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Past Imperfect #1
Legami
Jeebleh, professore universitario in esilio a New York, torna a Mogadiscio, sua città natale, per rendere omaggio alla tomba della madre e rivedere l'amico Bile, dissidente come lui. Fin dallo sbarco all'aeroporto Jeebleh è colpito dall'atmosfera inquietante che regna nella città. Dopo la cacciata del Dittatore, la capitale somala è in preda alla violenza e in balia di opposte fazioni comandate dai signori della guerra. Costretto a confrontarsi con il proprio senso di appartenenza alla Somalia e con complessi interrogativi etici, Jeebleh matura una consapevolezza dolorosa che lo spinge verso posizioni sempre più dure
373 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
32 people are currently reading
1041 people want to read
About the author
Nuruddin Farah
32 books339 followersNuruddin Farah (Somali: Nuuradiin Faarax, Arabic: نور الدين فرح) is a prominent Somali novelist. Farah has garnered acclaim as one of the greatest contemporary writers in the world, his prose having earned him accolades including the Premio Cavour in Italy, the Kurt Tucholsky Prize in Sweden, the Lettre Ulysses Award in Berlin, and in 1998, the prestigious Neustadt International Prize for Literature. In the same year, the French edition of his novel Gifts won the St Malo Literature Festival's prize. In addition, Farah is a perennial nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 76 reviews
July 30, 2014
The book was very hard to finish. It was overfilled with bad metaphors. The story itself was terrible. Even though everything was explained over and over again I never understood Jeebleh or any other character in the book.
It felt like a 300-400 pages short story. The story never really started. Like flying over a landscape with a heavy dark raincloud beneath you. All you want is to dive under the cloud and see the landscape. I wanted to understand the book but a big dark cloud followed every single page.
It felt like a 300-400 pages short story. The story never really started. Like flying over a landscape with a heavy dark raincloud beneath you. All you want is to dive under the cloud and see the landscape. I wanted to understand the book but a big dark cloud followed every single page.
December 14, 2018
"Jeebleh sat unmoving, like a candle just blown out, smoking its last moments darkly."
Yes, that would be a smart way to react when your traveling partner (of sorts) and his armed bodyguards begin to get nervous.
Jeebleh has returned to Somalia after 20 years. But why? Really to visit his mother's grave? Or will he be doing more, some activity that will endanger his life more than simply being in the country has done?
Well, I have to admit I never cared what would happen to friend Jeebleh. Maybe now is simply not the right time for me to be reading such a darkly violent book; after five chapters I had to put it down and walk away.
I borrowed this from the library after reading Hiding In Plain Sight by the same author. But this earlier book could not capture my attention even as much as Hiding did. Not sure I will ever be tempted to come back to it or to try another by Farah.
DNF after 5 chapters.
Yes, that would be a smart way to react when your traveling partner (of sorts) and his armed bodyguards begin to get nervous.
Jeebleh has returned to Somalia after 20 years. But why? Really to visit his mother's grave? Or will he be doing more, some activity that will endanger his life more than simply being in the country has done?
Well, I have to admit I never cared what would happen to friend Jeebleh. Maybe now is simply not the right time for me to be reading such a darkly violent book; after five chapters I had to put it down and walk away.
I borrowed this from the library after reading Hiding In Plain Sight by the same author. But this earlier book could not capture my attention even as much as Hiding did. Not sure I will ever be tempted to come back to it or to try another by Farah.
DNF after 5 chapters.
January 4, 2014
Although most Americans couldn't find Somalia on a map, they all share one clear mental image of the African country: the mutilated body of an Army Ranger being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu. The United States had arrived in late 1992 on a humanitarian mission called Restore Hope. Sixteen months later, after bitter humiliation and a new lesson on the complications of intervention, it retreated.
Mark Bowden placed the infamous helicopter battle in Mogadishu at the center of his bestselling book, "Black Hawk Down," a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999. A popular Hollywood version followed two years later.
Now comes a very different treatment of that conflict from Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah. Whereas Bowden's journalistic approach tried to untangle the complexities of Mogadishu, Farah's new novel, "Links," aims to convey a sense of the city's impenetrable ambiguity. And while the movie, with its Oscar-winning soundtrack, brought viewers smack into the grit of battle, Farah raises us into a haze of muffled alliances and conflicted values. That approach involves considerable risks, particularly for Americans, who may want their books, like their military interventions, well defined with clear exit strategies, but Farah plays to an international audience.
"Links" concerns a Somali named Jeebleh who's come back after 20 years of exile in the United States. Mogadishu holds few pleasant memories for him; he spent his last years there in prison. He watched the American intervention on TV from the comfort of his home in New York City, and later he received word of his mother's death through the mail. He might not have ever gone back, but when a Somali taxi driver in New York almost ran him over, the irony of that close call inspired him to visit his war-torn country, "a land where demons never took a break."
He arrives full of apprehension, "certain that at a conscious level he was not sufficiently prepared for the shocks in store for him." On cue, while he's collecting his bags, a group of armed youths drive by, place bets, and shoot into the new arrivals, killing a 10-year-old boy.
But what interests Farah in this novel is not so much the horror of these random acts of violence, which form the background radiation of life in Mogadishu, but the psychological effects of living in chaos. "Distrust was the order of the day," Farah writes, "and everyone was suspicious of everybody else." For people trapped in such a place, the result is a permanently unsettled sense of apprehension, worse even, Farah suggests, than the rule of a cruel dictator.
Jeebleh seeks out his old friend, Dr. Bile, a pacifist who runs The Refuge, a haven in a city torn between warring clans. Bile's niece, a young woman with a mystic aura of peace and "a face as ancient as the roots of a baobab," has recently disappeared, and Bile suspects his evil stepbrother may have kidnapped her. Jeebleh decides to find the girl himself, but he quickly discovers that, like everything in this country, her disappearance is not what it seems.
Communal and familial interests in Mogadishu have been scrambled in ways that make it impossible to separate what's political from what's personal. Chaos in the streets, Jeebleh learns, reflects disorder in the home, which reverberates back into society with even more deadly effect. Not coincidentally, the Somali term for "civil war" translates roughly into "killing an intimate." For Jeebleh, still the pensive academic, this inspires a long consideration of the divisive or inclusive function of pronouns, the "we" or "them" that either reinforces clan unity or demonizes others.
As Jeebleh searches for his friend's niece, risking his life to pursue mysterious figures and venture down unknown paths, Farah turns the narrative into a kind of nightmare with that alternating feeling of familiarity and dislocation, compromised volition, and a frustrating sense that crucial information is just out of reach. Indeed, to enter this novel, we must become something like Jeebleh, repress our need for explanations, and resign ourselves to a murky cloud of suggestions and fears, a land simultaneously distinct and amorphous.
This is the slightly abstract, slightly surreal territory where several Nobel laureates hang out, writers like Singer, Márquez, and Saramago, and it's no coincidence that Farah has been held up in their company. He won the Neustadt International Prize in 1998, and his command of five languages and a lifetime spent in Africa, the United States, Europe, and India give his work a legendary quality even when the story concerns such a specific place and time.
