Review Summaries

• The abundance of literary reference and exuberant narration is part of the appeal, though some readers find the excess distancing. Its distinctive force comes from running intellect and comedy together.

Reviews

• I was drawn to this book, I admit, because it was so highly anticipated among the most informed voices of literature. I have grown wary of expert opinions of any kind, to be honest, so I began the book, I suppose, with some skepticism that it would meet the ‘most anticipated’ status it had achieved. And I was wrong and the experts were right. This is a remarkable book. The prose is witty and the scenes and characters are developed to balanced perfection. More than anything else, however, it’s hilarious. When our protagonist, Zebra, is picked up at the Barcelona airport by a friend of a friend she hasn’t met, he is holding a sign that says: “Here to reclaim Jose Emilio Morale’s friend.” Instead of offering a friendly ‘hi, how are you, thanks for picking me up,’ our obsessed and behaviorally neurotic Zebra immediately demands to know if he had ever possessed her before, as the precise wording of the sign literally implies. He is Ludo Bembo, the self-exiled Italian philologist, who ultimately relents to her insistent demand by noting, “It is only a sign.” The explanation, not surprisingly, fell on deaf ears because nothing is only anything to Zebra at that time. It admittedly reminded me of a retired English teacher I knew that was moved off her foundation whenever anyone used the phrase “very unique.” If humor is the release of discomfort, this kind of obsessive policing of language is the literary equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. I bring that up, in part, because this is a book that could easily intimidate the reader if you let it. I don’t think, however, you need to let it, and I am convinced that the author would be greatly disappointed if you did. The author is obviously smart and capable, but the book shows no pretense of aspiration to be a literati. She wants to make you think, not back down. The protagonist is an exile/immigrant/refugee, of course, and both the complexity of the book and the rich humor comes from her coming of age, intellectually and emotionally, in an unfamiliar and inhospitable world, having lost all of her family and personal identity to time and political tragedy. True to her ancestral roots, she turns to literature, and the work of exiled poets and writers, in particular, as both a vehicle of escape and a source of pre-packaged judgment. And since much of her personal journey is navigated through the lens and the physical geography of literature and the geo-political history of civil war and exile in Europe and the Middle East, the narrative is filled with a bounty of references on both fronts. Do not, however, be afraid of the literary references. You don’t need any expertise in Nietzsche or Dante to enjoy the narrative any more than you need an expertise in cars to enjoy a pleasant ride in the countryside. The coming of age I refer to, which would be more appropriately called the coming of self, is a process of awareness followed by accumulation. At the peak of the process we are likely to be filled to overflowing with angst, disillusionment, and, perhaps, self-pity, if not self-loathing. Ultimately, however, we find a way to sort it all out and not to discharge our burden, but to clean things up enough to make room for the burdens of others. That sorting, prioritizing, and contextualizing of her personal and ancestral burden is the heart of the storyline. It is a journey of self-discovery and the reconciliation of identity that we all must take. While told in the rich context of literature and art, it is, therefore, the most common story of all. It is, however, the rich and unique context that allows this story to stand out; to be both zany and personal at the same time. The key, I think, is to let the story come to you and not to spend too much time trying to digest and consider each and every literary reference. I was reminded of those little rubber balls that seem to accelerate each time they bounce. They’re much easier to catch if you wait until the end of each bounce to reach for them. Which is why, I suggest, if you are considering this book you just dive in and give it a go. If this book is not a national bestseller it will be because of intimidation, not the quality of the story or the prose. You won’t find much better. The best news is that, in my own experience (I am now a sexagenarian), the first peak of self-awareness typically proves to be a foothill. Life is a range, not a mountain. So perhaps we shall have the benefit of scaling yet another peak of self-discovery with Zebra and her literary burden in the future. I truly look forward to it.

• Very good book with a high quality front cover

• This is a very moving book Very welll constructed and stylistically very different to anything else I’ve read

• The narrator, a young Iranian refugee an autodidact, multilingual, literary savant struggles to find her voice in western society. From a quasi Asperger's sufferer who instead of scatological outbursts explodes with eschatology, she slowly, haltingly progresses out of her defensive shell. Unfortunately the road is ridden with too many U turns and dead ends that exasperate the reader as much as her fellow characters. In sum, the novel could have done with a good editor to curb the author's self indulgent, over wrought style.

• I will skip the description of the narrative since those before me have done an adequate job with that. I will also admit right up front that I did not finish the book. I found it nothing more than an opportunity for the author to flaunt how excellent her choice in reading material has been and how enormous her vocabulary is. She quotes many of the greatest books of all time but fails miserably to add to our knowledge of them, or, worse, add something new to what we have already gleaned from reading them on our own. Furthermore, it is painfully repetitious. I read roughly half of the book which is 100 pages more than my standard 50 page limit for a book to grab hold of my imagination and attention. The best books that I have read "have" me at their first sentences! Check out One Hundred Years of Solitude by Marquez for the most amazing example I have ever come across. Rather than waste your time with this author, go directly to any one of the many books she quotes that you have not already read. That will be time well spent.

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