself is often breathtaking, or at least I found it so.
32spiralsheep
I read Code Name: Butterfly by Ahlam Bsharat, 2009 (English translation 2016 by Nancy N Roberts), which is a painfully honest YA story told by a young teenage Palestinian girl living in the Israeli occupied Palestinian territories near Nablus. She has many questions about life which she daren't ask for cultural or political reasons so she locks them away inside herself and begins to wonder if adult humans emerge from their cocoon of childhood questions much as butterflies emerge after their own transformations.
While this book is perhaps more serious than many YA novels it's not especially solemn and the teen protagonist manages to have enough of a sense of humour to perceive the absurdities of growing up under military occupation by a foreign power.
On the family cat: "'I didn't get too upset when Wadee died,' she declared. 'After all, he's a martyr, since Abu Mansur ran him over on the way to work for the occupiers.' She tried to act as if she were fully convinced of every word she was saying and wasn't heartbroken. So she looked hilarious and miserable at the same time, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry."
Children in Jordan: "'They don't have to carry their birth certificates with them everywhere they go to prove they're too young to have to show an ID. In Palestine, children have to prove they're children.'"
3.5*
While this book is perhaps more serious than many YA novels it's not especially solemn and the teen protagonist manages to have enough of a sense of humour to perceive the absurdities of growing up under military occupation by a foreign power.
On the family cat: "'I didn't get too upset when Wadee died,' she declared. 'After all, he's a martyr, since Abu Mansur ran him over on the way to work for the occupiers.' She tried to act as if she were fully convinced of every word she was saying and wasn't heartbroken. So she looked hilarious and miserable at the same time, and I didn't know whether to laugh or cry."
Children in Jordan: "'They don't have to carry their birth certificates with them everywhere they go to prove they're too young to have to show an ID. In Palestine, children have to prove they're children.'"
3.5*
33labfs39
TURKEY
Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
Published 2015, 190 pages
Özge Samancı was born in 1975 in Izmir, Turkey. Her memoir begins with her six-year-old self using binoculars to see her sister waving from school across the street. "School," Özge says, "was the place where you could wave to your mother and your sister, who were watching you with binoculars. I wanted to be on the other side of the binoculars." Her whole childhood was spent thus, trying to keep up with her smart and accomplished sister, who always seemed one step ahead, and to be in the limelight of her parent's approval. Always slightly off-kilter from the expectations of her family, teachers, and Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous), Özge struggled to find her own path and dare to disappoint these expectations.
The tone of the book, as well as the drawings, are funny and sweetly expressive. I was reminded of Ramona the Brave, but life in Turkey was not as saccharine as American suburbia. I learned a bit about Turkey's ban on imports, educational practices, and political tensions, but without any explicit lessons. Dare to Disappoint was a fun book to read, and I enjoyed following Özge into college. She is currently an artist and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.
Dare to Disappoint: Growing Up in Turkey by Özge Samancı
Published 2015, 190 pages
Özge Samancı was born in 1975 in Izmir, Turkey. Her memoir begins with her six-year-old self using binoculars to see her sister waving from school across the street. "School," Özge says, "was the place where you could wave to your mother and your sister, who were watching you with binoculars. I wanted to be on the other side of the binoculars." Her whole childhood was spent thus, trying to keep up with her smart and accomplished sister, who always seemed one step ahead, and to be in the limelight of her parent's approval. Always slightly off-kilter from the expectations of her family, teachers, and Ataturk (whose hagiographic presence in Turkey during the '80s was ubiquitous), Özge struggled to find her own path and dare to disappoint these expectations.
The tone of the book, as well as the drawings, are funny and sweetly expressive. I was reminded of Ramona the Brave, but life in Turkey was not as saccharine as American suburbia. I learned a bit about Turkey's ban on imports, educational practices, and political tensions, but without any explicit lessons. Dare to Disappoint was a fun book to read, and I enjoyed following Özge into college. She is currently an artist and assistant professor at Northwestern University in Chicago.
