Nuri , the eponymous protagonist, and his blind wife Afra, are in a bed & breakfast in a seaside town in England, asylum seekers applying for refugee status. Each chapter begins with their life now (told in the first person, present tense) until a single word triggers memories (past tense) of their life in Syria and the journey they have taken. They are traumatised by their experiences and bit by bit through the accounts of their sufferings we come to realise their strengths and weaknesses, and the psychological adaptations they have been forced to adopt in order to endure.
It starts with a literary paragraph but very quickly it becomes a simply told narrative, with a strong plot. I read it quickly, turning the pages rapidly, because I wanted to know what had happened (there was just the right amount of foreshadowing) and what would happen to them (would they be granted the right to remain?). Nevertheless, even though much of the story was plot-driven, it was fundamentally about these two characters, and it was their psychological development that was at the heart of the book. The deft skill shown by the author in bringing the reader to learn about these two people was tremendous and lifts this book into the five-star category.
The book promoted a lively discussion at my reading-group. There was a (minority) view that the book was ‘propaganda’ since the novel failed to incorporate any discussion of the wider social ramifications of immigration. I disagreed. While an academic social-political study should seek balance, that is not the job of a novelist. The novel as an art form is fundamentally focused on individuals. War and Peace is an acknowledged attempt to understand the processes of history (there is a section of about fifty pages that considers this) but fundamentally it is a story focused around a small (relatively, compared with the length of the book) cast of characters. Sartre's Roads to Freedom trilogy is also focused on individuals. Moby-Dick is fundamentally about Captain Ahab, despite the chapters on whales. Many novels seek to develop social, political, or moral themes but they do so by telling individual stories . I don't believe the failure to provide 'balance' is a relevant or legitimate criticism of any novel.
Furthermore, this novel resolutely refuses to provide any form of closure. You don't know whether Nuri and Afra will be granted leave to remain. Not finishing stories was a hallmark of the book (what happened to the twins?). I assume that this was a stylistic choice of the author and I feel that it might be a metaphor for the transience of relationships developed when fleeing conflict and the fact that on such a journey you will never know what happened to most of the people you encounter. But it also meant that the author was asking questions rather than providing answers and that does seem to be a function of a novel.
My only point of comparison is with American Dirt by Jeanine Cummins which is a meticulously researched thriller. The BoA is equally well researched but gentler. You know from the start that they will reach the end of their journey, that they will survive physically. This book is more psychological, about understanding the damage caused to them by their experiences. That made it even better.
Selected quotes:
- "I am scared of my wife's eyes. She can’t see out and no one can see in. Look, they are like stones, grey stones, sea stones. Look at her. Look how she is sitting on the edge of the bed, her nightgown on the floor, rolling Mohammed’s marble around in her fingers and waiting for me to dress her. I am taking my time putting on my shirt and trousers, because I am so tired of dressing her. Look at the folds of her stomach, the colour of desert honey, darker in the creases, and the fine, fine silver lines on the skin of her breasts, and the tips of her fingers with the tiny cuts, where the ridges and valley patterns once were stained with blue or yellow or red paint. Her laughter was gold once, you would have seen as well as heard it. Look at her, because I think she is disappearing." (First paragraph)
- "She cried like a child, laughed like bells ringing, and her smile was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen." (Ch 1)
- "But in Syria there is a saying: inside the person you know, there is a person you do not know." (Ch 1) A foreshadowing of the theme of the book.
- "She won’t live very long like this – she’s been banished from her colony because she has no wings." (Ch 2) The crippled bee symbolises exiles.
- "O Allah keep me alive as long as is good for me, and when death is better for me, take me." (Ch 2)
- "People are not like bees. We do not work together, we have no real sense of a greater good" (Ch 3)
- "I don’t like their queues, their order, their neat little gardens and neat little porches and their bay windows that glow at night with the flickering of their TVs. It all reminds me that these people have never seen war." (Ch 6)
- "the right side of the picture was left without colour. Strangely this reminded me of the white crumbling streets once the war came. The way the colour was washed out of everything. The way the flowers died." (Ch 8)
- "and I can’t go back. I am a dead. I want to leave from here. I want to find work. But nobody want me." (Ch 9)
- "I thought about Sami. First his smile. Then the moment the light fell from his eyes and they turned to glass." (Ch 9)
- "I look at her eyes, so full of fear and questions and longing, and I had thought it was her who was lost, that Afra was the one stuck in the dark places of her mind." (Ch 12)
- "And there we both stand, battered by life, two men, brothers, finally reunited in a world that is not our home." (Ch 14)
- "Sometimes we create such powerful illusions, so that we do not get lost in the darkness." (Ch 14)
A delightful book, full of compassion, yet at the same time with a strong story. September 2023
Question I was left to ponder:
Do all novels focus on individuals. Are there examples of those that don't?
