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A review by karieh13
The Writing on My Forehead by Nafisa Haji
3.0
It took me a while to start enjoying “The Writing on My Forehead”. Though I realized this at the time, my copy gives me further proof in that the first marker I placed denoting something I wanted to comment on was on Page 71.
Until then, I hadn’t felt much from or about the character. The words and the story were interesting enough, but there wasn’t much…energy, or life behind them. And then finally,
“Something flickered in my mother’s eyes. Suddenly, the person I had though of as my biggest obstacle switched sides to become my biggest ally. The first sign of support came in the form of silence. That night, my mother offered no further argument against my going.”
Although it’s not the main character, young Saira Qadar that says these words, it is in this scene that it felt like she started to really think about things bigger than herself, started to realize what members of her family had experienced in their lives, started to understand that they had an impact on her life, on the choices she would face.
This book is story about the past and the future…letting go of one and making the decision to move into the other. Saira’s story seems mostly that of an observer…a passive one at first, and then one that moves into the stories and sometimes changes them irrevocably.
A character that enters her life much later on says it far better than I. “Fiction is truer than journalism, you ask? But journalism is based on facts. Facts. What could be truer than facts? Well, facts are often disparate and contradictory. Their complexity eludes our understanding. How to assimilate them – these unruly, misshapen entities? Journalists are reporters. Reporters are supposed to report. The temptation to do more than report is irresistible, however – all for a good cause, of course. To clarify, explain, contextualize – to help people understand what we ourselves do not.”
I love the idea of facts as “unruly, misshapen entities”. So often facts are portrayed as cold, unchangeable, set in stone. But facts, especially those about and within the lives of human beings, are rarely ever the same when seen through different eyes.
“In journalism, truth is too easily rendered irrelevant, subject to the design and construction of facts. In fiction, facts are irrelevant, subject to the storyteller’s quest for truth.”
Saira, as she moves through the lives of her grandparents, parents, relatives and the world beyond, experiences firsthand the great divide that can live between facts and truth. And as she does so, the emotion, the feeling behind her words is finally revealed.
“…in journalism, you have to maintain your distance. You can’t bear witness if your eyes are full of tears.”
That distance proves to be very difficult for Saira, especially when it comes to the big secret of the novel (that’s not a secret at ALL so it bothered me how carefully Haji was trying to write her way around it).
As Saira grows up, the facts she discovers come with a price. As she becomes more involved in the story that is her life, she starts to understand how sometimes it is impossible to make a choice that is right on all counts. Most choices are right for some people and once made, seem incredibly wrong to others.
“And is that not something you will regret? Later?” Her question was in the wrong tense. The answer I repressed was a bittersweet mixture of regret and remorse already realized, processed and assimilated into who I was. Later was not something I worried much about.”
By the end of the book, I cared a great deal for Saira, and although mine is a life very different from hers…I felt that I’d been shown a great many truths. There is some joy and a great deal of sorrow in this book, but in the end there is the story of a girl who becomes a woman…in a family and a world she may not completely understand, but is determined to experience .
Until then, I hadn’t felt much from or about the character. The words and the story were interesting enough, but there wasn’t much…energy, or life behind them. And then finally,
“Something flickered in my mother’s eyes. Suddenly, the person I had though of as my biggest obstacle switched sides to become my biggest ally. The first sign of support came in the form of silence. That night, my mother offered no further argument against my going.”
Although it’s not the main character, young Saira Qadar that says these words, it is in this scene that it felt like she started to really think about things bigger than herself, started to realize what members of her family had experienced in their lives, started to understand that they had an impact on her life, on the choices she would face.
This book is story about the past and the future…letting go of one and making the decision to move into the other. Saira’s story seems mostly that of an observer…a passive one at first, and then one that moves into the stories and sometimes changes them irrevocably.
A character that enters her life much later on says it far better than I. “Fiction is truer than journalism, you ask? But journalism is based on facts. Facts. What could be truer than facts? Well, facts are often disparate and contradictory. Their complexity eludes our understanding. How to assimilate them – these unruly, misshapen entities? Journalists are reporters. Reporters are supposed to report. The temptation to do more than report is irresistible, however – all for a good cause, of course. To clarify, explain, contextualize – to help people understand what we ourselves do not.”
I love the idea of facts as “unruly, misshapen entities”. So often facts are portrayed as cold, unchangeable, set in stone. But facts, especially those about and within the lives of human beings, are rarely ever the same when seen through different eyes.
“In journalism, truth is too easily rendered irrelevant, subject to the design and construction of facts. In fiction, facts are irrelevant, subject to the storyteller’s quest for truth.”
Saira, as she moves through the lives of her grandparents, parents, relatives and the world beyond, experiences firsthand the great divide that can live between facts and truth. And as she does so, the emotion, the feeling behind her words is finally revealed.
“…in journalism, you have to maintain your distance. You can’t bear witness if your eyes are full of tears.”
That distance proves to be very difficult for Saira, especially when it comes to the big secret of the novel (that’s not a secret at ALL so it bothered me how carefully Haji was trying to write her way around it).
As Saira grows up, the facts she discovers come with a price. As she becomes more involved in the story that is her life, she starts to understand how sometimes it is impossible to make a choice that is right on all counts. Most choices are right for some people and once made, seem incredibly wrong to others.
“And is that not something you will regret? Later?” Her question was in the wrong tense. The answer I repressed was a bittersweet mixture of regret and remorse already realized, processed and assimilated into who I was. Later was not something I worried much about.”
By the end of the book, I cared a great deal for Saira, and although mine is a life very different from hers…I felt that I’d been shown a great many truths. There is some joy and a great deal of sorrow in this book, but in the end there is the story of a girl who becomes a woman…in a family and a world she may not completely understand, but is determined to experience .