34labfs39
TURKEY
Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Originally published in 2002, English translation 2004, 425 p.
I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.
My full review is here.
Snow by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely
Originally published in 2002, English translation 2004, 425 p.
I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.
My full review is here.
35labfs39
TURKEY
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Published 2006, 360 pages
I enjoyed this novel of two families, one Armenian and living in San Francisco, the other Turkish and living in Istanbul. When the Armenian American teen visits her Turkish counterpart, lots of willfully forgotten secrets come to light.
My review is here.
The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak
Published 2006, 360 pages
I enjoyed this novel of two families, one Armenian and living in San Francisco, the other Turkish and living in Istanbul. When the Armenian American teen visits her Turkish counterpart, lots of willfully forgotten secrets come to light.
My review is here.
36labfs39
ISRAEL:
Jerusalem: A Family Portrait by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi
Published 2013, 385 p.
A graphic novel based on the stories and recollections of Boaz Yakin's father, Jerusalem is the story of both a family and the city itself. The book begins in April 1945 and ends in June 1948 after the second cease fire in the Arab-Israeli War, about a month after the establishment of the state of Israel. The heavy black-lined drawings amplify the mood of the book. From protests over the White Papers to sabotage of the British forces and atrocities committed by both the Jews and Arabs, the action is violent and often chaotic.
The Yakin family has been fictionized into the Halaby family. The three oldest boys all fight for different factions: Avraham is a communist and doesn't want to fight in Israel, after fighting in the Palestine Regiment under the British in WWII; David fights in Europe and helps countless Jews escape to Palestine, then joins the Palmach; Ezra fights both the British and the Arabs in the paramilitary Irgun. Young Motti is a hoodlum always in fights until he joins the theatre.
If it sounds confusing, it is, but I think that is one of the points of the book: it was a confusing time in history, with no one completely right or wrong and atrocities committed by everyone involved, including the British. No one is a winner and tragedy abounds. The book helped me better understand how those tumultuous years could divide and scar a family, as well as the city at large.
This spread is of Avraham, bloody from being beaten by the Irgun for not fighting, considering turning in his brother who has been buying arms for them on the black market. The woman is their mother.
Jerusalem: A Family Portrait by Boaz Yakin and Nick Bertozzi
Published 2013, 385 p.
A graphic novel based on the stories and recollections of Boaz Yakin's father, Jerusalem is the story of both a family and the city itself. The book begins in April 1945 and ends in June 1948 after the second cease fire in the Arab-Israeli War, about a month after the establishment of the state of Israel. The heavy black-lined drawings amplify the mood of the book. From protests over the White Papers to sabotage of the British forces and atrocities committed by both the Jews and Arabs, the action is violent and often chaotic.
The Yakin family has been fictionized into the Halaby family. The three oldest boys all fight for different factions: Avraham is a communist and doesn't want to fight in Israel, after fighting in the Palestine Regiment under the British in WWII; David fights in Europe and helps countless Jews escape to Palestine, then joins the Palmach; Ezra fights both the British and the Arabs in the paramilitary Irgun. Young Motti is a hoodlum always in fights until he joins the theatre.
If it sounds confusing, it is, but I think that is one of the points of the book: it was a confusing time in history, with no one completely right or wrong and atrocities committed by everyone involved, including the British. No one is a winner and tragedy abounds. The book helped me better understand how those tumultuous years could divide and scar a family, as well as the city at large.
This spread is of Avraham, bloody from being beaten by the Irgun for not fighting, considering turning in his brother who has been buying arms for them on the black market. The woman is their mother.
37labfs39
LEBANON:
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Published 2013, 291 p.