Partly that effect stems from his penchant for African folklore, proverbs, and striking figures of speech. For instance, Jeebleh sees "the stars a-scatter like maize kernels thrown into greedy disarray by two hens quarreling." When he's worried, "his innards stir with the adrenaline of a daddy longlegs crawling out of a ditch a meter deep." And after Bile tells the dark story of his family's troubles, "his features take on the darker hue of fabric soaking overnight in water."
Like these strange and strangely self-evident descriptions, this whole story is both alien and familiar, a haunting exploration of the desire to help and the attendant costs of doing so.
The impulse to intervene, Farah suggests, is not evil or foolish or even exclusively American. But when Jeebleh rises with righteous determination to enter this fray, he learns that bitter American lesson about trying to "be good in a conscientious way in a city in which people are wicked and murderous through and through." As Emily Dickinson wryly observed, "Success in Circuit lies." To battle this vague enemy, Jeebleh finally realizes he must fight with the same side glances, altering his principles and permanently compromising his nature in ways he couldn't have anticipated. "No one," Bile tells him, "living in a country in which a civil war is raging is deemed to be innocent."
Near the end of his journey, Jeebleh thinks that his story is too woven into the "Dantean complexity" of others' stories to serve any "moral and political edification," but he's wrong.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0413/p1...
Mark Bowden placed the infamous helicopter battle in Mogadishu at the center of his bestselling book, "Black Hawk Down," a finalist for the National Book Award in 1999. A popular Hollywood version followed two years later.
Now comes a very different treatment of that conflict from Somali novelist Nuruddin Farah. Whereas Bowden's journalistic approach tried to untangle the complexities of Mogadishu, Farah's new novel, "Links," aims to convey a sense of the city's impenetrable ambiguity. And while the movie, with its Oscar-winning soundtrack, brought viewers smack into the grit of battle, Farah raises us into a haze of muffled alliances and conflicted values. That approach involves considerable risks, particularly for Americans, who may want their books, like their military interventions, well defined with clear exit strategies, but Farah plays to an international audience.
"Links" concerns a Somali named Jeebleh who's come back after 20 years of exile in the United States. Mogadishu holds few pleasant memories for him; he spent his last years there in prison. He watched the American intervention on TV from the comfort of his home in New York City, and later he received word of his mother's death through the mail. He might not have ever gone back, but when a Somali taxi driver in New York almost ran him over, the irony of that close call inspired him to visit his war-torn country, "a land where demons never took a break."
He arrives full of apprehension, "certain that at a conscious level he was not sufficiently prepared for the shocks in store for him." On cue, while he's collecting his bags, a group of armed youths drive by, place bets, and shoot into the new arrivals, killing a 10-year-old boy.
But what interests Farah in this novel is not so much the horror of these random acts of violence, which form the background radiation of life in Mogadishu, but the psychological effects of living in chaos. "Distrust was the order of the day," Farah writes, "and everyone was suspicious of everybody else." For people trapped in such a place, the result is a permanently unsettled sense of apprehension, worse even, Farah suggests, than the rule of a cruel dictator.
Jeebleh seeks out his old friend, Dr. Bile, a pacifist who runs The Refuge, a haven in a city torn between warring clans. Bile's niece, a young woman with a mystic aura of peace and "a face as ancient as the roots of a baobab," has recently disappeared, and Bile suspects his evil stepbrother may have kidnapped her. Jeebleh decides to find the girl himself, but he quickly discovers that, like everything in this country, her disappearance is not what it seems.
Communal and familial interests in Mogadishu have been scrambled in ways that make it impossible to separate what's political from what's personal. Chaos in the streets, Jeebleh learns, reflects disorder in the home, which reverberates back into society with even more deadly effect. Not coincidentally, the Somali term for "civil war" translates roughly into "killing an intimate." For Jeebleh, still the pensive academic, this inspires a long consideration of the divisive or inclusive function of pronouns, the "we" or "them" that either reinforces clan unity or demonizes others.
As Jeebleh searches for his friend's niece, risking his life to pursue mysterious figures and venture down unknown paths, Farah turns the narrative into a kind of nightmare with that alternating feeling of familiarity and dislocation, compromised volition, and a frustrating sense that crucial information is just out of reach. Indeed, to enter this novel, we must become something like Jeebleh, repress our need for explanations, and resign ourselves to a murky cloud of suggestions and fears, a land simultaneously distinct and amorphous.
This is the slightly abstract, slightly surreal territory where several Nobel laureates hang out, writers like Singer, Márquez, and Saramago, and it's no coincidence that Farah has been held up in their company. He won the Neustadt International Prize in 1998, and his command of five languages and a lifetime spent in Africa, the United States, Europe, and India give his work a legendary quality even when the story concerns such a specific place and time.
Partly that effect stems from his penchant for African folklore, proverbs, and striking figures of speech. For instance, Jeebleh sees "the stars a-scatter like maize kernels thrown into greedy disarray by two hens quarreling." When he's worried, "his innards stir with the adrenaline of a daddy longlegs crawling out of a ditch a meter deep." And after Bile tells the dark story of his family's troubles, "his features take on the darker hue of fabric soaking overnight in water."
Like these strange and strangely self-evident descriptions, this whole story is both alien and familiar, a haunting exploration of the desire to help and the attendant costs of doing so.
The impulse to intervene, Farah suggests, is not evil or foolish or even exclusively American. But when Jeebleh rises with righteous determination to enter this fray, he learns that bitter American lesson about trying to "be good in a conscientious way in a city in which people are wicked and murderous through and through." As Emily Dickinson wryly observed, "Success in Circuit lies." To battle this vague enemy, Jeebleh finally realizes he must fight with the same side glances, altering his principles and permanently compromising his nature in ways he couldn't have anticipated. "No one," Bile tells him, "living in a country in which a civil war is raging is deemed to be innocent."
Near the end of his journey, Jeebleh thinks that his story is too woven into the "Dantean complexity" of others' stories to serve any "moral and political edification," but he's wrong.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0413/p1...
April 14, 2018
I'd say this is a 2.5 star book. There were occasional moments where I connected with Jeelbeh, or one of the other characters, could overlook the absurdly stilted dialogue and clumsy metaphors/similes, and felt immersed in the atmosphere of mid 90s Mogadishu. Most of the time, though, I felt untethered from the narrative and its characters. The book spurred me to learn a little more about the history of modern Somalia, though, which was welcome.
January 7, 2016
From the opening pages, when Jeebleh, a long-time exile, leaves his airplane upon arrival in Mogadiscio, Somalia, and witnesses the random shooting of another passenger and comprehends the danger inherent in all choices he makes, he is assailed by unbearable stress. Mogadiscio is a land in which almost no one can be trusted, where kidnappings and murders are simply part of the day. The opening chapter describes Jeebleh's journey from the airport to a hotel, and its intensity makes other novels purporting to describe similar border crossings into dangerous global hotspots, such as those found in books by John Le Carre, seem dull. Jeebleh quickly learns how to navigate Mogadiscio's complex and lawless society, where someone who bullied him as a child has amassed power as a warlord, where his movements are constantly monitored, and where people hide their names and their past identities, making his encounters constantly puzzling and fraught with fear. Jeebleh determines two projects for himself: one is to find two kidnapped children and to reunite them with their parents, long-time friends of his. One child has Down's Syndrome, the other is attributed other-worldly powers; simply being in her presence is considered protective. The second goal is to find his mother's grave and to honor her memory. He is changed by the city and by the company he keeps, a small security force whose heavily armed presence begins to feel empowering and seductive. Still, Jeebleh notes small signs of normalcy within the chaos, such as men lining up at the barber's for shaves and haircuts. The value of friendship, as well as its limits, is well depicted here. This novel is a visit to a place most of us would not care to visit; to go there and survive is an accomplishment. We don't know the long-term impact of living through this hell on Jeebleh or his compatriots, but the character of Raasta, the divinely touched girl, is one form of hope.
