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A review by christar_123
The Forgiven by Lawrence Osborne
4.0
I enjoyed this book, although there was not a single character I really liked in it. i know that sounds strange. The writing style Osborne used was almost classical; I loved his ways of describing the environment, the actions, the food. The way he often would write what a character thought, before writing what he or she actually said or did allowed me to have a better understanding of the complex ways everyone was deceiving one another (and themselves) throughout the events. The slow way in which the character of Driss was revealed was also interesting, adding almost a hint of mystery to the read.
It is clear that Osborne spent a lot of time in Morocco. I was intrigued by the locations characters visited and spent time online trying to map out where everyone was. I was pleasantly surprised to realize I lived in more of a southern desert than the "Southerners" in the story and could perfectly picture the landscape they traveled through. There were a few mistakes that really bothered me though. A group of Gnaoua, southern singers would be from TATA, not TAZA. The travelers would go UP to Fez from Midelt, not DOWN. A man wouldn't be named MOULAY - that would just be used as a sign of respect to refer to someone.....little things like this make me think that the author lived in Rabat or Casablanca, away from the villages. It reminds me that even when writing carefully, little things can be mistaken - is it possible to write about a foreign place without making errors like these? It's reasonable that a traveler in Morocco may think many old men are named "Moulay" but I don't think I ever met anyone who was actually named that....
The thing I most liked about the work, though, was how Osborne did not fall into the common trap I find in Western writers' works - the way of presenting people living in traditional societies as a people of noble poverty. The idea that life for them is "simple but better, because they have fewer possessions," as though living in poverty somehow imbues them with nobility. From my experiences, people living in these areas were usually just as commodity driven as many Americans I've met; they just don't have the same access to resources and money. It drives me crazy when wealthy, financially stable first world inhabitants assume everyone else is happy because they have "less stuff." As though people in other places don't realize they have less stuff and don't want to have more.
Osborne represented the hopeless frustration of young people stuck in impossible situations and locations so well.
A very interesting read, if you can stomach the overwhelming excesses of the Europeans at the party.
It is clear that Osborne spent a lot of time in Morocco. I was intrigued by the locations characters visited and spent time online trying to map out where everyone was. I was pleasantly surprised to realize I lived in more of a southern desert than the "Southerners" in the story and could perfectly picture the landscape they traveled through. There were a few mistakes that really bothered me though. A group of Gnaoua, southern singers would be from TATA, not TAZA. The travelers would go UP to Fez from Midelt, not DOWN. A man wouldn't be named MOULAY - that would just be used as a sign of respect to refer to someone.....little things like this make me think that the author lived in Rabat or Casablanca, away from the villages. It reminds me that even when writing carefully, little things can be mistaken - is it possible to write about a foreign place without making errors like these? It's reasonable that a traveler in Morocco may think many old men are named "Moulay" but I don't think I ever met anyone who was actually named that....
The thing I most liked about the work, though, was how Osborne did not fall into the common trap I find in Western writers' works - the way of presenting people living in traditional societies as a people of noble poverty. The idea that life for them is "simple but better, because they have fewer possessions," as though living in poverty somehow imbues them with nobility. From my experiences, people living in these areas were usually just as commodity driven as many Americans I've met; they just don't have the same access to resources and money. It drives me crazy when wealthy, financially stable first world inhabitants assume everyone else is happy because they have "less stuff." As though people in other places don't realize they have less stuff and don't want to have more.
Osborne represented the hopeless frustration of young people stuck in impossible situations and locations so well.
A very interesting read, if you can stomach the overwhelming excesses of the Europeans at the party.