Aaliya is a 72-year-old woman living alone in a Beirut apartment surrounded by books and memories. Estranged from her family, divorced from her impotent husband, and retired from her bookstore, Aaliya is friends with solitude. Every New Year's Day she begins translating a new book, and every year end, she boxes up the translation and stores it in her back room. But Aaliya isn't lonely. She has deep and rich relationships with literature and music that have been her companions throughout her life. Drily humorous and ironic, Aaliya is so well-drawn and lifelike, I feel like I could walk into a Lebanese bookstore and find her reading behind the desk.
An Unnecessary Woman is a book for readers. Almost every page has a reference to an author, book, or composer that sent me Googling down rabbit holes and adding dozens of books to my wish list. Yet, it's not at all pretentious. Aaliya isn't name dropping, she's talking about friends. Whether discussing the art of translation or her process for choosing which book to read next, Aaliya is a kindred spirit for booklovers.
The book is also a depiction of life during the decades-long Lebanese Civil War and an exploration of aging and what it means to live a meaningful life. It's a book that I could reread with pleasure because there are so many layers and the ending is perfect. I'm looking forward to reading more by Alameddine, because if this book is any indication, he could become a favorite author.
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine
Published 2013, 291 p.
Aaliya is a 72-year-old woman living alone in a Beirut apartment surrounded by books and memories. Estranged from her family, divorced from her impotent husband, and retired from her bookstore, Aaliya is friends with solitude. Every New Year's Day she begins translating a new book, and every year end, she boxes up the translation and stores it in her back room. But Aaliya isn't lonely. She has deep and rich relationships with literature and music that have been her companions throughout her life. Drily humorous and ironic, Aaliya is so well-drawn and lifelike, I feel like I could walk into a Lebanese bookstore and find her reading behind the desk.
An Unnecessary Woman is a book for readers. Almost every page has a reference to an author, book, or composer that sent me Googling down rabbit holes and adding dozens of books to my wish list. Yet, it's not at all pretentious. Aaliya isn't name dropping, she's talking about friends. Whether discussing the art of translation or her process for choosing which book to read next, Aaliya is a kindred spirit for booklovers.
The book is also a depiction of life during the decades-long Lebanese Civil War and an exploration of aging and what it means to live a meaningful life. It's a book that I could reread with pleasure because there are so many layers and the ending is perfect. I'm looking forward to reading more by Alameddine, because if this book is any indication, he could become a favorite author.
38labfs39
PALESTINE:
Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between by Laila El-Haddad
Published 2010, 442 p.
Laila El-Haddad is a journalist, blogger, and parent who writes passionately about life in the Gaza Strip. This book is a compilation of her blog posts, article excerpts, photos, and interviews from December 2004-August 2010. Each chapter covers a roughly a year and begins with an overview of what happened both politically and personally during that time.
When the book opens, her son Yousuf is nine months old, and much of her blogging is devoted to work-life balance, trying to negotiate border crossings with a baby, and day to day life with a soon-to-be toddler. But interspersed with this are stories about Palestinian children killed by sniper fire while on UN-school grounds, the difficulties of travel in and out of Gaza (even for, or especially for, residents), and corruption. As the book progresses, more and more time is spent on the politics of life in Gaza, including the intifada, infighting between Fateh and Hamas, and the ever draconian measures taken by Israel.
Gaza Mom is a difficult book to read. It's unflinching in describing the impact Israeli occupation and control has on Palestinians, from destroying the economy, razing homes, closing the borders to even humanitarian aid, shutting off electricity and water, to the 2009-2010 outright war the Israeli's called Operation Cast Lead. There are no answers, only questions and growing resentment and anger. The situation is incredibly sad and frustrating. I wish I had read this book when it came out in 2010. It feels a bit dated now, and yet not much has changed on the ground, which is in itself telling.
Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between by Laila El-Haddad
Published 2010, 442 p.
Laila El-Haddad is a journalist, blogger, and parent who writes passionately about life in the Gaza Strip. This book is a compilation of her blog posts, article excerpts, photos, and interviews from December 2004-August 2010. Each chapter covers a roughly a year and begins with an overview of what happened both politically and personally during that time.