June 9, 2013
I see complaints from some reviewers about Farah's idiosyncratic, sometimes rather formal, even artificial style. But I find his style, with his offbeat similes for example, to lend an appropriate strangeness to a story in which characters desperately and often unsuccessfully seek to find meaning in a society that has come close to collapse. The book represents various struggles with madness that seem created by the setting of Mogadiscio itself.
Particularly telling for me were the interspersed dreams of the protagonist Jeebleh. Early on he dreams disturbingly of himself as a ruthless young fighter with his clan, despite this representing everything he opposes. And the problem of clan allegiances and the use of the pronouns "we" "they" and "I" run through the book. And then later Jeebleh dreams he is a crab, and on waking finds himself walking sideways to the ocean, as if to show just how malleable identity can be.
Even in this bleak context there are suggestions of possibilities for identity, friendship and community transcending clannish allegiances, but violence, atomization and insecurity are never far away.
Particularly telling for me were the interspersed dreams of the protagonist Jeebleh. Early on he dreams disturbingly of himself as a ruthless young fighter with his clan, despite this representing everything he opposes. And the problem of clan allegiances and the use of the pronouns "we" "they" and "I" run through the book. And then later Jeebleh dreams he is a crab, and on waking finds himself walking sideways to the ocean, as if to show just how malleable identity can be.
Even in this bleak context there are suggestions of possibilities for identity, friendship and community transcending clannish allegiances, but violence, atomization and insecurity are never far away.
April 9, 2020
Nuruddin Farah lebt im amerikanischen Exil und schreibt von dort über Seine Heimat Somalia.
Seit der Kolonisation und den Bürgerkriegen ist Somalia eines der ärmsten Länder der Welt und vor allem durch Kriege, Hungersnöte, islamistische Milizen und Piraten bekannt. Farah versucht durch seine Bücher ein komplexeres Bild Somalias zu schaffen und weist auch auf die Schuld des Westens hin.
Westliche und asiatische Fischfangflotten, Giftmüllverklappung vor den Küsten usw sorgen dafür dass Somalia in einer Spirale von Gewalt gefangen ist.
Jeebleh reist zurück in seine Heimat nach Mogadishu um das Grab seiner Mutter zu besuchen, ihren Tod und eine Entführung von zwei Mädchen aufzuklären und verstrickt sich in dem Bürgerkriegsland und kommt nur knapp mit dem Leben davon.
Farah schreibt sachlich, fast wie eine Reportage. Handlung und Spannung sind nicht seine Stärke. Dennoch gelingt ihm immer wieder bedeutende Bücher über seine Heimat zu verfassen. Die Botschaft und die Kritik am Westen machen dieses Buch so gut.
Farah gilt zu Recht als einer der wichtigsten afrikanischen Autoren.
Seit der Kolonisation und den Bürgerkriegen ist Somalia eines der ärmsten Länder der Welt und vor allem durch Kriege, Hungersnöte, islamistische Milizen und Piraten bekannt. Farah versucht durch seine Bücher ein komplexeres Bild Somalias zu schaffen und weist auch auf die Schuld des Westens hin.
Westliche und asiatische Fischfangflotten, Giftmüllverklappung vor den Küsten usw sorgen dafür dass Somalia in einer Spirale von Gewalt gefangen ist.
Jeebleh reist zurück in seine Heimat nach Mogadishu um das Grab seiner Mutter zu besuchen, ihren Tod und eine Entführung von zwei Mädchen aufzuklären und verstrickt sich in dem Bürgerkriegsland und kommt nur knapp mit dem Leben davon.
Farah schreibt sachlich, fast wie eine Reportage. Handlung und Spannung sind nicht seine Stärke. Dennoch gelingt ihm immer wieder bedeutende Bücher über seine Heimat zu verfassen. Die Botschaft und die Kritik am Westen machen dieses Buch so gut.
Farah gilt zu Recht als einer der wichtigsten afrikanischen Autoren.
February 14, 2018
I'll start off by saying that, even though this is a two-star book for me, I appreciate this new perspective I have on Somalia and the effort that went into the allusions (or Links, if you will) to Dante's Inferno throughout this book. These aspects are the most positive ones I take with me from this book.
Since this was a book I had to read for class, it was expected it wouldn't be something I really wanted to read. I think what was so disappointing to me was just how much this book dragged on, despite the fact that it was about revenge, war-torn Somalia, rescuing kidnapped children, and self-identity. The plot sounds like there's going to be action at every turn, but there was a lot of conversation and wandering. (And drinking coffee.)
The main character, Jeebleh, goes through a journey of self-discovery as he returns to Somalia; the country he was born in and imprisoned in by his close friend's half-brother Caloosha. After having a near-death experience in New York, he recalls the loose ends he wants to tie in Somalia. He wants to pay respects to his dead mother, he wants to help recover the kidnapped girls, Raasta and Makka, and lastly, wants to enact his revenge on Caloosha.
One of the most confusing things about this book is how the characters seemed to operate. They always knew what the other one was thinking and allowed themselves to be taken to places without knowing where they were going. I'm not sure how realistic this is because if I was in a dangerous country, I'm not so sure I would just get in the first car that someone (potentially Caloosha) had arranged for me. There was just a lot of weird tension and behavior that came across as unnatural, rather than situational.
I was also unsatisfied with how Jeebleh carried out each of his tasks. It was confusing to me that everything played out for him in the end. The perspectives shifted around at points where I really wanted to be in Jeebleh's head to know what was going on. This was likely intentionally done to add a bit of mystery at the end, but it just made the ending vague and empty to me. Jeebleh's whole character was very unpredictable and odd, so I didn't find myself glad that he'd achieved his goals.
Lastly, I felt as if the female characters in this book were one of two things: strangely described or nonexistent. I found myself confused when reading descriptors about Bile's sister, Shanta, and the girls Raasta and Makka. And the first moment a female character actually speaks in the book, other than a brief line from a phone call with Jeebleh's wife and daughters, is almost halfway in the book! While I'm not expecting Jeebleh's story to be heavily focused on the female experience in Somalia, I was a little concerned that he didn't once think of the fate of some of the women and feel something. He didn't even seem to think about this in relation to the fact that his wife and daughters, had they been Somalian and in Somalia, could be subjected to some of the cruelties experienced there.
I wouldn't say to write this book off completely due to my taste; it's still worth reading to learn about another culture, if nothing else. Just don't go into it expecting a lot of action.
Since this was a book I had to read for class, it was expected it wouldn't be something I really wanted to read. I think what was so disappointing to me was just how much this book dragged on, despite the fact that it was about revenge, war-torn Somalia, rescuing kidnapped children, and self-identity. The plot sounds like there's going to be action at every turn, but there was a lot of conversation and wandering. (And drinking coffee.)
