Tag: iraq

There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

A long and highly complex book following three elaborate storylines, all influenced in some way by the Epic of Gilgamesh — the epic Babylonian poem from about 2000 BC. Arthur Smythe — also known as King Arthur of the Sewers and Slum — is born into abject poverty but has an extraordinarily keen mind, an eidetic memory, and an absorbing passion for the artifacts in the British Museum. His story runs from his birth in 1840 to his death 36 years later in Iraq. Zaleekhah is a passionate researcher who focusses on the study and conservation of the Earth’s water in 2018 — focused on theories that would earn her derision were she to try to publish. She is also is pulled in to a fascination with the region through her own Iraqi heritage and feels a despair at the state of the Earth, both politically and environmentally. Narin is a nine-year old Yazidi girl whose village is to be subsumed from flood waters once a new, large dam is completed. A trip to Iraq in 2014 before they must leave the area exposes her to the cruelty of ISIS. Woven throughout the story are themes and entangled details about Mesopotamian history, antiquity looting, modern ISIS, grand scale pollution, language processing and the underpinnings of water throughout.

Shafak’s brain is many orders of magnitude more erudite and complex than mine. The way she can pull together an apparently disjointed collection of data points, commentary, and occurrences and create an interconnected narrative of great scope is inspiring. Her facility with language is impressive — she has a lyrical style that nevertheless manages to convey real content. An example of a one sentence physical description that manages to combine visual depiction, origin, and impact: “… neither grey nor white, the air is a soupy ochre that glows green in places. Particles of soot and ash float above, as domestic coal fires and factory chimneys belch sulfur-laden smoke, clogging the lungs of Londoners, breath by breath.”

I have mixed feelings about how much I enjoyed reading this book. I loved all the detail — giving great depth to so many aspects of the world and bringing so many pieces of information — that could have easily remained hidden — to the surface. These days it feels like we have access to so much information, we are forced to have strong opinions based on a very shallow understanding of the topic, so I appreciated the deep dives on … everything. I loved all the unusual minutiae that came into the story — underground lost rivers, Ashurbanipal’s lost library, a tattooist who works only in cuneiform. However, a real sense of impending doom suffused the pages, and that only got worse at the story went on. It’s hard not to feel as though the world were hopelessly hurtling towards a bad end, with genocidal maniacs (real ones, not Israel, and if you don’t know the difference do some research), environmental disasters, and a generous helping of greed, power-hunger, cruelty, cynicism, and general disregard pervading the text. I freely acknowledge that the world has many, many, problems, but I prefer to read about the many ways we continue to try to improve the many problems and not to succumb to melancholy and hand wringing. I also had a real problem with the ethical dilemma presented at the end. I felt the character’s resolution (clearly representing the author’s opinion) was surprisingly poorly thought out given the depths of her big picture thinking through the rest of the book.

So — if you can read for the history, the beautiful prose, the increased awareness of the interconnectedness of the Earth and the people running mad upon it, you will probably love this book. If your mood is one that is highly influenced by what you’re reading, you might want to pop a Prozac or two before diving in.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 20th, 2024.

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Masood (Literary Fiction)

Thank you to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on February 2nd, 2021.

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 4.5/5 Plot: 4/5
An utterly engaging novel combining a coming-of-age story, a love story, and a story about the relationship one American Muslim has with his religion and community.

Anvar Faris is a sharp, wise-cracking, Pakistani immigrant who uses humor as a shield to protect his vulnerabilities and confusions. He questions his religion — his belief in God, the rigorous requirements of being a “good” Muslim, and most definitely the wrath of his mother who prefers moral to rational arguments. At heart, despite his apparent irreverence, he struggles to do the right thing in the messy human situations that pervade life.

I love the characters in this book — Anvar, the morality-wielding mother, the brother who always colors insides the lines, the fairy-godfather-like Hafeez who reserves his dilapidated apartments for “good Muslims” and has his own means of judging what is good, and Zuha — the woman Anvar has been in love with since childhood who struggles to get Anvar to see that she is living her own coming-of-age story that isn’t completely linked to his.

A separate thread follows Azza — a young woman growing up in war-torn Iraq who eventually makes her way to the U.S. and serves as a kind of catalyst for Anvar’s growth in self-knowledge. Azza is more of an exemplar of a situation than a nuanced individual but the moral choices she makes and the way she questions God about her fate as compared to the Americans she sees are pointed in addition to the part she plays in Anvar’s story.

Spanning 9/11 and the Trump election, the narrative explores multiple aspects of Islam on the global stage — from the radicalizing of the religion in response to “Allah’s punishment” for moral failures to the US execution (without trial) of an American citizen of Yemeni descent suspected of being a terrorist in Syria and beyond. I enjoyed the writing and have included several quotes below. Great character depth and another window into the lives of a community I know little about. As always, I appreciated the focus on individuals rather than stereotypes.

Quotes:
“As usual, Karachi was screaming at its inhabitants and they were screaming right back.”

“My mother preferred morality to rationality because it put God on her side.

“Aamir Faris, in short, uses dull crayons but he is relentlessly fastidious about coloring inside the lines.”

“Checkers is the game of life. Idiots will tell you that chess is, but it isn’t. That’s a game of war, Real life is like checkers. You try to make your way to where you need to go and to do it you’ve got to jump over people while they’re trying to jump over you and everyone is in each other’s way.”

“Muslims — our generation, in the West — are like the Frankenstein monster. We’re stapled and glued together, part West, part East. A little bit of Muslim here, a little bit of skeptic there. We put ourselves together as best we can and that makes us, not pretty, of course, but unique. Then we spend the rest of our lives looking for a mate. Someone who is like us. Except there is no one like us and we did that to ourselves.”

“My husband says that I’m the YouTube of tears. Always streaming, you know.”

“The moment that I took God out of the equation, the world became too large, too cruel and too indifferent for me to live in. I decided then that there was a God. There had to be. I needed Him.”

“Aamir’s chunky laptop hissed, shrieked and beeper its mechanical anxiety as the dial-up connection attempts to link it to the internet. The panicked sound a computer made in the early days of the internet, before cable and before wi-fi, was the swan song of solitude.”

Our Women on the Ground by Zahra Hankir (Non Fiction)

This is a hard book to read, but will open your eyes to whole worlds that exist just across the ocean. These 19 female journalists write about the stories they cover across the countries in the Middle East. From Syria to Iraq to Lebanon to Yemen (and more), they describe the world behind the political and military statistics — the civilian individuals (often women and children) trying to survive in a world gone crazy. From years without power, to the random and constant acts of violence, to the impact of a single car bomb on the rest of the community, these women bring to life a whole realm of existence that is hard for a Westerner to imagine. In many cases, we are reminded of how “normal” life was in the very recent past. It’s a harsh reminder that yes, no place or system or way of life is immune to the possibilities of sudden and violent destruction.

The essays are very personal, in many cases exposing the difficulties of being a female journalist, the impact on her life, the hopelessness of covering what feels like endless stupidity and ritualized anger. Some are heartfelt but rambling, others provide clear, coherent overviews and analyses of the situations, many expose details that enable the reader to understand a little more about how things evolved, and almost all stimulate a compassion that unfortunately have no real place to go.

Definitely worth reading, though give yourself time and take some breaks to keep from sinking into a useless despair.

Thank you to Penguin Books and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 6, 2019.