When the book opens, her son Yousuf is nine months old, and much of her blogging is devoted to work-life balance, trying to negotiate border crossings with a baby, and day to day life with a soon-to-be toddler. But interspersed with this are stories about Palestinian children killed by sniper fire while on UN-school grounds, the difficulties of travel in and out of Gaza (even for, or especially for, residents), and corruption. As the book progresses, more and more time is spent on the politics of life in Gaza, including the intifada, infighting between Fateh and Hamas, and the ever draconian measures taken by Israel.
Gaza Mom is a difficult book to read. It's unflinching in describing the impact Israeli occupation and control has on Palestinians, from destroying the economy, razing homes, closing the borders to even humanitarian aid, shutting off electricity and water, to the 2009-2010 outright war the Israeli's called Operation Cast Lead. There are no answers, only questions and growing resentment and anger. The situation is incredibly sad and frustrating. I wish I had read this book when it came out in 2010. It feels a bit dated now, and yet not much has changed on the ground, which is in itself telling.
39AnnieMod
Lebanon (a Lebanese writer writing in Arabic while living in France with a novel about an unnamed country which is designed on Lebanon so it counts here I'd think)
Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat, translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth
Yale University Press, paperback with flaps, 45k words, Cover
Original publication: 2018 (in Arabic as بريد الليل (roughly translated as "The Night Mail"); 2021 in English (this translation)
Awards: International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2019)
A man writes a letter to his lover. But it is not a love letter - it is a letter about the man's feelings and past; about his hopes and his inner demons. And the further you read into this letter, the less you like the man - he is possessive and controlling; he seems to have expectations of his lover which would not apply to him. The letter is never finished and a lot of the passages in the letter remain unfinished. It reads more like a diary than like a letter and yet, it has a recipient and the recipient is often talked to in the text.
That's how this novel opens. But the novel is not the story of this man and the woman who he writes to. The letter never reaches her - instead we read a letter by the person who found and read that first letter. The second writer comments on the letter they found, explains how they found it and then tells a story of their own. And then 3 more people find the letter of the previous writer and write their own.
The 5 writers are all different. They write to different people - an old crush, a father, a mother, a brother. The stories they tell are different but they all are stories of longing to belong and of exile or immigration; they all talk about lost connections and the loss of their families and homes. I am not sure if it was a byproduct of the lack of gender in English but it takes awhile to figure out the gender of the writer in some of the letters. The author tries to keep the voices different but they all merge a bit, becoming an almost unified voice of the people who got lost in the world. And yet, there is some difference under it all - because the crimes and stories people confess to are different; the hardship they lived through had marked them. One of the writers was tortured and then became what he hated the most; one of them escaped a forced marriage; one of them was thrown out for what he was. The letters tell their stories the way they see them - how their own consciousness allows them to see the story. We only see the end of the story for one of those writers; the others remain open for now.
If the novel contained only these 5 letters, it would still be an interesting read - albeit an incomplete one. The author seemed to agree so these letters are just the first part of the novel. The second part revisits the same stories but from the other side - in some cases we see the recipient and their thoughts about the writer; in some cases we see someone who the writer talked about and way the writer influenced their life. Almost all of the stories get their resolutions - combine the respective sections of the two parts of the novel and you get an almost complete story. As is usually the case, the complete story is very different from the one side you see when you read the letters in the first part and it makes you wonder what the actual truth is - after all the second part is the viewpoint of another participant and not of a narrator who can see all sides.
And then there is the 5th letter, the last one in this chain of letters, the one which noone finds. Its story continuation in the second part does not resolve its story, neither we really learn a lot of new things because of how that part is structured. So how do we learn about it then? That's what the third part of the novel ties together - with a sixth letter - the only one to be written without a real recipient (or is the reader the recipient?) and by a man who is not away from home (or not too far away anyway). It ties the novel together and works almost as a summary of the whole novel - even though it does not really mention the fifth letter, the end of the story of that letter is there.
