Reviewed by Tim Runtz
Karim Alrawi’s debut novel begins in an unnamed city, presumably Cairo, during the height of the Arab Spring. At first glance, it’s a vaguely familiar scene to anyone who watched TV in 2011—massed protestors in the city square and an authoritarian regime suppressing dissent—but we soon learn that this is not quite the Cairo we know from the news. In Alrawi’s version of events, “babies decide not to be born” into the chaos.
Book of Sands’ protagonist, Tarek, is a puppeteer, former political prisoner, and father to Neda, an inquisitive and keenly self-aware nine-year-old. Though he mostly keeps his distance from the ongoing political demonstrations, Tarek soon must flee the city with Neda or risk being arrested. Mona, Tarek’s pregnant wife, stays behind under the ostensible care of her brother Omar, a deeply religious but morally conflicted taxi driver who spends his evenings smoking bango and chatting with a pet cockroach. What follows is not a cat-and-mouse thriller, as one might expect, but a character-driven account of Tarek and Neda’s meandering through the rural Arab world. They happen upon a cast of characters from Tarek’s past and we slowly glean details of their background.
At its best, Book of Sands offers Western readers a human glimpse into an otherwise foreign and sensationalized political context. Alrawi is at his most compelling when he depicts the gears of a corrupt bureaucracy and protests in the city square—no doubt because the author himself was in Cairo during the spring of 2011. Bloodied streets, field medics in the city centre, and phone numbers written on forearms to identify bodies seem almost more poignant in Alrawi’s prose than on YouTube.
The author’s background as a playwright comes through in his polished and concise dialog, while his narration wafts between utilitarian and prosaic. At one point the narrator describes Tarek’s van as “a pale shipwreck under stars as bright as dice.” Elsewhere, in a vivid and disturbing depiction of an animal slaughter at a market, it’s not hard to imagine the “contorted bodies” as they “struggle for last gasps.” On the other hand, scenes describing war-ravaged villages are weirdly unmemorable by comparison.
Considering the highly charged political context of Book of Sands, the plot lacks momentum. That many of the significant plot developments are the result of chance encounters may perhaps reflect the scale of displacement of peoples during this uncertain time, and the inconsistent decision-making by the central characters could likewise reinforce the belief that amidst such chaos no one is sure exactly what is the right thing to do. On the other hand, these chance encounters seem to move the plot along for characters who themselves lack the focus or purpose to be able to do so themselves. It’s never really clear what motivates Tarek. He leaves the city because authorities are apparently looking for him, but the resulting urgency you might expect isn’t there. He helps out some old friends, but because his journey seemed to lack any real purpose he didn’t have anything better to do anyway. We are told repeatedly how much he loves his daughter, but this love only gets demonstrated through an inexplicable suicide mission into the desert.
As the story progresses, the book shifts from its relative realism into the sort of fable that Tarek might tell the young audiences he performs for as a puppeteer. Birds and cockroaches emerge from various orifices, hyena ghosts rise as mercenaries from the dead, and a future-telling “Book of Knowledge” suddenly materializes. The book’s publisher touts these elements as “touches of magic realism,” and they seem to be, interestingly enough, inspired in part by the stories of Arabian Nights.
There are times when Alrawi’s magic realism works, like when the bright-eyed and presumably naive Neda sees something she can’t explain and we’re invited to consider the interplay between childlike wonder and mythical narratives. And, just as effectively, when the near-fanatical and presumably intoxicated Omar gets personal with his pet cockroach, his spiritual dilemmas come out in a playful and disturbing way.
In other cases the author demands the reader generously accept unexpected, yet pivotal, elements of fantasy without any impetus for a suspension of belief that the departure from the realist account requires. After nearly 200 pages of what is essentially our world with a few magical quirks, the narrative steps back a decade into a sort of origin story about the main characters. Yet instead of explaining or justifying the particularities of the magical world, this detour slashes any tether to realism on which the reader relied and degrades into a series of seemingly arbitrary fantastical twists. Many of these elements could have been effectively reported by the main characters over the course of the story but, instead, the reader is forced to trust a dubious but otherwise flat narrator.
As a compelling tale of family life amidst revolutionary unease, Book of Sands contains some admirable prose and memorable scenes. The problem is that the elements of magic realism seem unnecessary, especially considering that the book’s plot, characters, development, mood or pacing wouldn’t have suffered had they not been included. Moreover, by relying so heavily on elements of magic realism, this book reinforces the trope that the Arab world is an inconceivable, dangerous, and wholly alien place for Western readers, whose conception of this faraway part of the world is already skewed by sensationalized and racialized commentary in the news and pop culture.
