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A review by emilyberrios
Gate of the Sun: Bab Al-Shams by Elias Khoury
challenging
dark
emotional
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
Certainly a worthwhile read, but extremely challenging.
The narration in this book is not consistent. The main narrator, Khalil, is unreliable. Whenever Khalil is retelling a story he doesn't change the voice, he just starts repeating what he was told. So he starts retelling a story w/o warning and continues talking as if he was the one experiencing the events while also going on marginally related tangents as he goes along. Perhaps the incoherent narrative style is intended to help the reader understand or more directly feel Khalil's nervous and disjointed prattling as he sits with his dying step-father-son-friend-hero.
A part of me thinks we're watching Khalil lose his mind.
Another interpretation of this book is that reading it is like being bathed in memories, trauma, chaos, and confusion. Impossible to truly understand, you sort of have to sit with it. Experience it, best you can. Sit with the people living these injustices and atrocities and bear witness for them. Your confusion and sense of being unmoored is theirs, they're sharing it.
This is just my perspective as a Westerner/outsider: The culture as a whole is shockingly patriarchal. Well, that's not really shocking in an of itself, I came in expecting a patriarchal society. What was shocking was how it was romanticized. It seems like upstanding men in this culture will write a poem about their wives, then rape them, neglect them, treat them like servants, obsess about controlling them, and call that love. Strong women are prized, then broken.
The narration in this book is not consistent. The main narrator, Khalil, is unreliable. Whenever Khalil is retelling a story he doesn't change the voice, he just starts repeating what he was told. So he starts retelling a story w/o warning and continues talking as if he was the one experiencing the events while also going on marginally related tangents as he goes along. Perhaps the incoherent narrative style is intended to help the reader understand or more directly feel Khalil's nervous and disjointed prattling as he sits with his dying step-father-son-friend-hero.
A part of me thinks we're watching Khalil lose his mind.
Another interpretation of this book is that reading it is like being bathed in memories, trauma, chaos, and confusion. Impossible to truly understand, you sort of have to sit with it. Experience it, best you can. Sit with the people living these injustices and atrocities and bear witness for them. Your confusion and sense of being unmoored is theirs, they're sharing it.
This is just my perspective as a Westerner/outsider: The culture as a whole is shockingly patriarchal. Well, that's not really shocking in an of itself, I came in expecting a patriarchal society. What was shocking was how it was romanticized. It seems like upstanding men in this culture will write a poem about their wives, then rape them, neglect them, treat them like servants, obsess about controlling them, and call that love. Strong women are prized, then broken.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Domestic abuse, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Rape, Violence, Mass/school shootings, and War