gerhard's review
5.0
Review ebook provided by netgalley.com
When I began reading this, I mulled over the fact that such a veteran journalist, documentary maker and film producer as Leslie Cockburn would turn to fiction. In the Acknowledgements, after the almost unbearably sad ending of this superb novel, she concedes: “This is a work of fiction.” And then adds: “But there are times, I would argue, when fiction delivers the greater truth.”
This fictional license is perhaps best seen in the character of Laela and the garden of al-Bahari in Baghdad. One of the greatest set pieces in the novel is, of all things, a garden party to unveil Laela’s latest sculpture, entitled Weapon of Mass Destruction, cobbled together from blown-up Humvees. The scene allows for some light comic relief as a disparate bunch of government ministers, functionaries, diplomats, spies, artists and hangers on commingle and munch on snacks and compare notes about the war.
Yes, Laela is romanticized to a certain extent, this fragile artist surviving in her house and garden, representing the guttering light of her culture and her city. But this book would have been devastatingly bleak without this glimmer of beauty. Or does the snuffing out of this beauty – Lee returns to al-Bahari at the end, only to find it a burnt-out husk – add immeasurably to the sadness?
Cockburn treads well-worn ground in her account of the Iraqi war. The narrative structure is a tried-and-tested quest and journey of discovery: a female American surgeon returns to Iraq to try and locate her colleague after he goes missing, only to discover he has been embroiled in an arms-smuggling plot that not only makes her wonder if she ever really knew him, but in which she herself soon becomes complicit.
What makes this novel so potent though is Cockburn’s eye for detail. The reader literally feels as if he or she is in the midst of the carnage and turmoil. Sights, sounds, smells, images. The writing is extremely evocative and immersive.
There is a danger of becoming too polemical with a novel like this. But Cockburn strives, and succeeds, in finding the essential humanity in a very complex situation. She does not shy away from the horror and the bloodshed, and neither does she favour one point of view over another. This is a multi-layered, highly effective account that brings the Iraqi war and its aftermath painstakingly alive. We are very much living in the pall cast by that aftermath.
I particularly enjoyed the war correspondents shown in this book, and Cockburn’s attempt to portray what drives these mad and committed individuals. Cockburn clearly has great affection for them, but neither does she have a blind eye for the limitations and ethical ambiguities of the profession.
It is sobering to be reminded of the horror and brutality of the Iraqi war, the corruption, the in-fighting between American intelligence agencies, the merciless opportunism with ‘reconstruction contracts’, the horror of Abu Ghraib. Cockburn writes: “The acceptance of criminal behavior in the name of the greater good is like a disease. Pretty soon everything is acceptable.” This is a searing, passionate indictment, but at its heart it is a very human story, brimming with redemption and the joy of life.
When I began reading this, I mulled over the fact that such a veteran journalist, documentary maker and film producer as Leslie Cockburn would turn to fiction. In the Acknowledgements, after the almost unbearably sad ending of this superb novel, she concedes: “This is a work of fiction.” And then adds: “But there are times, I would argue, when fiction delivers the greater truth.”
This fictional license is perhaps best seen in the character of Laela and the garden of al-Bahari in Baghdad. One of the greatest set pieces in the novel is, of all things, a garden party to unveil Laela’s latest sculpture, entitled Weapon of Mass Destruction, cobbled together from blown-up Humvees. The scene allows for some light comic relief as a disparate bunch of government ministers, functionaries, diplomats, spies, artists and hangers on commingle and munch on snacks and compare notes about the war.
Yes, Laela is romanticized to a certain extent, this fragile artist surviving in her house and garden, representing the guttering light of her culture and her city. But this book would have been devastatingly bleak without this glimmer of beauty. Or does the snuffing out of this beauty – Lee returns to al-Bahari at the end, only to find it a burnt-out husk – add immeasurably to the sadness?
Cockburn treads well-worn ground in her account of the Iraqi war. The narrative structure is a tried-and-tested quest and journey of discovery: a female American surgeon returns to Iraq to try and locate her colleague after he goes missing, only to discover he has been embroiled in an arms-smuggling plot that not only makes her wonder if she ever really knew him, but in which she herself soon becomes complicit.
What makes this novel so potent though is Cockburn’s eye for detail. The reader literally feels as if he or she is in the midst of the carnage and turmoil. Sights, sounds, smells, images. The writing is extremely evocative and immersive.
There is a danger of becoming too polemical with a novel like this. But Cockburn strives, and succeeds, in finding the essential humanity in a very complex situation. She does not shy away from the horror and the bloodshed, and neither does she favour one point of view over another. This is a multi-layered, highly effective account that brings the Iraqi war and its aftermath painstakingly alive. We are very much living in the pall cast by that aftermath.
I particularly enjoyed the war correspondents shown in this book, and Cockburn’s attempt to portray what drives these mad and committed individuals. Cockburn clearly has great affection for them, but neither does she have a blind eye for the limitations and ethical ambiguities of the profession.
It is sobering to be reminded of the horror and brutality of the Iraqi war, the corruption, the in-fighting between American intelligence agencies, the merciless opportunism with ‘reconstruction contracts’, the horror of Abu Ghraib. Cockburn writes: “The acceptance of criminal behavior in the name of the greater good is like a disease. Pretty soon everything is acceptable.” This is a searing, passionate indictment, but at its heart it is a very human story, brimming with redemption and the joy of life.
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