The main character, Jeebleh, goes through a journey of self-discovery as he returns to Somalia; the country he was born in and imprisoned in by his close friend's half-brother Caloosha. After having a near-death experience in New York, he recalls the loose ends he wants to tie in Somalia. He wants to pay respects to his dead mother, he wants to help recover the kidnapped girls, Raasta and Makka, and lastly, wants to enact his revenge on Caloosha.
One of the most confusing things about this book is how the characters seemed to operate. They always knew what the other one was thinking and allowed themselves to be taken to places without knowing where they were going. I'm not sure how realistic this is because if I was in a dangerous country, I'm not so sure I would just get in the first car that someone (potentially Caloosha) had arranged for me. There was just a lot of weird tension and behavior that came across as unnatural, rather than situational.
I was also unsatisfied with how Jeebleh carried out each of his tasks. It was confusing to me that everything played out for him in the end. The perspectives shifted around at points where I really wanted to be in Jeebleh's head to know what was going on. This was likely intentionally done to add a bit of mystery at the end, but it just made the ending vague and empty to me. Jeebleh's whole character was very unpredictable and odd, so I didn't find myself glad that he'd achieved his goals.
Lastly, I felt as if the female characters in this book were one of two things: strangely described or nonexistent. I found myself confused when reading descriptors about Bile's sister, Shanta, and the girls Raasta and Makka. And the first moment a female character actually speaks in the book, other than a brief line from a phone call with Jeebleh's wife and daughters, is almost halfway in the book! While I'm not expecting Jeebleh's story to be heavily focused on the female experience in Somalia, I was a little concerned that he didn't once think of the fate of some of the women and feel something. He didn't even seem to think about this in relation to the fact that his wife and daughters, had they been Somalian and in Somalia, could be subjected to some of the cruelties experienced there.
I wouldn't say to write this book off completely due to my taste; it's still worth reading to learn about another culture, if nothing else. Just don't go into it expecting a lot of action.
September 22, 2023
I have gone through several transformations with this book. First I bought it, but then I never felt like picking it up. Yes, I want to read more african literature, but it seemed so... important. It bounced around my various shelves several times, from "read sometime" to "read soon" to "read next" and back again. I wanted to read it, but I did not want to read it. So, after two years of this, I gave myself an ultimatum: read it or let it go.
So I started reading. And after three pages I was totally convinced to let it go. What a nightmare of a book! But then I read three really good reviews and took it back from the let it go pile. And read on. And suddenly I loved it. The prose! Couldn't get enough of it. Kicked myself for almost missing this gem. Loved it. . . . Stopped loving it. Waited for... something. For a abduction story, there was very little urgency. Why is no one doing anything? Wondered if women exist beyond being victims, mothers, or daughters. Waited a bit more. Got really bored. Wondered what this religious/magical stuff was. Waited. Started reading faster, skipping a bit. Wondered where I was going with this story. Lost the plot. Never found it again.
Finally, I finished it and still let it go. It was one of the strangest reading experiences I have had. So maybe I will give Farah another chance because he writes beautifully - but this book is not for me.
So I started reading. And after three pages I was totally convinced to let it go. What a nightmare of a book! But then I read three really good reviews and took it back from the let it go pile. And read on. And suddenly I loved it. The prose! Couldn't get enough of it. Kicked myself for almost missing this gem. Loved it. . . . Stopped loving it. Waited for... something. For a abduction story, there was very little urgency. Why is no one doing anything? Wondered if women exist beyond being victims, mothers, or daughters. Waited a bit more. Got really bored. Wondered what this religious/magical stuff was. Waited. Started reading faster, skipping a bit. Wondered where I was going with this story. Lost the plot. Never found it again.
Finally, I finished it and still let it go. It was one of the strangest reading experiences I have had. So maybe I will give Farah another chance because he writes beautifully - but this book is not for me.
November 28, 2011
Set during the mid-1990s, Links sheds light on the lurid status of famished Mogadiscio, Somalia, a city where government itself is obsolete, allowing Dagaalka sokeeye, or civil war, to rage madly on. The novel's protagonist, Jeebleh, is visiting his native Somalia for the first time in twenty years in order to settle his mother’s burial and funeral, and he is jaded by the circumstances plaguing his homeland. Clan-based war persists between two major clans, with Strongman South’s clan leading the charge.
Jeebleh immediately reenters a violent landscape where collateral damage is the norm. Upon his return, Jeebleh feels disoriented and alienated and wonders how he can possibly continue to love a land he no longer recognizes. He is in fact attempting to become a citizen of the world by returning to his homeland to make peace and to help his family-friends who have experienced the tragic kidnappings of their beloved daughters. Despite Jeebleh’s good intentions, however, he has entered a structure that he was once a part of and becomes sucked into the harshness of the environment. He faces an identity crisis that he may be incapable of resolving at a crossroads moment in his life.
As a whole, Links is both realistic and deeply moving. The novel's greatest strengths rest in the desolate, war-torn Somalian landscape that Farah vividly paints, as well as his raising of issues of global citizenship and human dignity that haunt the victims of collateral damage. Unfortunately, Farah's awkward use of language almost takes away from the novel's poignant message. Farah opted to write this novel in English, which is not his first language, instead of utilizing his normal method of writing and then having the novel translated. This resulted in repetitive metaphors and recycled plot descriptions throughout the novel. Nonetheless, the portrait that Farah manages to create is powerful enough to transport readers to Jeebleh's world...and mind.
Jeebleh immediately reenters a violent landscape where collateral damage is the norm. Upon his return, Jeebleh feels disoriented and alienated and wonders how he can possibly continue to love a land he no longer recognizes. He is in fact attempting to become a citizen of the world by returning to his homeland to make peace and to help his family-friends who have experienced the tragic kidnappings of their beloved daughters. Despite Jeebleh’s good intentions, however, he has entered a structure that he was once a part of and becomes sucked into the harshness of the environment. He faces an identity crisis that he may be incapable of resolving at a crossroads moment in his life.
As a whole, Links is both realistic and deeply moving. The novel's greatest strengths rest in the desolate, war-torn Somalian landscape that Farah vividly paints, as well as his raising of issues of global citizenship and human dignity that haunt the victims of collateral damage. Unfortunately, Farah's awkward use of language almost takes away from the novel's poignant message. Farah opted to write this novel in English, which is not his first language, instead of utilizing his normal method of writing and then having the novel translated. This resulted in repetitive metaphors and recycled plot descriptions throughout the novel. Nonetheless, the portrait that Farah manages to create is powerful enough to transport readers to Jeebleh's world...and mind.
