Vance Miguel Johnson’s Reviews > A History of the Big House: A Novel > Status Update

“These last four pages should’ve” is a disappointing realization for me to have while the book is building up to, and presumably close to the most anticipated part of the premise.

Hmmm, what did I want from this book in the first place? The end of chapter 11 feels like a rip off of the Godfather, a story that I don’t really care for in the first place. Also, what? This is going to be a situation where Wakim is framed because he agreed to work with Sunnites? Talk about a narrative reinforcing sectarian prejudices…

Okay, so Wakim is the inventer of the clementine? Hmmm… right. Also, I did note that the topics of discussion that Wakim, Curiel, and Father Barthélemy may have chosen are the introduction of the first Beirut railway (Beirut-Damascus, est. 1895) and the assassination of Alexander of Serbia (1903) arw quite a few years a part. I think this is purposeful, but still notable fact checking.

Okay, this is a man’s book about men, with women sprinkled in her and there. Losing some points Charif…

Hmmmm. Similar to Verghese in the Covenant of Water, Majdalani has underwritten Helene’s perspective in a way that is frustrating. The story requires details to be missing since it’s all a vague foggy list of memories gather from a bunch of elderly people. However, I do propose, since he’s already introduce the option to ‘fill in’ reality with fiction, that he craft SOME several-paragraphs perspective.

So far Wakim has done five notable things and none of them point out any major points of good character, yet the narrator carries on like his valor is a given…

Charif writes like such a man

This author’s special interest in random, seemingly unimportant details of different characters’ stories (like Emile the Eucalyptus farmer) reminds me of my own tendencies to go down rabbit holes.

To be frank, Wakim Nassar appropriated public land and violently attacked a Bedouin Encampment that set up there every fall and winter. Not very heroic…