The Yacoubian Building - Alaa Al Aswany

Title: The Yacoubian Building (Imarat Ya'qubyan in Arabic)

Author: Alaa Al Aswany (translated by Humphrey Davies)

Year: 2002

Country: Egypt

Pages: 253

Rating: 5 out of 5

First sentence: The distance between Baehler Passage, where Zaki Bey el Dessouki lives, and his office in the Yacoubian building is not more than a hundred meters, but it takes him an hour to cover it each morning as he is obliged to greet his friends on the street.

In The Yacoubian Building, a look at the residents of the title's namesake reveals the overlapping layers of Egyptian culture and politics. They represent the multiple facets of modern Egyptian society: the old, the new, and everything in between. 

Zaki Bey el Dessouki, one of the Yacoubian building's longest-residing tenants, is the son of a former prime minister, and was one of Egypt's wealthiest men before the Revolution. 

Busayna tried pushing him gently so they could cross the street, but he went on, "You know,Busayna, I feel as though I owned the Yacoubian Building. I'm the longest resident in it. I know the history of every individual and every square meter in the building. I've spent most of my life in it. I lived my best days in it and I feel as though it's a part of me. The day this building's demolished or something happens to it, that'll be the day I die." (p. 165)

Hatim Rasheed is the homosexual son of aristocrats, whose mother is French. Hagg Azzam is nouveau rich, a self-made millionaire who started out as an immigrant shoe shiner on the streets of Cairo. Taha el Shazli, the doorkeeper's son, is an observant Muslim who is lured to fundamentalism after his dream of becoming a police officer is denied to him due to his family's poverty and low social status. Busayna, Taha's childhood sweetheart, also resides on the rooftop of the Yacoubian building and is subject to overwhelming sexual harrassment as she struggles as the sole income-earner for her mother and siblings.

The sheer number of main characters followed throughout the story can at times be hard to follow, but is well worth the frequent reference to the "Cast of Characters" given at the beginning of the novel. The story paints a vivid and insightful portrait of Egyptian society for the reader, and sets a high standard (along with Naguib Mahfouz) for some of the other Egyptian literature I have on my TBR pile.

About the real Yacoubian building: The Yacoubian building does exist at the address given in the novel. A six-story building, it was built by Nishan Yacoubian, an Armenian, in the 1930's.

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Musings

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Bookgirl's Nightstand

Giveaway: The Blood of Flowers!

Title: The Blood of Flowers

Author: Anita Amirrezvani

Year: 2007

Country: USA/Iranian-American

Pages: 377

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

You can find the author's website here. The book was also long-listed for the 2008 Orange Prize.

First sentence: First there wasn't and then there was.

Blood of Flowers is set in 17th century Iran, and describes the journey of a young woman and her mother from a small village to the large Persian city of Isfahan. The pair are forced to migrate to Isfahan after the death of the girl's father leaves them without a dowry for her marriage. They seek out shelter and assistance in the home of a wealthy uncle. The uncle, Gostaham, is a master rug designer and colorist for Shah Abbas. Although his wife Gordiyeh treats the mother and daughter as servants, Gostaham sees a natural rug-making talent in the young girl, and begins a personal tutelage that is usually only reserved for boys.

The fourteen-year-old girl, who is never named in the novel, is a headstrong individual who tends to make rash decisions that often lead to disastrous results. One such decision puts her in a position in which she is forced to accept a sigheh--temporary marriage--to a wealthy son of a horse trader. Throughout the story, she struggles through a personal journey on many levels: arriving in an unknown city, honing her skills as a rugmaker, but most importantly, growing into a greater maturity level while staying true to her inner spirit.

The tradition of rug-making is explored in-depth, and is a delight to read about; Amirrezvani describes this rich tradition in a beautiful, insightful prose. Folktales are interspersed throughout the narrative in a style reminiscent of Arabian Nights, paying homage to Iran's rich oral tradition. One of my favorite aspects of the book is the description of the Isfahan. All of my senses were awakened with the lush descriptions of the city's great square--The Image of the World--and the adjacent bazaar filled with thousands of vendors selling food, spices, carpets, wool, shoes, leather, in a cacophony of food, culture, and entertainment.