The country where everyone comes from and the countries they are in when they write their letters are never named. One of the letter-writers believes that the previous one in the chain was from Lebanon and some of the clues point in that direction as well - the author is also from Lebanon so even if invented, the country was probably based on Lebanon. But the country is never really named; neither is any of the character named. As much as the characters are individuals and come alive at the page of the novel, they are also "the lost" - the nameless and the country-less. And at the end it does not matter - their stories work without names and without locations - all you need to know that it is an Arab country which was at least partially taken over by Daesh - being invented or a real one is irrelevant for the stories.
Some of the letters contain very graphic description of torture - some of it named with its proper name, some if it not. It makes these section hard to read and while at the start the novel mostly hints at these, the later letters openly discusses them. They made sense - the writers were writing their own stories and having lived through the horrors, they had become somewhat used to thinking about them (and it is not surprising that the person who was the most graphic was also the one who had inflicted enough horrors on other people).
It is a novel about losing everything - family, country, yourself. And while its structure can be a bit scattered and the novel may be losing its coherence as a whole in places, it still works. Its original name translates as "Night mail" and I suspect that it carries connotations which I am not aware of and cannot recognize. Its English title is apt and tells you exactly what you get in the short novel. So even if I usually do not like creative translations of titles, I think that here it works better than the original one.
I don't think that the novel will work for everyone and the narrative style takes awhile to get used to (plus a lot of the letter writers are not people you would want to hang out with) but if you can get immersed into the story and you are not too bothered by the graphic language, it is a gem of a novel - an imperfect one but still worth reading.
Voices of the Lost by Hoda Barakat, translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth
Yale University Press, paperback with flaps, 45k words, Cover
Original publication: 2018 (in Arabic as بريد الليل (roughly translated as "The Night Mail"); 2021 in English (this translation)
Awards: International Prize for Arabic Fiction (2019)
A man writes a letter to his lover. But it is not a love letter - it is a letter about the man's feelings and past; about his hopes and his inner demons. And the further you read into this letter, the less you like the man - he is possessive and controlling; he seems to have expectations of his lover which would not apply to him. The letter is never finished and a lot of the passages in the letter remain unfinished. It reads more like a diary than like a letter and yet, it has a recipient and the recipient is often talked to in the text.
That's how this novel opens. But the novel is not the story of this man and the woman who he writes to. The letter never reaches her - instead we read a letter by the person who found and read that first letter. The second writer comments on the letter they found, explains how they found it and then tells a story of their own. And then 3 more people find the letter of the previous writer and write their own.
The 5 writers are all different. They write to different people - an old crush, a father, a mother, a brother. The stories they tell are different but they all are stories of longing to belong and of exile or immigration; they all talk about lost connections and the loss of their families and homes. I am not sure if it was a byproduct of the lack of gender in English but it takes awhile to figure out the gender of the writer in some of the letters. The author tries to keep the voices different but they all merge a bit, becoming an almost unified voice of the people who got lost in the world. And yet, there is some difference under it all - because the crimes and stories people confess to are different; the hardship they lived through had marked them. One of the writers was tortured and then became what he hated the most; one of them escaped a forced marriage; one of them was thrown out for what he was. The letters tell their stories the way they see them - how their own consciousness allows them to see the story. We only see the end of the story for one of those writers; the others remain open for now.
If the novel contained only these 5 letters, it would still be an interesting read - albeit an incomplete one. The author seemed to agree so these letters are just the first part of the novel. The second part revisits the same stories but from the other side - in some cases we see the recipient and their thoughts about the writer; in some cases we see someone who the writer talked about and way the writer influenced their life. Almost all of the stories get their resolutions - combine the respective sections of the two parts of the novel and you get an almost complete story. As is usually the case, the complete story is very different from the one side you see when you read the letters in the first part and it makes you wonder what the actual truth is - after all the second part is the viewpoint of another participant and not of a narrator who can see all sides.
