Reviews

Allah99 by Hassan Blasim

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raila_h's review

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adventurous challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

Content Warnings

javinki_'s review against another edition

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4.0

In the last few years, Mum's taken to buying me books from indie and / or local publishers for my birthday and Christmas. I think she does it as a show of support for my on-off aspirations to be a writer, and in a place with no* indie bookshops like Manchester, indie presses are the closest thing to a Piccadilly Records for books that there are. (* Having since had a google, I stand corrected. There are, in fact, a few small independent book shops within cycling distance!)

'God 99' by Hassan Blasim is one of these books, and happens to be the third - and best - Comma Press book that I've read over the last six months (after an alright 3* collection of Blasim's short stories and a less-good 2* Adam Marek collection). It's almost like a short story collection in its structure, made up of interviews and stories from various refugees about their home cities, memories, journeys to Europe, new countries, love lives, families, local characters, and jobs, all interspersed with vaguely philosophical emails from one of the narrator's friends. It took me a while to get used to how broad the scope of the novel was, and even longer to work out how the different italicised and bold passages alluded to different narrators or narrative styles, but once I did, the various loose ends and identities spread across the pages came together to form a brilliant and 'human' portrait of the usually over-simplified "refugee experience".

It's consistently political in its tone, which was great, but the prevalent sense of fury and injustice never quite overtakes the anecdotal, curious way in which the stories are told, which was also great. It felt quite radical, to be honest, placing imperfect people and unimaginable circumstances alongside more recognisably Western characters and tropes - with the former consistently coming across as more deserving of attention and empathy than the latter. I wasn't always the biggest fan of the more sexual aspects of the narrative (there's only so many times you can read the word "cunt" in a day without wincing), but overall I found 'God 99' pretty fascinating in terms of form, conceit, concept, and style. Without trying to sound too patronising or foppish, I always feel privileged when a book lets me encounter aspects of life / human experience which I've previously been unaware of; and when the writing itself is as engaging and original as Blasim's, well, I was always gonna love it.

mahir007's review against another edition

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5.0

ما كل هذه الجرأة و الواقعية و الصدق ... ما هذا الحسن كله يا حسن !!

daladala's review

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2.0

Äänten kakofonia suorastaan tukahduttaa, eikä räävityn kehyskertomuksen seuraaminen inspiroi. Toisaalta myönnettäköön pirstaleisuuden olevan juuri oikea tapa tälle teokselle.

freya_sw's review against another edition

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reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.0

peripetia's review

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4.0

En yleensä pidä juonettomista romaaneista, mutta tästä tykkäsin. Ihan kaikesta en, mutta kokonaisuutena kuitenkin hyvä. Käännös on myös ensiluokkainen.