Historical fiction is a wide, varied genre, and has its fill of not-so-great books. Blood of Flowers is definitely one of the more original stories in this genre that I have read in a while. This story is about a girl in a male-dominated culture wishing for more independence, as well as a rich description of the arts-centered Persian culture and traditions of the 17th century. The paperback edition includes a conversation with the author, where she hints at another novel exploring Iranian history. I am eagerly looking forward to her next publication! I also greatly appreciated her recommended reading appendix. I love when books include these lists, and while I have read a few on the list, and already have a few mentioned on my TBR list, there were enough new-to-me titles named to get this book lover's heart racing.

"All our labors were in service of beauty, but sometimes it seemed as if every thread in a carpet had been dipped in the blood of flowers." (p.351)

More quotes from the novel can be found in my last Sunday Salon post here.

Blood of Flowers Giveaway

The publisher was kind enough to include an extra copy of the book along with my review copy, so I will be giving away a copy to one lucky reader! All you have to do is leave a comment on this post. The drawing will remain open until Friday, June 6th, at 5pm EST. You can receive an extra entry--and double your chances of winning-by linking to this giveaway on your blog. Just leave a link in the comment section. Sorry to those outside North America, but this contest is only open to those in the United States and Canada.

Gate of the Sun - Elias Khoury

Title: Gate of the Sun

Author: Elias Khoury (translated by Humphrey Davies)

Year: 1998

Country: Lebanon

Pages: 531

Rating: 4 out of 5

First sentence: Umm Hassan is dead.

It is not too often in the Western world that you come across an epic tale about the Palestinian experience. Gate of the Sun, by Lebanese author Elias Khoury, is such a book. 

The story largely takes place in the Shatila refugee camp in Beirut. Khalil, a "temporary doctor, in a temporary hospital, in a temporary country", keeps vigil by the bedside of Yunes, an elderly Palestinian freedom fighter who lies in a coma. In an effort to keep Yunes in this world, Kahlil begins retelling stories of their life of exile in Lebanon, and particularly Yunes' secret visits to his wife, who remained in Israel.

Yunes was a member of the fedayeen, the early Palestinian resistance movement, and much of the story recounts the flight of Palestinians during the late 1940's. However, the heart of the story is not political; it is the story of Yunes' love for his wife Nahilah, and his dangerous border crossings to visit her. It is a story of the mythical, magical world they created in his refuge, the cave Bab al-Shams (Gate of the Sun).

The novel was first published in Arabic in 1998, on the 50th anniversary of The War of Independence, referred to by Palestinians as Al Nakbah (the catastrophe). Mirroring the Arab-Israeli conflict, the story continuously digresses, is retold, and circles back on itself in dizzying fragments. A book about Palestinians, one would assume is also a book about Israelis. However, most of the history portrayed throughout the story traces the meshed history of Lebanon, Palestine, and the way in which Palestinian refugees outside of Israel are treated and viewed by other Arabs. Fortunately, this is not a novel of "us" versus "them", and Khoury humanizes all sides of the struggle that continues to encompass the Middle East.

For those who are regular visitors to my blog, you will notice that my end review is considerably more favorable than my other recent comments on this book. It is a slow, dizzying read. It helps to have a firm knowledge of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and of the Lebanese civil war. Part One of the novel did not capture my attention in the way that the second Part did. In the end, though, I come away highly recommending this novel.

Favorite passages:

"Palestine isn't a cause. Well, all right, in some sense it is, but it isn't really, because the land doesn't move from its place. That land will remain, and the question isn't who will hold it, because it's an illusion to think that land can be held. No one can hold land when he's going to end up buried in it. It's the land that holds men and pulls them back toward it. I didn't fight, my dear friend, for the land or for history. I fought for the sake of a woman I loved. "(p.21)

"Before Umm Hassan could open her mouth to ask a thing, the Israeli woman said, 'It's your house, isn't it?'

