NYRB Classics discussion

June's book, selected by Jonathan, is Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North.

Here is the page on Goodreads where you can read more about the book's details, including the NYRB Classics blurb.

Enjoy the book and the discussion!

Great. I'm glad I have it so I can get going on it sooner. I read the first couple of pages and think it will be an enjoyable read.

Seana wrote: "Great. I'm glad I have it so I can get going on it sooner. I read the first couple of pages and think it will be an enjoyable read."

That's good to hear. I'm waiting for my copy to arrive...hopefully it will be soon.

My copy finally arrived yesterday. As it's quite slim I may just read it the weekend.

I finished it yesterday, and will be happy to talk about it whenever anyone else is ready.

I just started it last night. Will take awhile to catch up, but I'll get there.

Take your time, Gary. I had the book, and have some other reading deadlines looming, so that's why I pushed through it. But it's early days yet.

I started it today and I'm enjoying it so far. I just noticed that there is another NYRB book by Salih called The Wedding of Zein which looks like a fun read.

Thanks, Jonathan. That looks like a very different take on the same community.

I finished this last week but just haven't had time to post anything. I really liked this novel...in fact I'm really impressed with just how great a read it was. I've just been re-reading parts of it both to remind myself of the story but also from the pleasure of reading it.

At first Salih's style reminded me a little of Sherwood Anderson; the setting was rural, it involves characters' aspirations, the narrative style was simple, there were stories within stories etc. Now Anderson is one of my favourite authors, so the comparison is meant to be positive, but Salih's style soon took on a more dreamlike quality. Either way it was impressive.

As an example of Salih's style here is a quotation from Sa'eed's tale concerning his initial trip to England:

And when the sea swallowed up the shore and the waves heaved under the ship and the blue horizon encircled us, I immediately felt an overwhelming intimacy with the sea. I knew this green, infinite giant, as though it were roving back and forth within my ribs. The whole of the journey I savoured that feeling of being nowhere, alone, before and behind me either eternity or nothingness. The surface of the sea when calm is another mirage, ever changing and shifting, like the mask on my mother's face. Here, too, was a desert laid out in blue-green, calling me, calling me. The mysterious call led me to the coast of Dover, to London and tragedy.

If that doesn't compel you to read on then I don't what else will.

Jonathan wrote: "I finished this last week but just haven't had time to post anything. I really liked this novel...in fact I'm really impressed with just how great a read it was. I've just been re-reading parts of ..."

Yes, Jonathan I totally agree with you. I'm about half way through now.

Salih's novel is much more readable than I thought it would be. I have not read a book by a Mid-Eastern writer - ever. So I'm very pleased it was chosen for June.
The story line is very interesting, and I find myself wanting to keep reading, when I need to put it down. A very good reaction from me. I dislike having to wait to get momentum and find a rhythm.

I enjoy Gothic stories, and this is surely, Mid - Eastern Gothic.

Jonathan wrote: "As an example of Salih's style here is a quotation from Sa'eed's tale concerning his initial trip to England:And when the sea swallowed up the shore and the waves heaved under the ship and the blue..."

That is very compelling.

Gary wrote: "Salih's novel is much more readable than I thought it would be. I have not read a book by a Mid-Eastern writer - ever. So I'm very pleased it was chosen for June...."

When I was looking at the books this one just jumped out at me - that doesn't always mean that it turns out to be a good read as some bad books have good blurbs. But this was superb. I've ordered The Wedding of Zein as well as it looks like a great read.

I agree there is a gothic feel to it.

Guy wrote: "That is very compelling. "

I think you'll like it when you get a chance to read it.

As many people are still reading this book it would be best not to view the following notes as they contain spoilers.

(view spoiler)[How did you feel about the two murders? i.e. of Wad Rayyes by Hosna and Sa'eed's killing of Jean. They are similar, in that they were both knife attacks during sex but there are differences as Hosna's attack is a reaction from being raped while Jean actually encourages Sa'eed to kill her.

And why do all of Sa'eed's lovers commit suicide? Even Hosna does after she kills Wad Rayyes. Do you think she knows about Sa'eed killing Jean?

Why does no-one seem that interested in what is in the locked room until near the end?