And then there is the 5th letter, the last one in this chain of letters, the one which noone finds. Its story continuation in the second part does not resolve its story, neither we really learn a lot of new things because of how that part is structured. So how do we learn about it then? That's what the third part of the novel ties together - with a sixth letter - the only one to be written without a real recipient (or is the reader the recipient?) and by a man who is not away from home (or not too far away anyway). It ties the novel together and works almost as a summary of the whole novel - even though it does not really mention the fifth letter, the end of the story of that letter is there.
The country where everyone comes from and the countries they are in when they write their letters are never named. One of the letter-writers believes that the previous one in the chain was from Lebanon and some of the clues point in that direction as well - the author is also from Lebanon so even if invented, the country was probably based on Lebanon. But the country is never really named; neither is any of the character named. As much as the characters are individuals and come alive at the page of the novel, they are also "the lost" - the nameless and the country-less. And at the end it does not matter - their stories work without names and without locations - all you need to know that it is an Arab country which was at least partially taken over by Daesh - being invented or a real one is irrelevant for the stories.
Some of the letters contain very graphic description of torture - some of it named with its proper name, some if it not. It makes these section hard to read and while at the start the novel mostly hints at these, the later letters openly discusses them. They made sense - the writers were writing their own stories and having lived through the horrors, they had become somewhat used to thinking about them (and it is not surprising that the person who was the most graphic was also the one who had inflicted enough horrors on other people).
It is a novel about losing everything - family, country, yourself. And while its structure can be a bit scattered and the novel may be losing its coherence as a whole in places, it still works. Its original name translates as "Night mail" and I suspect that it carries connotations which I am not aware of and cannot recognize. Its English title is apt and tells you exactly what you get in the short novel. So even if I usually do not like creative translations of titles, I think that here it works better than the original one.
I don't think that the novel will work for everyone and the narrative style takes awhile to get used to (plus a lot of the letter writers are not people you would want to hang out with) but if you can get immersed into the story and you are not too bothered by the graphic language, it is a gem of a novel - an imperfect one but still worth reading.
40Trifolia
Lebanon: An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine - 4 stars
What superlatives can I add about a book that was brought to my attention by Lisa (labfs39) but that was already on my TBR because of a review by annavangelderen, a (former?) Dutch member of LT who has her own blog in the Dutch.
It takes place in Beirut. Since she was rejected by her now deceased husband shortly after she got married, Aaliya lives alone and translates world classics into Arabic. Literature and music give her life meaning. Only, nobody knows about her activities and it is not the intention that anyone ever sees those translations. She withstands the pressure of her family, her neighbors, the war, the loss of the few friends she has and feels safe in her home. Until something happens that throws her off balance.
Aaliya in a character I won't forget. The layering of her character, the combination of tragedy and humor and the way she deals with her environment and situations are beautifully developed. For a moment I feared it would end with a cliché, but luckily the author just didn't fall into the trap.
Highly recommended and definitely one of the better books of 2022.
What superlatives can I add about a book that was brought to my attention by Lisa (labfs39) but that was already on my TBR because of a review by annavangelderen, a (former?) Dutch member of LT who has her own blog in the Dutch.
It takes place in Beirut. Since she was rejected by her now deceased husband shortly after she got married, Aaliya lives alone and translates world classics into Arabic. Literature and music give her life meaning. Only, nobody knows about her activities and it is not the intention that anyone ever sees those translations. She withstands the pressure of her family, her neighbors, the war, the loss of the few friends she has and feels safe in her home. Until something happens that throws her off balance.
Aaliya in a character I won't forget. The layering of her character, the combination of tragedy and humor and the way she deals with her environment and situations are beautifully developed. For a moment I feared it would end with a cliché, but luckily the author just didn't fall into the trap.
Highly recommended and definitely one of the better books of 2022.
