A singular novel by a Lebanese writer who recently died, this is more about story telling than it is the telling of stories themselves, although there鈥檚 certainly a lot of that, too. What appears to be absurd or surreal is actually an attempt to capture the truth about story telling, to present story telling from the story teller鈥檚 point of view, without regard for the audience. How slippery stories are, and memories, and names. But the stories don鈥檛 have an order. Death is often told at the beginning. There are a lot of deaths. This is Beirut.
One of the things that most distinguishes this novel is that it is written mostly in the 3rd person, not the usual 1st person of storytelling. Everything in the novel is second-hand, although it often feels first-hand. And there is a great deal of repetition, which is what living in Beirut must feel like, one civil war or invasion after another. But this novel is about people much more than about war, at least directly. Its only weakness is that, although short, it does go on too long (I started to skim toward the end) and is often more confusing than it needs to be.
So, the left-wing, public radio devotee in me is supposed to give this book 4 or 5 stars, because it portrays a non-European culture in a good light and has a prostitute for a main character. Yoohoo. That is, unfortunately, not enough to constitute good literature. Sorry, Mr. Khoury.
Khoury asserts that Little Gandhi is a well traveled man, although he never leaves Beirut, because the city undergoes so many changes during Little Gandhi's life. I read to the very last page looking for any evidence to support this thesis. There was none to be found.
The Journey of Little Gandhi is a rambling book that nearly touches upon big issues like truth and war. Instead, it spends all its time endlessly spiraling around a cast of boring, prototypical characters.
I find the novel's use of repetition as a way to approximate the slipperiness of memory and its gaps in the context of the traumatic and confusing realities of war ingenious. Yet, far from saying anything new or remotely relevant about the Lebanese Civil War, Khoury ends up meandering back and forth prolifically around the mundane lives of flat characters. Contrary to the claim of the protagonist Gandhi traveling through the profound changes imposed upon Beirut by the war, there is no real journey in the novel - be it spatially or temporally: only the endless rambling of banalities repeated over and over again in varying combinations.
脟ok karakterli, derin hikayelerle dolu kitaplar谋 severim. Hele Beyrut gibi ge莽mi艧inde ac谋, hasret, kan olan bir 艧ehir etraf谋nda d枚n眉yorsa. Fakat hikayelerin anlat谋l谋艧 艧ekli, kurgusal s谋ralama kitaba bir t眉rl眉 tam anlam谋yla ba臒lanamama sebebiydi benim i莽in.
Normally, "fog of war" refers to the ambiguity and confusion encountered by military men, from commanders through ground soldiers, combatants during a war or battle. Yet the fog can envelop more than the military. There is also a fog of uncertainty and confusion in a city under siege or its inhabitants. Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury takes readers to that level in , a view of the life of average individuals in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war.
Khoury's style creates that fog of war sense. The pivot point of the story is Little Gandhi, or Abd Al-Karim, a shoe shine who is shot down in the street when the Israeli Army entered the city in September 1982. Much of his story -- and that of many others -- is relayed by Alice, an aging prostitute who is actually the main subject in which the narrator is interested. At least 30 different characters make an appearance, from an American University professor to an Episcopal priest to drug traffickers to Alice and Little Gandhi.
This melange means that regardless of whose particular story is being told at the moment and who may be relating it, we are presented a kaleidoscopic, multi-layered tale. One story flows into another story, akin to a person's thought process moving unconsciously from one topic to another to another. Likewise, these stories can be firsthand accounts or hearsay four times removed. Just as in war and its aftermath, the truth, such as it is, can be difficult to discern. Yet this also presents difficulty for many readers.
By necessity, Khoury's literary approach is confusing or labyrinthine, with no consistent linear narrative. To the contrary, The Journey of Little Gandhi is structured so as to render the narrative unstable and ambiguous. Yet that is the essence of the fog of war. Differing reports come from differing people. Motives and movements are confused. Uncertainty and confusion impact lives and decisions. That is exactly what is happening to the people of Beirut in Khoury's tale. It is a city split between and among factions. "Everything in it fell apart." So, rather than just wars and rumors of war, Khoury is telling us of lives and even rumors of life.
Originally published in Arabic in 1989, the book, translated by Paula Haydar, was published in the U.S. in 1994. Those familiar with Western categorizations of genres may call the book, now in newly released trade paper edition, so-called "magical realism." Khoury, however, rejects that classification. There is no need for magical realism in Lebanese literature, , because life in Lebanon was itself unreal and fantastic. In such circumstances, he says, literature "must put together two elements: seeing and inventing; it must tell the truth and lie; it must combine the real and the fantastic at the same level and at the same moment."
The Journey of Little Gandhi certainly does that as it takes us on journey through recent Lebanese history. The question is whether readers will take the time on the journey to peel back the layers and try to grasp both reality and unreality.
Set in Beirut during the Civil War, this book is both funny and immensely sad. It is, as so much of recent Lebanese literature/art has been, a study on memory and story-telling and history -- and the impossibility of all three. A man dies at the beginning of each chapter, and his story begins again. Each chapter is a different attempt to tell a version of his life and the lives of those around him.
I enjoyed it -- and I particularly enjoyed the references to a city and a landscape that I know -- but it wasn't gripping. And it certainly wasn't the poetic and powerful "Gate of the Sun" that I read a few years ago.
A view of the life of average individuals during 1982 Lebanon War and Siege of Beirut. A multitude of characters present a kaleidoscopic, multi-layered tale where one story flows into another, almost like stream of consciousness, moving from one topic to another. Also, these stories are sometimes firsthand accounts, other times hearsay many times removed; just as in war and its aftermath, the truth can be difficult to discern.
A fast paced interweb of stories within stories, this journey doesn't cater to every person's taste. Read it if you like to listen to those unsaid little stories of people, of the different perspectives to a single story, to imbibe the wisdom from every facet of life. I am in love with this book.