HarperAvenue | 320 pages | $29.99 | cloth | ISBN# 978-1443434454
‘Book of Sands’ by Karim Alrawi
Book Reviews
Karim Alrawi’s debut novel begins in an unnamed city, presumably Cairo, during the height of the Arab Spring. At first glance, it’s a vaguely familiar scene to anyone who watched TV in 2011—massed protestors in the city square and an authoritarian regime suppressing dissent—but we soon learn that this is not quite the Cairo we know from the news. In Alrawi’s version of events, “babies decide not to be born” into the chaos.
Book of Sands’ protagonist, Tarek, is a puppeteer, former political prisoner, and father to Neda, an inquisitive and keenly self-aware nine-year-old. Though he mostly keeps his distance from the ongoing political demonstrations, Tarek soon must flee the city with Neda or risk being arrested. Mona, Tarek’s pregnant wife, stays behind under the ostensible care of her brother Omar, a deeply religious but morally conflicted taxi driver who spends his evenings smoking bango and chatting with a pet cockroach. What follows is not a cat-and-mouse thriller, as one might expect, but a character-driven account of Tarek and Neda’s meandering through the rural Arab world. They happen upon a cast of characters from Tarek’s past and we slowly glean details of their background.
At its best, Book of Sands offers Western readers a human glimpse into an otherwise foreign and sensationalized political context. Alrawi is at his most compelling when he depicts the gears of a corrupt bureaucracy and protests in the city square—no doubt because the author himself was in Cairo during the spring of 2011. Bloodied streets, field medics in the city centre, and phone numbers written on forearms to identify bodies seem almost more poignant in Alrawi’s prose than on YouTube.
The author’s background as a playwright comes through in his polished and concise dialog, while his narration wafts between utilitarian and prosaic. At one point the narrator describes Tarek’s van as “a pale shipwreck under stars as bright as dice.” Elsewhere, in a vivid and disturbing depiction of an animal slaughter at a market, it’s not hard to imagine the “contorted bodies” as they “struggle for last gasps.” On the other hand, scenes describing war-ravaged villages are weirdly unmemorable by comparison.
Considering the highly charged political context of Book of Sands, the plot lacks momentum. That many of the significant plot developments are the result of chance encounters may perhaps reflect the scale of displacement of peoples during this uncertain time, and the inconsistent decision-making by the central characters could likewise reinforce the belief that amidst such chaos no one is sure exactly what is the right thing to do. On the other hand, these chance encounters seem to move the plot along for characters who themselves lack the focus or purpose to be able to do so themselves. It’s never really clear what motivates Tarek. He leaves the city because authorities are apparently looking for him, but the resulting urgency you might expect isn’t there. He helps out some old friends, but because his journey seemed to lack any real purpose he didn’t have anything better to do anyway. We are told repeatedly how much he loves his daughter, but this love only gets demonstrated through an inexplicable suicide mission into the desert.
As the story progresses, the book shifts from its relative realism into the sort of fable that Tarek might tell the young audiences he performs for as a puppeteer. Birds and cockroaches emerge from various orifices, hyena ghosts rise as mercenaries from the dead, and a future-telling “Book of Knowledge” suddenly materializes. The book’s publisher touts these elements as “touches of magic realism,” and they seem to be, interestingly enough, inspired in part by the stories of Arabian Nights.
There are times when Alrawi’s magic realism works, like when the bright-eyed and presumably naive Neda sees something she can’t explain and we’re invited to consider the interplay between childlike wonder and mythical narratives. And, just as effectively, when the near-fanatical and presumably intoxicated Omar gets personal with his pet cockroach, his spiritual dilemmas come out in a playful and disturbing way.
In other cases the author demands the reader generously accept unexpected, yet pivotal, elements of fantasy without any impetus for a suspension of belief that the departure from the realist account requires. After nearly 200 pages of what is essentially our world with a few magical quirks, the narrative steps back a decade into a sort of origin story about the main characters. Yet instead of explaining or justifying the particularities of the magical world, this detour slashes any tether to realism on which the reader relied and degrades into a series of seemingly arbitrary fantastical twists. Many of these elements could have been effectively reported by the main characters over the course of the story but, instead, the reader is forced to trust a dubious but otherwise flat narrator.
As a compelling tale of family life amidst revolutionary unease, Book of Sands contains some admirable prose and memorable scenes. The problem is that the elements of magic realism seem unnecessary, especially considering that the book’s plot, characters, development, mood or pacing wouldn’t have suffered had they not been included. Moreover, by relying so heavily on elements of magic realism, this book reinforces the trope that the Arab world is an inconceivable, dangerous, and wholly alien place for Western readers, whose conception of this faraway part of the world is already skewed by sensationalized and racialized commentary in the news and pop culture.
HarperAvenue | 320 pages | $29.99 | cloth | ISBN# 978-1443434454