May 23, 2013
Nuruddin Farah’s “Links” has an odd rhythm, building slowly and then dashing madly, even haphazardly, to the finish. Although, Farah’s touchstone is the Inferno, from which he quotes in epigraphs, this novel set in Somalia has more of intra-familial savagery of Greek tragedy, as half-brothers, Jebreel, returning from the United States, the long-imprisoned Bile, and the brutal gangster Caloosha circle around each other. A young niece, daughter of a half-sister, is missing with her friend. Ambiguous and dangerous characters lurk around the edges: the sinister brother-in-law; Af Laawe, whose non-profit has a stated purpose of burying the dead in the quick but clean Muslim manner but may be a front for organ-harvesting; the elders who say they are visiting Jebreel to welcome him but actually covet his American dollars to keep up their armored SUVs in competition with other clans; the leaders of the warring clans, here called Strongman North and Strongman South. For all the violence of Somali against Somali, the death of the American soldiers in the “Black Hawk Down” incident lingers in the background, but from the Somalian perspective. Throughout Farah meditates on what it means to come from a land that cannot really be called a country. “Is a whole country responsible for the crime of one of its citizens?” Jeebleh asks of the United States, but the same could be asked of what remains of Somalia. This is a country whose greatest poet wrote, as Farah quotes him, “All you can get from me is War./If you want peace, go away from my Country.” Farah sets up his mean streets down which Jeebleh must walk and populates it with traps, duplicity and danger to himself and to the innocent missing girls and then for some reason suddenly resolves it with the off-stage death of Caloosha and the miraculous re-appearance of the missing girls. If only it were that way in reality.
January 5, 2016
This is the story of a former political prisoner, Jeebleh, who returns to his native Somalia in the 90s after 20+ years living in the United States. Jeebleh goes to Somalia with purpose, but he's not really clear what the purpose is... to reunite with old friends? to settle old scores? to save a kidnapped child? to build a tomb for his mom?
The book was clunky. It was full of images, metaphors, and allusions that maybe if I had an English degree and thought about it for a long time I would understand. Parts of it were poetic and parts of it were terse and forced, and the two didn't really blend well.
The most interesting pieces of the book were reflections on family and war. When Jeebleh first arrives in Somalia, he is full of vague fear of militarized youth who kill arbitrarily for play. Later, he realizes that the civil war in Somalia is extremely personal, and no one really kills without calculating how the death will benefit the killer, politically or financially. There are moments like this that help create a more complex Somalia then Americans remember from their invasion of the country in the early 90s (or then is reflected in newspapers today). Unfortunately, I felt like a lot of the book lacked the sense of place that gave it strength, and in trying for universality ended up feeling kind of fake.
Some good parts and ideas, mostly average.
The book was clunky. It was full of images, metaphors, and allusions that maybe if I had an English degree and thought about it for a long time I would understand. Parts of it were poetic and parts of it were terse and forced, and the two didn't really blend well.
The most interesting pieces of the book were reflections on family and war. When Jeebleh first arrives in Somalia, he is full of vague fear of militarized youth who kill arbitrarily for play. Later, he realizes that the civil war in Somalia is extremely personal, and no one really kills without calculating how the death will benefit the killer, politically or financially. There are moments like this that help create a more complex Somalia then Americans remember from their invasion of the country in the early 90s (or then is reflected in newspapers today). Unfortunately, I felt like a lot of the book lacked the sense of place that gave it strength, and in trying for universality ended up feeling kind of fake.
Some good parts and ideas, mostly average.
October 26, 2011
Great book. I felt it gave a good sense of what it is like to be in Somalia yet without a great deal graphic violence. There was more of a focus on the people. It also delved into the complexities of people torn between their native homeland and their much better life in their new home. The main character, Jeebleh, returns to Somalia after many years. Before leaving Somalia as a young man, he was jailed (for his political beliefs, actions, a feud between clans? I was never clear.) Upon his return to Somalia years later, he sees that things have gotten worse, yet also realize that he has a love for his country and people despite what they have done to him and his family. The book helps to portray Somalis as real people, although not always in a flattering light, and not just starving, war-torn people on our television screens in the West.
My one complaint is that there were some things that I never quite understood in the story, but maybe that was the author's intent. For instance, why were the two girls kidnapped,and why were they returned? And what was exactly the deal between Caloosha, Jeebleh & Bile? Also, in a city as huge and in such turmoil as Mogadishu, why did everyone seem to know one another?
This is the first book I have read by Farah, and I will definitely be reading more.
My one complaint is that there were some things that I never quite understood in the story, but maybe that was the author's intent. For instance, why were the two girls kidnapped,and why were they returned? And what was exactly the deal between Caloosha, Jeebleh & Bile? Also, in a city as huge and in such turmoil as Mogadishu, why did everyone seem to know one another?
This is the first book I have read by Farah, and I will definitely be reading more.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 19, 2012
This book was not at all what I was expecting - in a good way. I was nervous about reading it because I thought it would be contain a good bit of painful, graphic devastation and violence. It is, after all, set in Somalia, torn by civil war. However, it turned out to be very much about the psychology of the characters. Certainly there was some violence and devastation described, but not as much as I was anticipating. The writing was almost dreamy at times. I was captivated by the story, which includes a bit of mystery of sorts, but in the end I'm not sure if I got out of it what I was supposed to. I think Farah captured well the confusion of returning to your war-torn homeland for the first time in 20 years, but at times the main character bothered me because it seemed like more often things happened to him instead of him taking decisive action - but perhaps this was intentional to convey the sense of place. In any case, it was an interesting book and I learned a lot about Somalia.
November 15, 2010
Not that it was terrible- I just wasn't feeling it all that much. I like highly metaphorical language and Farah kind of overdid it more than a few times.
The pace of the novel was fast enough, the characters were interesting but not drawn conclusively. It had a lost of epigraphs and I LOVE epigraphs. I was reading it for class, against the clock, admittedly, but I don't really have any desire to check it out again.
It was good to read something from and about Somalia, though. maybe I'll have to check on this elsewhere...
August 4, 2012
I loved this book for two reasons: It is an account of stories from people, and that Jebeleh-the main character is out on a quest-to find the truth, to reconcile his past-and like the early tragedies (Greek tragedies) he doesn't get the justice he's after because Caloosha-the man who jailed him, dies-before he's made peace with the cruel things Caloosha did to him.
I loved Dajaal the most because he's a friend and also a guard-he listens and knows what's to come but keeps his word too.
I loved Dajaal the most because he's a friend and also a guard-he listens and knows what's to come but keeps his word too.
September 5, 2011
He is a good writer but there is a disconnect here. It's as if his heart just wasn't in it. The story flounders in a murky soup of characters and blurry ideas. Themes struggle with their identity crisis. Maybe this is exactly the intent. That's what I believed on first reading the book, that the style was recapitulating life in Somalia.
September 21, 2021
Somalia. For most, this country’s name conjures images of hunger, civil war, militiamen perched behind a machine gun on the back of a pick-up, terrorist attacks and piracy. When 25 years ago I landed in Hargeisa, I didn’t know much what to expect. I knew that the capital of Somaliland was different than Mogadishu and that the Northern part of the country lived in relative peace, despite the lack of international recognition. Still, I was a little bit anxious as I arrived. The airport would have deserved the old name of « airfield ». During the approach, a long strip of earth could be seen in a pasture that looked more or less flat on the city’s outskirts. The immigration office where my passport received its « Entry » and « Exit » stamps was just a military tent at the end of the airstrip.
I stayed for 2-3 days and everything was calm and peaceful, even if the city still showed some of the traces of the battles and destructions of 1991. The commercial activities were typical of a mid-size African town: shops with metal doors open, women walking to the market in their colorful dresses, schools receiving their first computers.
I recently read the « Past Imperfect » trilogy written by Somali author Nuruddin Farah. It includes three parts: « Links », « Knots » et « Crossbones». Even if the novelist doesn’t hide any of his country’s violence and drama, Farah’s three books open a window to discover a Somali society richer and more complex than the clichés repeated by the media.