41labfs39
PALESTINE
Minor Detail by Shibli Adania, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
Published 2016, English translation 2020, 105 p., New Directions (a great indie publisher of translations)
The book opens on August 9, 1949, exactly one year after the Deir Yassin massacre in which 110 Palestinian men, women, and children were murdered in their village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. An Israeli officer and his men are in the South Negev desert along the Egyptian border searching for Arabs. They set up camp, and that night, the officer is bitten in the thigh by a spider. After several days of searching, they discover a small group of Bedouin by an oasis. Within minutes the Arabs and their camels are slaughtered, all except for a young woman and a dog. Four days later, she too would be dead.
"We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins, and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago. And if the Arabs act according to their sterile nationalist sentiments and reject the idea of us settling here, if they continue to resist us, preferring that the area remain barren, then we will act as an army.
The second chapter is about a woman in the present day who reads and becomes obsessed with an article about the girl's death because it occurred exactly 25 years to the day before she herself was born. She decides to investigate the incident further, but is hampered by borders: those that physically limit the movement of Palestinians and those that she has internalized in order to protect herself in a highly violent and unpredictable environment that is Israel.
It's the barrier of fear, fashioned from fear of the barrier.
The writing is very spare, and at first I was confused by the focus on minor details in the book (even despite the book's title, my first clue). Why write the minutiae about how the Israeli captain washes up and shaves every day? But as the story unfolded, I realized that every word was there for a reason.
But despite this, there are some who consider this way of seeing, which is to say, focusing intently on the most minor details, like dust on the desk or fly shit on a painting, as the only way to arrive at the truth and definitive proof of its existence.
Obsessions with cleanliness versus decay, the howling dog, chewing gum: every detail would have meaning. Everything ties together despite the fragmentation of history and the unending cycles of violence. The ending is as devastating as it is inevitable.
Minor Detail by Shibli Adania, translated from the Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette
Published 2016, English translation 2020, 105 p., New Directions (a great indie publisher of translations)
The book opens on August 9, 1949, exactly one year after the Deir Yassin massacre in which 110 Palestinian men, women, and children were murdered in their village on the outskirts of Jerusalem. An Israeli officer and his men are in the South Negev desert along the Egyptian border searching for Arabs. They set up camp, and that night, the officer is bitten in the thigh by a spider. After several days of searching, they discover a small group of Bedouin by an oasis. Within minutes the Arabs and their camels are slaughtered, all except for a young woman and a dog. Four days later, she too would be dead.
"We cannot stand to see vast areas of land, capable of absorbing thousands of our people in exile, remain neglected; we cannot stand to see our people unable to return to our homeland. This place, which now seems barren, with nothing aside from infiltrators, a few Bedouins, and camels, is where our forefathers passed thousands of years ago. And if the Arabs act according to their sterile nationalist sentiments and reject the idea of us settling here, if they continue to resist us, preferring that the area remain barren, then we will act as an army.
The second chapter is about a woman in the present day who reads and becomes obsessed with an article about the girl's death because it occurred exactly 25 years to the day before she herself was born. She decides to investigate the incident further, but is hampered by borders: those that physically limit the movement of Palestinians and those that she has internalized in order to protect herself in a highly violent and unpredictable environment that is Israel.
It's the barrier of fear, fashioned from fear of the barrier.
The writing is very spare, and at first I was confused by the focus on minor details in the book (even despite the book's title, my first clue). Why write the minutiae about how the Israeli captain washes up and shaves every day? But as the story unfolded, I realized that every word was there for a reason.
But despite this, there are some who consider this way of seeing, which is to say, focusing intently on the most minor details, like dust on the desk or fly shit on a painting, as the only way to arrive at the truth and definitive proof of its existence.
Obsessions with cleanliness versus decay, the howling dog, chewing gum: every detail would have meaning. Everything ties together despite the fragmentation of history and the unending cycles of violence. The ending is as devastating as it is inevitable.
