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#5 Platform - Iraq through a Bullet Hole
Oct. 1st, 2008 12:52 amThis again shows that a good story can't survive bad writing.
Book #39: Iraq through a Bullet Hole
Author: Issam Jameel
Provenance: Received from the Librarything Early Reviewer program
There are a lot of good stories out there in the world, with a lot of people living interesting lives that others would want to hear about. The mediating step that many stories can't pass is finding someone good to tell them, and in the right language and format. Such is the problem with this book: the story may be good, and Jameel might even be able to tell it well in his own language, but in English, the story doesn't come across nearly as sharply as it should.
The book tells of Jameel's trip back to his native Iraq after a dozen years abroad, in Jordan and Australia. In that time, he worked for an opposition radio station in Jordan, converted to Christianity, and got Australian citizenship. His return in 2005 to Baghdad and his family, and a trip to Kirkuk to see friends, would seem to offer a good chance to learn from a different perspective of the lay of the land in Iraq. His tale is one of constant fear, usually at low level but often spiking, of religious and sectarian troubles, and of having to consider carefully the safety of activities most take for granted, such as walking the street safely, going to the bus station, or using an air conditioner.
It's not totally bleak; Jameel still manages to have some enjoyable times with his friends and family. However, his efforts at regaining parts of his life in Iraq show how problematic it will be for the country to recapture the cultural and societal knowledge it's shed through now, and the movement of his family towards more religious standpoints, particularly his brothers, suggests the return to a secular state is definitely a long way off, if it's possible at all.
The story is in there, and yet the power of it really isn't. Jameel is a playwright by trade, but I assume that's in Arabic, because his writing lacks power beyond the events themselves. It feels very much on the surface. I'm willing to cut him some slack because he's a non-native speaker, but it's hard to really get involved in the story when the telling of it seems shallow. Even beyond that, the editing of this book is awful; there's no excuse for not cleaning up his text, and that also serves to pull one out of the text.
This one will probably be of use to researchers of the story telling the narrative of the occupation in Iraq at the ground level, but it's hard to recommend it to people now unless you're really interested in the topic. If you are, you might appreciate this new viewpoint. Otherwise, I'd leave it.
Next up: Not Wanted on the Voyage. Retellings of biblical stories can be interesting or shaky; let's see how this one goes.
Book #39: Iraq through a Bullet Hole
Author: Issam Jameel
Provenance: Received from the Librarything Early Reviewer program
There are a lot of good stories out there in the world, with a lot of people living interesting lives that others would want to hear about. The mediating step that many stories can't pass is finding someone good to tell them, and in the right language and format. Such is the problem with this book: the story may be good, and Jameel might even be able to tell it well in his own language, but in English, the story doesn't come across nearly as sharply as it should.
The book tells of Jameel's trip back to his native Iraq after a dozen years abroad, in Jordan and Australia. In that time, he worked for an opposition radio station in Jordan, converted to Christianity, and got Australian citizenship. His return in 2005 to Baghdad and his family, and a trip to Kirkuk to see friends, would seem to offer a good chance to learn from a different perspective of the lay of the land in Iraq. His tale is one of constant fear, usually at low level but often spiking, of religious and sectarian troubles, and of having to consider carefully the safety of activities most take for granted, such as walking the street safely, going to the bus station, or using an air conditioner.
It's not totally bleak; Jameel still manages to have some enjoyable times with his friends and family. However, his efforts at regaining parts of his life in Iraq show how problematic it will be for the country to recapture the cultural and societal knowledge it's shed through now, and the movement of his family towards more religious standpoints, particularly his brothers, suggests the return to a secular state is definitely a long way off, if it's possible at all.
The story is in there, and yet the power of it really isn't. Jameel is a playwright by trade, but I assume that's in Arabic, because his writing lacks power beyond the events themselves. It feels very much on the surface. I'm willing to cut him some slack because he's a non-native speaker, but it's hard to really get involved in the story when the telling of it seems shallow. Even beyond that, the editing of this book is awful; there's no excuse for not cleaning up his text, and that also serves to pull one out of the text.
This one will probably be of use to researchers of the story telling the narrative of the occupation in Iraq at the ground level, but it's hard to recommend it to people now unless you're really interested in the topic. If you are, you might appreciate this new viewpoint. Otherwise, I'd leave it.
Next up: Not Wanted on the Voyage. Retellings of biblical stories can be interesting or shaky; let's see how this one goes.
