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Two other recent reads
Feb. 14th, 2018 09:00 pmFrankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi, transl. Jonathan Wright (2013/2018)
The transposition of the Frankenstein myth to Baghdad ca. 2005-2006 achieved some really interesting results. Gone were the anxieties about advances in science and medicine and the theme about the hubris of creation. In their place were meditations on how what initially seems like a pure pursuit of justice gradually degrades into revenge, corruption, confusion, with no end in sight; treatment of bodies, body parts and people's memories after bombings; the gray area between reality and the supernatural when loved ones return from the dead after long imprisonments or disappearances; and what it means to be an amalgam of people in mind and body when the various cultural/religious/ethnic groups that comprise Iraq are so policed and delineated.
That said, the Frankenstein plot was only a portion of the overall story, which followed the lives of several quite different characters, from a naïve young journalist to battling hoteliers to a failing elderly woman longing for her son to return from a war that ended decades earlier -- and, yes, the junk dealer who built the patchwork creature from accident victims before losing track of him. So many struggles. So many perspectives on what has changed and been lost in Baghdad and in the broader nation. Unsurprisingly, America does not come off well.
My main wish was for there to be more women in the story besides old Elishva, who, while complex and sympathetic, faded to the background for most of the second half of the book, and a mysterious, possibly duplicitous lady the journalist decides he is in love with.
Need to read more Arabic literature in translation.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)
I've been struggling to post about this excellent short story collection because it's hard to find the words to describe it. Karen Russell blurbed it, and the back flap mentioned Kelly Link; both comparisons are on target. It's about women and their bodies and bisexuality and unapologetic carnal appetites and the cornucopia of violent physical and emotional acts men (and other women, and families, and society) perpetrate upon them. It's horror and fantasy and urban legend and humor and more reality than we'd like to admit.
There's a story about an apocalyptic plague that is also about falling in love with a series of people and striving for human connection and making lists as a life coping mechanism. There's a story about [TRIGGER WARNING] diet culture and body image and weight loss surgery in which self-hatred becomes externalized in a post-surgical shadow self, and one about [TRIGGER WARNING] rape recovery that spends zero time on the assault itself and instead focuses on the crumbling of the main character's relationship with her boyfriend and how she starts to hear the inner monologues of actors in porn videos. There's a novella in the middle that is a fanfic of Law & Order: SVU told in 200+ fake episode summaries that sound like the show except it gets progressively creepier and more surreal as ghosts of murdered and abused girls harrass Benson to fetch their bodies, Stabler hears a heartbeat emanating from the earth and grows ever more distanced from his family, and both characters discover sinister doppelgängers succeeding at their jobs and lives where "real" Benson and Stabler are losing their grips.
Highly recommended, albeit with a basketful of content warnings.
The transposition of the Frankenstein myth to Baghdad ca. 2005-2006 achieved some really interesting results. Gone were the anxieties about advances in science and medicine and the theme about the hubris of creation. In their place were meditations on how what initially seems like a pure pursuit of justice gradually degrades into revenge, corruption, confusion, with no end in sight; treatment of bodies, body parts and people's memories after bombings; the gray area between reality and the supernatural when loved ones return from the dead after long imprisonments or disappearances; and what it means to be an amalgam of people in mind and body when the various cultural/religious/ethnic groups that comprise Iraq are so policed and delineated.
That said, the Frankenstein plot was only a portion of the overall story, which followed the lives of several quite different characters, from a naïve young journalist to battling hoteliers to a failing elderly woman longing for her son to return from a war that ended decades earlier -- and, yes, the junk dealer who built the patchwork creature from accident victims before losing track of him. So many struggles. So many perspectives on what has changed and been lost in Baghdad and in the broader nation. Unsurprisingly, America does not come off well.
My main wish was for there to be more women in the story besides old Elishva, who, while complex and sympathetic, faded to the background for most of the second half of the book, and a mysterious, possibly duplicitous lady the journalist decides he is in love with.
Need to read more Arabic literature in translation.
Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado (2017)
I've been struggling to post about this excellent short story collection because it's hard to find the words to describe it. Karen Russell blurbed it, and the back flap mentioned Kelly Link; both comparisons are on target. It's about women and their bodies and bisexuality and unapologetic carnal appetites and the cornucopia of violent physical and emotional acts men (and other women, and families, and society) perpetrate upon them. It's horror and fantasy and urban legend and humor and more reality than we'd like to admit.
There's a story about an apocalyptic plague that is also about falling in love with a series of people and striving for human connection and making lists as a life coping mechanism. There's a story about [TRIGGER WARNING] diet culture and body image and weight loss surgery in which self-hatred becomes externalized in a post-surgical shadow self, and one about [TRIGGER WARNING] rape recovery that spends zero time on the assault itself and instead focuses on the crumbling of the main character's relationship with her boyfriend and how she starts to hear the inner monologues of actors in porn videos. There's a novella in the middle that is a fanfic of Law & Order: SVU told in 200+ fake episode summaries that sound like the show except it gets progressively creepier and more surreal as ghosts of murdered and abused girls harrass Benson to fetch their bodies, Stabler hears a heartbeat emanating from the earth and grows ever more distanced from his family, and both characters discover sinister doppelgängers succeeding at their jobs and lives where "real" Benson and Stabler are losing their grips.
Highly recommended, albeit with a basketful of content warnings.
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