In « Links », Jeebleh, a Somali academic exiled in New-York where he married an American, comes back after many years in Mogadishu following his mother’s death. During his arrival at the airport, a gang of idle young militiamen have some fun in shooting at a family boarding a plane. A young boy dies. Jeebleh needs to learn how to navigate this city divided in two by the factions of the two rival warlords. He reunites with Bileh, his childhood friend, who like him, was a political prisoner and is now in charge of a refuge for orphans and abandoned children. But he also needs to mistrust Caloosha, Bileh’s half-brother who is the leader of a gang involved in all kinds of traffics.
With the second volume, « Knots », it is Cambara, a young woman who debarks in Mogadishu from her exile in Toronto and tries to recover the family house, squatted by a warlord. The city is somewhat more peaceful, but Cambara needs to have an armed escort each time she goes somewhere. Her protector is Dajaal, one of Bileh’s friends. Thanks to their help and the assistance of other friends, she writes a play that she puts on for a women’s network who tries to reestablish peace.
The third and last tome of the trilogy brings us to a more recent period. The Union of Islamic Court brings order in Mogadishu, young Somalis from Minnesota come to swell the ranks of the Shabaab extremists, while further North, in Puntland, pirates ransom merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden. Two brothers, Malik and Ahl, arrive from the United States. Malik is a journalist who dreams of a scoop about modern piracy. He is accompanied by his father-in-law, Jeebleh, who introduces him in a circle of old friends, including Bileh and Cambara. They fell in love and live together, but without being married, a fact that irks the Islamic Courts. Ahl is in Puntland where he looks for his stepson Taxliil, a young Somali recruited by the Islamists in Shabaab, but who could actually be aboard a pirate embarkation. This way, he finds out about the links uniting Islamists and pirates. He also learns that the piracy along the Somali coast started as a violent reaction by local fishermen against industrial fishing boats who were pilfering illegally but with perfect impunity the country’s fish reserves.
Covering three different periods in the long civil war from which Somalia seems unable to extricate itself since 1991, the three parts of the trilogy follow the same schema: the main character comes home after a long exile, is confronted with the violence emanating from the current episode of the conflict, but nevertheless finds back new roots. Cambara found love and decides to stay and live in Mogadishu. Jeebleh, the exile from the first novel, returns in the third one. It’s difficult not see there Nuruddin Farah’s shadow. He is himself an exiled novelist, who said that his work was an attempt “to keep my country alive by writing about it”.
Somalia: Nurrudin Farah – Travel Readings
I stayed for 2-3 days and everything was calm and peaceful, even if the city still showed some of the traces of the battles and destructions of 1991. The commercial activities were typical of a mid-size African town: shops with metal doors open, women walking to the market in their colorful dresses, schools receiving their first computers.
I recently read the « Past Imperfect » trilogy written by Somali author Nuruddin Farah. It includes three parts: « Links », « Knots » et « Crossbones». Even if the novelist doesn’t hide any of his country’s violence and drama, Farah’s three books open a window to discover a Somali society richer and more complex than the clichés repeated by the media.
In « Links », Jeebleh, a Somali academic exiled in New-York where he married an American, comes back after many years in Mogadishu following his mother’s death. During his arrival at the airport, a gang of idle young militiamen have some fun in shooting at a family boarding a plane. A young boy dies. Jeebleh needs to learn how to navigate this city divided in two by the factions of the two rival warlords. He reunites with Bileh, his childhood friend, who like him, was a political prisoner and is now in charge of a refuge for orphans and abandoned children. But he also needs to mistrust Caloosha, Bileh’s half-brother who is the leader of a gang involved in all kinds of traffics.
With the second volume, « Knots », it is Cambara, a young woman who debarks in Mogadishu from her exile in Toronto and tries to recover the family house, squatted by a warlord. The city is somewhat more peaceful, but Cambara needs to have an armed escort each time she goes somewhere. Her protector is Dajaal, one of Bileh’s friends. Thanks to their help and the assistance of other friends, she writes a play that she puts on for a women’s network who tries to reestablish peace.
The third and last tome of the trilogy brings us to a more recent period. The Union of Islamic Court brings order in Mogadishu, young Somalis from Minnesota come to swell the ranks of the Shabaab extremists, while further North, in Puntland, pirates ransom merchant vessels in the Gulf of Aden. Two brothers, Malik and Ahl, arrive from the United States. Malik is a journalist who dreams of a scoop about modern piracy. He is accompanied by his father-in-law, Jeebleh, who introduces him in a circle of old friends, including Bileh and Cambara. They fell in love and live together, but without being married, a fact that irks the Islamic Courts. Ahl is in Puntland where he looks for his stepson Taxliil, a young Somali recruited by the Islamists in Shabaab, but who could actually be aboard a pirate embarkation. This way, he finds out about the links uniting Islamists and pirates. He also learns that the piracy along the Somali coast started as a violent reaction by local fishermen against industrial fishing boats who were pilfering illegally but with perfect impunity the country’s fish reserves.
Covering three different periods in the long civil war from which Somalia seems unable to extricate itself since 1991, the three parts of the trilogy follow the same schema: the main character comes home after a long exile, is confronted with the violence emanating from the current episode of the conflict, but nevertheless finds back new roots. Cambara found love and decides to stay and live in Mogadishu. Jeebleh, the exile from the first novel, returns in the third one. It’s difficult not see there Nuruddin Farah’s shadow. He is himself an exiled novelist, who said that his work was an attempt “to keep my country alive by writing about it”.
Somalia: Nurrudin Farah – Travel Readings
February 1, 2019
Around the world book challenge #6
Country: Somalia
3.5/5
English:
In this book we follow Jeebleh, a Somali who lives in the United States, and who decides to return to his country to help his friend Bile to find his niece, and to honor his now deceased mother. When he arrives in Somalia, his country is in the middle of the civil war between the clans after the US troops withdrew. Jeebleh turned out to be a strange character, since it described heartbreaking scenes, but he did not seem to feel much about it. Maybe it could be because when a person gets used to seeing cruelty and poor living conditions, each scene is less shocking, like a shell that forms his head to avoid suffering.
This was a particular reading. I found it fascinating from the first lines, it seemed very well written and has many cultural aspects that are interesting to know. However, the end came too soon. In addition, certain attitudes were disconcerting to me, but it must be because I am not at all familiar with Somali culture. Another variable that puzzled me was a kind of magical realism incorporated to the character of Raasta, who did not expect it at all.
I also thought that there were many unresolved questions, such as .
From what I saw, the next book does not seem to continue with the story of Jeebleh, however, I am interested in reading it and continue learning more.
Español:
En este libro seguimos a Jeebleh, un somalí que vive en Estados Unidos, y que decide regresar a su país para ayudar a su amigo Bile y honrar a su mamá ahora fallecida. Cuando llega a Somalia, su país se encuentra en medio de la guerra civil entre el clan del Norte y del Sur, luego de que las tropas estadounidenses se retiraran. Jeebleh me resultó un personaje extraño, ya que describía escenas desgarradoras, pero parecía no sentir mucho al respecto. Tal vez pueda deberse a que cuando una persona se acostumbra a ver la crueldad y las malas condiciones de vida, cada escena resulta menos impactante, como una coraza que forma su cabeza para evitar sufrir tanto.