Of course the other question is whether we believe that Sa'eed is actually dead or used the flood as an excuse to take flight.
(hide spoiler)]

Sorry it's taken me awhile to get around here and comment. It turns out to be a hard book to get my thoughts around after it's been overlaid by a couple of other books in between. So I read the introduction for some clues, and was struck by Salih himself being sort of the prototype for both his main characters, the unnamed narrator and Sa'eed. It's interesting that he lived in London with a British wife, so enacted within himself the migration to the north and the projection of the West's fantasies of the East personally.

Sa'eed seems to me to be something of a fairytale character, though I don't mean that in a bad way. His detachment from other people struck me as larger than life and his whole progress by leaps and bounds through his education seems like that of a hero of a story in some ways, although reading it again, he seems more like he has some disorder or pathology. His alarming effect on women is fascinating, especially as it isn't just the British women he seems toxic to, but his wife in the village as well, although in a somewhat different way perhaps.

One of the scenes that has stayed with me is that of the elderly men sitting around with their bawdy sexual stories, and the presence of the woman in their midst who seems well able to hold her own. This isn't a scene that I would have imagined being in Arab fiction. It's interesting that what could be just a comic scene ends up in the very unfunny courtship by one of them of Sa'eed's widow, so that I wondered what Salih really made of this part himself. In the introduction, the collaboration between the translator Denys Johnson-Davies is talked about and I found it interesting that there were some erotic passages censored from the Arabic version which initially they were going to include in the English translation, but decided in the end that the two works should be more uniform. Johnson-Davies wrote "Somewhere among my papers, I possess these particular passages, written out in Tayeb's hand." In a strange way it made me feel as though Johnson-Davies was to Salih as the nameless narrator of the tale was to Sa'eed.

Finally, I thought the scene in the river where the narrator is caught halfway between the north and south shores of the river was an exceptional and beautiful metaphor for his dilemma, and by extension for those of many others.

Seana wrote: "Sorry it's taken me awhile to get around here and comment. It turns out to be a hard book to get my thoughts around after it's been overlaid by a couple of other books in between. So I read the in..."

I'm glad you liked it Seana, especially as you had it on your shelf for quite a while.

I agree with the fairytale/folkloric feel to Sa'eed's story, it was at times almost like magic realism. Sa'eed comes across as an odd sort of child but totally independent:

...I paid no attention to the astonishment of the teachers, the admiration or envy of my schoolmates...I was cold as a field of ice, nothing in the world could shake me.

I still can't decide whether he did die or whether he just left. In the end it doesn't matter to the story I suppose and is better left as a mystery.

I found the style of shifting between the narrator's and Sa'eed's story effective as it added a sense of unreality to the story. When I was paying attention it was clear whose story was being told but if my attention flagged then I got confused whose story was being described, especially as their stories had many parallels.

I agree the chapter with the narrator's grandfather and his friends was great. The narrator is basically a spectator as the oldies banter with each other. The elderly, hard-drinking widow, Bint Majzoub is a brilliant character, I especially liked her good-natured but risqué put-down of Wad Rayyes: "Wad Rayyes, you're a man who talks rubbish. Your whole brain's in the head of your penis and the head of your penis is as small as your brain."

According to the introduction, penis was one of the words elided in the original Arabic, which does ruin the joke a bit.

There are a couple of other groups which have read this here at GoodReads--the page is HERE. I found the extended comment by Niraj in the Middle East/North African Lit group interesting. It's pretty far down there. There is also a mention of an extended analysis at Gradesaver which looks pretty interesting although I've only read the opening thoughts so far. I think the actual Sudanese historical context is probably worth knowing.

Thanks for the links Seana. I'll give them a read tomorrow as it's getting late here. n.b. the the first link doesn't work - it's referring to goodreads.gcom rather than goodreads.com.

BTW I have a copy of Salih's The Wedding of Zein which I'm planning to read soon.

Oh, thanks--I'll fix it. I should say that what looks really interesting are some of the links on Gradesaver, including a Pen foundation reading of passages in Arabic plus a roundtable with four critics.

Actually, the Pen Foundation link appears to be broken and so far I haven't found a better one.

Who here would like to be in charge of selecting the July book based on nominations? Seana? Let me know what you all think and I'll get another thread started for that process.

I'll do it, but will happily cede it to anyone else who's keen to do it.

Trevor & Seana: Sounds good to me. I'll try to decide what I want to nominate.

Okay, here is the thread to select the book for July.