poring over war
In Praise of Hatred, by Khaled Khalifa. Was this my kind of title, or what? This was off one of those "authors you should know" lists. Set in 1980s Syria, and banned -- I was hoping for some kind of context or background on the current conflict.
Big Nope. Alas. It's the cloistered, aimless existence of a teenaged girl -- her flighty loves and hates, whims, school conflicts, flirtations with crushes, flashes of religious mania. It's a slow build, up to the day when everyone suddenly goes batshit and people start killing their neighbours and soldiers from various factions start ransacking the house. Whose side is which? Who are the good guys? I don't know, and the narrator doesn't elaborate. She detests her relatives and then forgives them a few incidents later.
And so it wanders, from scene to scene, with the women existing on the fringes of any real action (statement on the role of women in Islam?). The main character keeps talking about breasts (hints of lesbianism? Women as objects?) and pores (because . . .uh, smell is important, but. . .). Pores pores pores. The virgin aunt is tormented by the smell of a man coming out of her pores, because she's in love (I still don't get it). I've read (and now typed) "pores" more times in this book than I have in twenty years of English literature.
I am wondering whether something was lost in translation. There are references throughout the story to different prayers, poems, and tales and their structure and syntax. So perhaps the original was arranged to mirror those texts for those particular passages, as a writerly in-joke. It would explain "pores". And weird lines like, Soldiers fired into the air hysterically; they resembled frogs ensnared in a tunnel which had darkened suddenly and caused them to become disoriented (p. 146) or
The mere anticipation oppressed our spirits and made us caress our wrecked bodies, which had relinquished escape, in the bathroom among the foam of the perfumed soap now grown dry and leathery (p. 148).
Though I liked the line about helicopters hovered over the city and paratroopers sprang from them like arrogant rain (p.271).
Cattily, during one especially slow spot, I wondered if the book was banned for being boring. But soon the narrator is in prison, because of either the wrong family connections or handing out religious pamphlets or attending the wrong prayer group -- it's unclear. Somehow, she endures -- the prison part is fairly solid, if bleak (and worrying -- how many other people are still in there?).
tldr; if the point was to paint the Syrian conflict as confusing, senseless, formless, pointless and doomed, top marks. But for those expecting a gripping war story that neatly explains who to root for, wrong novel. Extend some extra patience to any refugees in your community, because man, Syria be fucked, yo.
Big Nope. Alas. It's the cloistered, aimless existence of a teenaged girl -- her flighty loves and hates, whims, school conflicts, flirtations with crushes, flashes of religious mania. It's a slow build, up to the day when everyone suddenly goes batshit and people start killing their neighbours and soldiers from various factions start ransacking the house. Whose side is which? Who are the good guys? I don't know, and the narrator doesn't elaborate. She detests her relatives and then forgives them a few incidents later.
And so it wanders, from scene to scene, with the women existing on the fringes of any real action (statement on the role of women in Islam?). The main character keeps talking about breasts (hints of lesbianism? Women as objects?) and pores (because . . .uh, smell is important, but. . .). Pores pores pores. The virgin aunt is tormented by the smell of a man coming out of her pores, because she's in love (I still don't get it). I've read (and now typed) "pores" more times in this book than I have in twenty years of English literature.
I am wondering whether something was lost in translation. There are references throughout the story to different prayers, poems, and tales and their structure and syntax. So perhaps the original was arranged to mirror those texts for those particular passages, as a writerly in-joke. It would explain "pores". And weird lines like, Soldiers fired into the air hysterically; they resembled frogs ensnared in a tunnel which had darkened suddenly and caused them to become disoriented (p. 146) or
The mere anticipation oppressed our spirits and made us caress our wrecked bodies, which had relinquished escape, in the bathroom among the foam of the perfumed soap now grown dry and leathery (p. 148).
Though I liked the line about helicopters hovered over the city and paratroopers sprang from them like arrogant rain (p.271).
Cattily, during one especially slow spot, I wondered if the book was banned for being boring. But soon the narrator is in prison, because of either the wrong family connections or handing out religious pamphlets or attending the wrong prayer group -- it's unclear. Somehow, she endures -- the prison part is fairly solid, if bleak (and worrying -- how many other people are still in there?).
tldr; if the point was to paint the Syrian conflict as confusing, senseless, formless, pointless and doomed, top marks. But for those expecting a gripping war story that neatly explains who to root for, wrong novel. Extend some extra patience to any refugees in your community, because man, Syria be fucked, yo.