Esta fue una lectura particular. Me resultó atrapante desde las primeras líneas, me pareció muy bien escrito y tiene muchos aspectos culturales que son interesantes de conocer. Sin embargo, cerca del final me pareció que se resolvió todo muy rápido. Además, ciertas actitudes me resultaron desconcertantes, pero debe ser porque no estoy para nada familiarizada con la cultura somalí. Otra variable que me desconcertó fue una especie de realismo mágico incorporado al personaje de Raasta, que no lo esperaba para nada.
También me pareció que quedaron muchas incógnitas sin resolver, como por ejemplo, .
Por lo que ví, el próximo libro no parece continuar con la historia de Jeebleh, sin embargo, me interesa leerlo y seguir aprendiendo más.
Country: Somalia
3.5/5
English:
In this book we follow Jeebleh, a Somali who lives in the United States, and who decides to return to his country to help his friend Bile to find his niece, and to honor his now deceased mother. When he arrives in Somalia, his country is in the middle of the civil war between the clans after the US troops withdrew. Jeebleh turned out to be a strange character, since it described heartbreaking scenes, but he did not seem to feel much about it. Maybe it could be because when a person gets used to seeing cruelty and poor living conditions, each scene is less shocking, like a shell that forms his head to avoid suffering.
This was a particular reading. I found it fascinating from the first lines, it seemed very well written and has many cultural aspects that are interesting to know. However, the end came too soon. In addition, certain attitudes were disconcerting to me, but it must be because I am not at all familiar with Somali culture. Another variable that puzzled me was a kind of magical realism incorporated to the character of Raasta, who did not expect it at all.
I also thought that there were many unresolved questions, such as .
From what I saw, the next book does not seem to continue with the story of Jeebleh, however, I am interested in reading it and continue learning more.
Español:
En este libro seguimos a Jeebleh, un somalí que vive en Estados Unidos, y que decide regresar a su país para ayudar a su amigo Bile y honrar a su mamá ahora fallecida. Cuando llega a Somalia, su país se encuentra en medio de la guerra civil entre el clan del Norte y del Sur, luego de que las tropas estadounidenses se retiraran. Jeebleh me resultó un personaje extraño, ya que describía escenas desgarradoras, pero parecía no sentir mucho al respecto. Tal vez pueda deberse a que cuando una persona se acostumbra a ver la crueldad y las malas condiciones de vida, cada escena resulta menos impactante, como una coraza que forma su cabeza para evitar sufrir tanto.
Esta fue una lectura particular. Me resultó atrapante desde las primeras líneas, me pareció muy bien escrito y tiene muchos aspectos culturales que son interesantes de conocer. Sin embargo, cerca del final me pareció que se resolvió todo muy rápido. Además, ciertas actitudes me resultaron desconcertantes, pero debe ser porque no estoy para nada familiarizada con la cultura somalí. Otra variable que me desconcertó fue una especie de realismo mágico incorporado al personaje de Raasta, que no lo esperaba para nada.
También me pareció que quedaron muchas incógnitas sin resolver, como por ejemplo, .
Por lo que ví, el próximo libro no parece continuar con la historia de Jeebleh, sin embargo, me interesa leerlo y seguir aprendiendo más.
November 8, 2020
Seeking more exposure to real life outside my middle-aged, middle-ish class American bubble, I asked a fellow truckdriver about books to help me learn about "real life," in his home country of Somalia.
He told me about Somali writer Narrudin Farah, who became internationally famous for challenging his country's prevailing views on women, especially in his book, "From a Crooked Rib." "Rib," was not available to me on audio so I chose "Links."
This book is much slower-paced than I can usually bear; but I decided the pacing was an important element in the narrative itself, and stayed with it. The setting is 1990's war-torn Somalia, where simply moving about in public called for a lot of planning and caution (and protection, often in the form.of gun-toting children.) The characters' backstory and a central mystery (an abduction,) added even more suspicion and intrigue. The tension created by the slow narrative worked in my favor, so far as my experiment is empathy goes.
I suspect this book was written with western readers in mind. Long expository passages made for some unnatural dialogue - but was very helpful! I only half- remember the news reports regarding Somalia, and the US involvement there, in my twenties. This book (and a quick peek at the Wikipedia article on Somalia,) put those memories into context.
"Links," definitely fulfilled my objective of exploring the reality of life in this part of Africa. It also contributed to expanding my understanding that colonialism, and the dismantling of it, is much, much more complicated (and ruinous) than I understood.
Did I LIKE the book, you wonder? I had the same question when I finished it! Having thought about it a day or so, I would say, "yes."
I absolutely feel enriched by having read it. The writing (and fantastic audible narration,) kept me engaged once I adjusted to the pace. I thought the characters were mostly well-developed and complex, and I had a good handle on the protagonist's emotional journey. I do feel like I may have missed some cultural subtext or symbolic meaning relating to the children at the center of the story, but it didn't hinder the experience too much.
This book was neither plot-driven nor character-driven, and the themes as explored here are not easily grasped by my western mind. I think it will take time and effort to fully appreciate when Farah has to say, and I will endeavor to devote more of both to "Links."
He told me about Somali writer Narrudin Farah, who became internationally famous for challenging his country's prevailing views on women, especially in his book, "From a Crooked Rib." "Rib," was not available to me on audio so I chose "Links."
This book is much slower-paced than I can usually bear; but I decided the pacing was an important element in the narrative itself, and stayed with it. The setting is 1990's war-torn Somalia, where simply moving about in public called for a lot of planning and caution (and protection, often in the form.of gun-toting children.) The characters' backstory and a central mystery (an abduction,) added even more suspicion and intrigue. The tension created by the slow narrative worked in my favor, so far as my experiment is empathy goes.
I suspect this book was written with western readers in mind. Long expository passages made for some unnatural dialogue - but was very helpful! I only half- remember the news reports regarding Somalia, and the US involvement there, in my twenties. This book (and a quick peek at the Wikipedia article on Somalia,) put those memories into context.
"Links," definitely fulfilled my objective of exploring the reality of life in this part of Africa. It also contributed to expanding my understanding that colonialism, and the dismantling of it, is much, much more complicated (and ruinous) than I understood.
Did I LIKE the book, you wonder? I had the same question when I finished it! Having thought about it a day or so, I would say, "yes."
I absolutely feel enriched by having read it. The writing (and fantastic audible narration,) kept me engaged once I adjusted to the pace. I thought the characters were mostly well-developed and complex, and I had a good handle on the protagonist's emotional journey. I do feel like I may have missed some cultural subtext or symbolic meaning relating to the children at the center of the story, but it didn't hinder the experience too much.
This book was neither plot-driven nor character-driven, and the themes as explored here are not easily grasped by my western mind. I think it will take time and effort to fully appreciate when Farah has to say, and I will endeavor to devote more of both to "Links."
September 23, 2023
I was very excited about this book but was ultimately frustrated and annoyed by it. It is incredible how much praise has been heaped on this book and the author. He makes one of the most basic mistakes of writers, telling, rather than showing who his characters are. Rather than reading about the characters through their actions and dialogue, the reader is constantly given summaries of who they are through the main characters voice.
The dialogue throughout is one of the weakest parts and of course there is plenty of it. It comes across as stilted and not true to life in many parts. Just a terrible rendering of how two human beings speak.