'How did you know?' asked Umm Hassan.

'I've been waiting for you for a long time. Welcome.'" (p.104)

"Evil has no meaning, and we were just its tools." (p.271)

"We invent stories of our misery and then believe them. We'll believe anything so as not to see. We cover our eyes and set off, and then we bump into each other." (p. 383)

"It takes another culture to let us discover that half the things that seem obvious are simply our own stupidities." (p.432)

A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini

Title: A Thousand Splendid Suns
Author: Khaled Hosseini
Country: American/Afghan
Year: 2007
Rating: A-
Pages: 372 pgs.

First sentence: Mariam was five years old the first time she heard the word harami.

What I thought: It's difficult to follow a first novel with the acclaim that The Kite Runner has, which happens to be one of my favorite books. For the most part, A Thousand Splendid Suns stands on its own. It is a powerful story of two generations of women living in Afghanistan over the span of three decades. Their stories are intricately woven with the modern history of Afghanistan. I really enjoyed reading this novel, but did feel at times as if this history became the main character of the story, rather than Mariam and Laila.

A Woman in Jerusalem - A.B. Yehoshua

Title: A Woman in Jerusalem
Author: A.B. Yehoshua; translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin
Country: Israel
Year: 2004
Rating: A
Pages: 237 pgs.

First sentence: Even though the manager of the human resources division had not sought such a mission, now, in the softly radiant morning, he grasped its unexpected significance.

There was a lot of hope for the future of the Middle East when the Oslo accords were first signed. However, as many of you probably know, with both sides disappointed in the implementation of the accords, the fall of the Oslo peace process in September 2000 was marked by the start of the second Intifada, the second wave of violence between Palestinians and Israelis since 1967. The violence did not begin to abate until the death of Yasser Arafat at the end of 2004, and the relative success of the Sharm el-Sheikh peace summit in February 2005. Marked by Palestinian suicide bombings in Jerusalem and other cities, and Israeli military excursions into West Bank, Gaza, and other Palestinian settlements, more than 4,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis were killed in a seven year period.

A Woman in Jerusalem, a novel by A.B. Yehoshua, takes place in Jerusalem around 2002. An immigrant woman is killed by a suicide bombing at her local market. Her body lies unidentified for a week, the only clue to her identity a bloody pay stub from a local bakery. After a tabloid newspaper article is written about the bakery's callousness towards her death, the human resource manager is sent on a mission to identify the woman and return her body to her family.

The only character that receives a name in the story Yulia Ragayev, the cleaning woman from the bakery who was killed. All other characacters are referred to by their positions: human resources manager, owner, office manager, consul, ex-husband, young son. It is a technique that works extremely well for the style of the novel. I especially liked the italicized inserts of the thoughts of random bystanders to the story line: the bakery's shift workers, Yulia's neighbor's, her mother's fellow villagers.

The story line certainly sounds dreary and depressing, but it is ultimately a story of hope and humor. The final scenes may not appeal to many readers, but I felt they were perfectly appropriate to the characters Yehoshua created. This is the first of his novels I have read, it will certainly not be the last.

Some of my favorite quotes:

'What was he fighting for? To cover up the night shift supervisor's blunder?...Or--he could feel the thought grope its way to the surface--was it to reclaim the dignity of an engineer come from afar to be a cleaning woman in Jerusalem. To let her know--her and whoever had loved her--that her suffering and death hadn't gone unnoticed because of anyone's callousness?' (p.29)

"When everything around us is collapsing, it's pathological to fight it." (p.37)

Tell us, you hard people: After desecrating the Holy Land and turning murder and destruction into a way of life, by what right do you now trample on our feelings? Is it because you and your enemies have learned to kill each other and yourselves with such crazy impunity, bombing and sowing endless destruction, that ou think you can leave a coffin, with no explanation or permission, in the courtyard of an apartment building in someone else's country and disappear without so much as a by-your-leave? (p.172)