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A review by alexisreading23
Minor Detail by Adania Shibli
challenging
dark
sad
tense
4.0
This little novella really packs a punch despite its short length. Split into two parts, the first details the rape and murder of an unnamed woman in the year following the Nakba of 1948. The second part follows a journalist who becomes obsessed with what is essentially a 'minor detail' of larger suffering.
The writing style of the first part really intensified the horror of the actions. The perspective of the soldier is devoid of thoughts or emotions and all that is laid bare for the reader are his actions which lends the narrative a sparse and unsettling quality. The writing is highly symbolic which I also really enjoyed.
The shift to the second part of the book creates a marked difference and the narrative of the journalist is very distinctive. The details of daily injustice are peppered in, highlighting the reality for many Palestinians living with violence and military threat looming, and their freedoms curtailed. I found the narrator's preoccupation with her own transgressions of borders really fascinating as an observation on her own existence as a Palestinian in occupied land. Her instincts for journalism, seeking the truth and crossing the 'borders' of accepted narratives and forgetful history mirror her necessary transgression of the rules and borders of Israeli government - all, of course, reflecting the geographical and political implications of land, ownership, and freedom.
This was a truly impactful and thoughtful novella that demonstrated the importance of searching for the minor details of personal lives in greater movements and moments of history. We must not disassociate such moments from the true reality of individual experience which reveals the ugliness and injustice as visceral and real rather than detached and clinical the way numbers, statistics, and news headlines render them.
The writing style of the first part really intensified the horror of the actions. The perspective of the soldier is devoid of thoughts or emotions and all that is laid bare for the reader are his actions which lends the narrative a sparse and unsettling quality. The writing is highly symbolic which I also really enjoyed.
The shift to the second part of the book creates a marked difference and the narrative of the journalist is very distinctive. The details of daily injustice are peppered in, highlighting the reality for many Palestinians living with violence and military threat looming, and their freedoms curtailed. I found the narrator's preoccupation with her own transgressions of borders really fascinating as an observation on her own existence as a Palestinian in occupied land. Her instincts for journalism, seeking the truth and crossing the 'borders' of accepted narratives and forgetful history mirror her necessary transgression of the rules and borders of Israeli government - all, of course, reflecting the geographical and political implications of land, ownership, and freedom.
This was a truly impactful and thoughtful novella that demonstrated the importance of searching for the minor details of personal lives in greater movements and moments of history. We must not disassociate such moments from the true reality of individual experience which reveals the ugliness and injustice as visceral and real rather than detached and clinical the way numbers, statistics, and news headlines render them.