There is some annoying semi magical realism aspect where the author goes on and on about how magical the presence of a little girl and her friend are that is just cringe inducing.
On cringe, the main character makes such bizarrely naive remarks about violence and his capacity to commit it that I couldn't help but imagine this was the author speaking which was just disheartening. This last point may just be an annoyance that is specific to me as dealing with morons who go into war zones with a toddlers understanding of danger and violence are a trigger for me. But wow does the main character and I very much suspect the author fits the bill for that.
Really shitty experience reading. The positive parts for me were all the instances describing somali culture/society during this time period. Depending how you score that, that amounts to maybe 30 pages of the book.
The dialogue throughout is one of the weakest parts and of course there is plenty of it. It comes across as stilted and not true to life in many parts. Just a terrible rendering of how two human beings speak.
There is some annoying semi magical realism aspect where the author goes on and on about how magical the presence of a little girl and her friend are that is just cringe inducing.
On cringe, the main character makes such bizarrely naive remarks about violence and his capacity to commit it that I couldn't help but imagine this was the author speaking which was just disheartening. This last point may just be an annoyance that is specific to me as dealing with morons who go into war zones with a toddlers understanding of danger and violence are a trigger for me. But wow does the main character and I very much suspect the author fits the bill for that.
Really shitty experience reading. The positive parts for me were all the instances describing somali culture/society during this time period. Depending how you score that, that amounts to maybe 30 pages of the book.
January 31, 2021
It is difficult to review "Links" because even if the topic is quite interesting, and in some moments there seems to be a smart analysis on violence, revenge, fear, etc., there is the underlying feeling all through the book that Farah doesn't know what (or why) he is writing about, that he doesn't care about the characters or the story and that he is writing about this just to fulfill some kind of quota.
The book centers on Jeebleh, a Somali living in the US who goes back to Somalia to see the grave of her mother. Of course he gets entangled in the violence, with the search of two young girls, his past or some random violence all thrown into the mix. This randomness might be why Farah has written the story the way he has, but this detachment, coldness or little interest shown by the author makes it an uneven, and uncaring, read.
The best: it offers a glimpse (fictionalized) into a world that is too usually forgotten
The worst: there is no heart here
If you like this kind of books...: you have plenty, from fiction ("Sognando Palestina" or "باب الشمس", which suffers from the same coldness, detached style) to some analysis on all kinds of violence in non-fiction (Fanon's "Les damnés de la terre" or Harmonie Toros's "Terrorism, Talking and Transformation: A Critical Approach")
6/10
(Spanish translation by Miguel Martínez-Lage)
The book centers on Jeebleh, a Somali living in the US who goes back to Somalia to see the grave of her mother. Of course he gets entangled in the violence, with the search of two young girls, his past or some random violence all thrown into the mix. This randomness might be why Farah has written the story the way he has, but this detachment, coldness or little interest shown by the author makes it an uneven, and uncaring, read.
The best: it offers a glimpse (fictionalized) into a world that is too usually forgotten
The worst: there is no heart here
If you like this kind of books...: you have plenty, from fiction ("Sognando Palestina" or "باب الشمس", which suffers from the same coldness, detached style) to some analysis on all kinds of violence in non-fiction (Fanon's "Les damnés de la terre" or Harmonie Toros's "Terrorism, Talking and Transformation: A Critical Approach")
6/10
(Spanish translation by Miguel Martínez-Lage)
September 5, 2017
A fascinating read. This story is set in Somalia during the long civil war, after the American presence. The main character is a Somali exiled to the United States during the dictatorship who returns to honor his deceased mother and reconnect with the people he hasn't seen in decades. It is a mesmerizing account of how he falls into the violent chaos of the city.
***Spoiler Alert***
There was so much mystery and tension that I kept waiting for there to be some dramatic turn or revelation near the end, and there wasn't. So at the end I wondered if all the characters and tense episodes were necessary. Some parts became stranger by not apparently serving any final purpose. For example, I really have no idea what purpose Seamus served.
Also, the conversations had a way of becoming very didactic. That could, at times, be mesmerizing, but at others weren't.
***Spoiler Alert***
There was so much mystery and tension that I kept waiting for there to be some dramatic turn or revelation near the end, and there wasn't. So at the end I wondered if all the characters and tense episodes were necessary. Some parts became stranger by not apparently serving any final purpose. For example, I really have no idea what purpose Seamus served.
Also, the conversations had a way of becoming very didactic. That could, at times, be mesmerizing, but at others weren't.
January 17, 2021
A beautifully written page turner set in post-civil war Mogadishu, where cross-cutting allegiances to family, clans, political ideology and self-preservation eschew attempts to separate good from bad. The central character has just returned to Somalia after years of living in the U.S., and Farah (himself exiled for many years) compellingly communicates his simultaneous love for Mogadishu and despair at what it's become. I wish there more strong, three-dimensional female characters in the book, and wonder how there inclusion might shift the perspective offered by the central characters (all male). There are lots of layers to the book, and many pivotal moments are left open to interpretation, so I'm inclined to think this would be a good novel to read alongside others.
March 24, 2021
This book has everything I love in fiction: a narrator who speaks from a self-ironic distance, immersion into a world and culture I want to learn more about, layers of literary allusions that underpin the plot, moments that I do not understand and am probably not meant to understand, characters that seem like real human beings, high-stakes lessons for all of humanity presented in memorable and cinematic scenes, beautiful language worthy of being read aloud, and a satisfying ending.
I don't understand all of the negative reviews. I stayed up reading way past my bedtime multiple nights. Highly recommend.
I don't understand all of the negative reviews. I stayed up reading way past my bedtime multiple nights. Highly recommend.
January 12, 2024
Caloosha heißt Fressack
Af-Laawe = Omertà
Diese Kombination findet sich in jedem verdammten Krieg.
Es findet aktuell in Palästina statt.
Man wehrt sich instinktiv, wenn man dieses Buch liest. Übertrieben, an den Haaren herbeigezogen, Verschwörungstheorie, Paranoia...
Nee. Ich konnte jede einzelne Person, Begebenheit oder Verflechtung auch in Gaza die letzten Wochen wiederfinden.
Ein episches Werk über den Krieg.
Af-Laawe = Omertà
Diese Kombination findet sich in jedem verdammten Krieg.
Es findet aktuell in Palästina statt.
Man wehrt sich instinktiv, wenn man dieses Buch liest. Übertrieben, an den Haaren herbeigezogen, Verschwörungstheorie, Paranoia...
Nee. Ich konnte jede einzelne Person, Begebenheit oder Verflechtung auch in Gaza die letzten Wochen wiederfinden.
Ein episches Werk über den Krieg.
January 1, 2019
I loved this book! It is incredibly well written, tells its story in a very engaging way, and provides insight into the conflict in Somalia. More people should know about the history of the conflict and Somalia in general. Reading this enjoyable book is a great start!
April 4, 2021
Moeilijk. Tussen 3 en 4 sterren maar omdat ik het einde zo vond tegenvallen eerder 3. Prachtige taal - een stad in oorlog die onder je kleren kruipt - maar qua plot en samenhangendheid vond ik het tegenvallen.
October 13, 2018
Very interesting look at the Somali civil war and its aftermath. I get the feeling that a lot of the writing mimicked the style of Somali conversation, but I'm not sure.
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