When I get older and my monthly cycles started, my mother decided I should stay at home to protect my honor,. I put a covering on my head, a colorful When I get older and my monthly cycles started, my mother decided I should stay at home to protect my honor,. I put a covering on my head, a colorful hijab. I would fix it in the shape of a rose, which made me laugh and feel happy. My mother began to tie me to the bed in our room with a long rope when she was at work. The summer months we spent together.
Extraordinary, terrifying, glorious, literary, upsetting. Read it. Yazbek (whose words reach me through the magic help of her translator, Leri Price) creates such a captivating voice to tell this story--the voice of a naive innocent--and through that voice somehow captures the terror and disorder of life in contemporary Syria in time of war.
I'm extremely moved by what I read and I'm in awe of both Yazbek and Price, for allowing me as a reader of English to enter this beautiful/horrifying world. This novel is easily a candidate for my "best book of 2021" ... a short list for me, but one that also includes two other books from the NBA finalists for best translated book of 2021. This novel reminds me again of how grateful I am to the publishers who are bringing these great works of contemporary world literature to the English-speaking world.
If I search my reading past for a book that this novel reminds me of I would say A GENERAL THEORY OF OBLIVION by Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa, which is told from the point of view of an agoraphobic woman who walls herself in her apartment even as Angola erupts in civil violence outside her doors. There is something about using the perspective of an innocent that allows both authors to explore terrible truths.
Merged review:
When I get older and my monthly cycles started, my mother decided I should stay at home to protect my honor,. I put a covering on my head, a colorful hijab. I would fix it in the shape of a rose, which made me laugh and feel happy. My mother began to tie me to the bed in our room with a long rope when she was at work. The summer months we spent together.
Extraordinary, terrifying, glorious, literary, upsetting. Read it. Yazbek (whose words reach me through the magic help of her translator, Leri Price) creates such a captivating voice to tell this story--the voice of a naive innocent--and through that voice somehow captures the terror and disorder of life in contemporary Syria in time of war.
I'm extremely moved by what I read and I'm in awe of both Yazbek and Price, for allowing me as a reader of English to enter this beautiful/horrifying world. This novel is easily a candidate for my "best book of 2021" ... a short list for me, but one that also includes two other books from the NBA finalists for best translated book of 2021. This novel reminds me again of how grateful I am to the publishers who are bringing these great works of contemporary world literature to the English-speaking world.
If I search my reading past for a book that this novel reminds me of I would say A GENERAL THEORY OF OBLIVION by Angolan author José Eduardo Agualusa, which is told from the point of view of an agoraphobic woman who walls herself in her apartment even as Angola erupts in civil violence outside her doors. There is something about using the perspective of an innocent that allows both authors to explore terrible truths....more
Top-heavy and overlong, and with too many reveals in the last flurry of pages, and not at all convincing as fiction, but you know, I still thought it Top-heavy and overlong, and with too many reveals in the last flurry of pages, and not at all convincing as fiction, but you know, I still thought it was marvelous, in the way the stage play/movie Twelve Angry Men is marvelous. The novel reminded me very much of that play where the people are archetypes and what I came away with was a message full of moral clarity....more
Petra Hůlová's Three Plastic Rooms was startling, grotesque, and revelatory--and it made me eager to read THE MOVEMENT. I didn't have the same visceraPetra Hůlová's Three Plastic Rooms was startling, grotesque, and revelatory--and it made me eager to read THE MOVEMENT. I didn't have the same visceral reaction to this novel. It didn't hit me in the gut the way Three Plastic Rooms did. It felt far more intellectual and I could hold it at arm's length and not be moved by it as I read. I think Three Plastic Rooms is one of the bravest books I've ever read, and however extreme the images and events were I never stopped feeling the protagonist's humanity. I just didn't connect the same way here. Three stars though for the absolute smartness of the author's vision.
Merged review:
Petra Hůlová's Three Plastic Rooms was startling, grotesque, and revelatory--and it made me eager to read THE MOVEMENT. I didn't have the same visceral reaction to this novel. It didn't hit me in the gut the way Three Plastic Rooms did. It felt far more intellectual and I could hold it at arm's length and not be moved by it as I read. I think Three Plastic Rooms is one of the bravest books I've ever read, and however extreme the images and events were I never stopped feeling the protagonist's humanity. I just didn't connect the same way here. Three stars though for the absolute smartness of the author's vision....more
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