“What did they see, Mama?” I murmured to her. “What was it that came to meet the birds that flew into the west?” …My mother turned her face to me ov
“What did they see, Mama?” I murmured to her. “What was it that came to meet the birds that flew into the west?” …My mother turned her face to me over her shoulder. “What came,” she said, “was night, and all its names.”
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…not all migrations end with a return home. Every memory begins to cut if you hold onto it too tight.
Reading Zeyn Joukhadar’s The Thirty Names of Night is like walking through an incredibly rich and diverse aviary. Our attention is drawn to each flying thing as it comes into our visual range. No sooner do we coo at the beauty of the last than another feathered image hops into view. As in an actual aviary, there is an entrance and an exit. The flocks, and individuals, provide a landscape as we pass through dips and rises in the path, arriving at recognitions as we reach the end. There is a lot going on here.
[image] Zeyn Joukhadar - image from his FB profile pix
There are three generations and two alternating narrators in this beautiful novel. The twenty-something unnamed (well, for most of the book anyway) narrator is busy creating a mural in what once was Little Syria, before the neighborhood was mostly razed to make the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the World Trade Center. One of the last remnants is an old community house. Led by an owl (not the Hogwarts sort, although it does, in a way, carry a message) to a particular place inside the building, he discovers a hidden journal, left by a woman missing for sixty years, a woman his mother had very much admired. He had been looking for clues to his late mother’s life in her old neighborhood, so this is a rich find.
[image] “The Syrian Colony” – image from Paris Review article
Laila Z was a Syrian immigrant, whose family moved from their troubled home to New York in the 1930s, when she was a teenager. In addition to the usual emotional trauma of such a move, Laila was broken-hearted at having to leave the love of her life. In New York, she begins writing to her lost love, whom we know only as “B” or “little wing.” Laila’s journal makes up half the story. Our contemporary narrator tells his story as he talks to his late mother, whose ghost he can see. Chapters alternate.
[image] Canada Goose
Learning about Laila’s life reveals an unsuspected history of gay and trans people from another era. Laila and our unnamed narrator have much in common. Laila was born in Syria, the narrator was born in the USA of Syrian stock. Laila was a gifted painter of birds. Our narrator is as well, using chalk instead of aquatint. Laila, in the 1930s, dared to love outside the acceptable norms of her culture. Our narrator finds himself struggling to find his way while born into a female body.
[image] A Hudhud or Hoopoe - image from Oiseaux.net
There is a mystery at the center that keeps things moving along. Laila had made a name for herself in the USA as an exceptional artist, specializing in birds. One pair she drew was a new species she had seen, nesting in New York, Geronticus simurghus, a kind of ibis. It is known that she’d done so, but the final image had never been found. Through a friend, our contemporary narrator meets Qamar, the granddaughter of a black ornithologist who’d worked in the 1920s and 1930s. He had been the first to describe this new species, but had never been taken seriously, in the absence of corroboration. Laila’s missing artwork would provide that, and allow Qamar to complete her grandfather’s work. What happened to that piece, and what became of Laila? G. simurghus was named by its discoverer for a character in the Persian poem The Conference of the Birds.
If Simorgh unveils its face to you, you will find that all the birds, be they thirty or forty or more, are but the shadows cast by that unveiling. What shadow is ever separated from its maker? Do you see? The shadow and its maker are one and the same, so get over surfaces and delve into mysteries. - from that poem
The central, peripheral, overhead, and underfoot imagery in this novel is BIRDS. This includes tales from ancient classics, like the one above. Joukhadar infuses nearly every page with birds, real, magically real, drawn, painted, folded, and sometimes by allusion. Flocks appear, to enhance events. Goldfinches swarm during a building demolition. Forty-eight sparrows fall from the sky on the fifth anniversary of the narrator’s mother’s death.
The first funeral I attended was held under a black froth of wings. The deceased was a crow that had been gashed in the belly by a red-tailed hawk…That was the day my body started conspiring against me. I’d gotten my period.
B makes Laila a gift, a piece of a dead kite they had tried to save, fallen feathers stitched back to make a magnificent silver-white wing. It was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Our narrator’s mother had been an ornithologist. A close friend of his mother operates a bird-rescue aviary in Queens. An evening at a club entails people dancing, using very bird-like movements. Birds are both expressions of freedom and reflections of a divine presence. They are manifestations of underlying forces and sources of purest love and beauty. They are a means by which people connect with other people.
[image] Passenger Pigeon by Robert Havell - image from the National Gallery of Art
As our contemporary narrator struggles through finding the answer to the rest of Laila’s story, and figuring out what had happened to that special aquatint, he struggles as well with defining who he is. This is something with which Joukhadar is familiar. Zeyn came out publicly in Spring 2019 as transgender, and is now using he/him pronouns. This is not the only transition he has gone through. After earning a Ph.D in Medical Sciences from Brown, and working as a researcher for several years, he moved on to pursuing writing as a full-time gig. He is very interested in the immigrant experience, and the status of Muslims in the USA.
I am tied by blood to Syria, and the country where my father was born is suffering while the country in which I was born still views us as not fully American. Where, then, does that leave me? And for people of Syrian descent living in diaspora, particularly for the generation of children who will grow up in exile because their parents left Syria for safety reasons, what can we take with us? What do we carry with us that cannot be lost? - from the Goodreads interview
[image] Yellow Crowned Night Heron - by John James Audubon - image from Wayfair
Go slowly through this one. There is much to take in, from the avian imagery to the tales of Laila and our narrator, from the flight from Syria to making a home in Manhattan’s Little Syria, from the destruction of that neighborhood to its migration to Brooklyn, from bloody events summoning revelations to love and connection across generations, from the real to the magical, from a portrait of a long-ago place to a look at today, from a place of not knowing to seeing truths beneath the surface. The Thirty Names of Night is a remarkable novel. Spread your wings, catch a thermal and hover. Take in the considerable landscape of content and artistry provided here. This aviary is very tall and there is so much to see.
We parted. I wiped my face with the back of my hand. “Tell me something beautiful,” you said. I opened my mouth and out came the only thing that I had ever known to be as beautiful as it was true, that I had once met a woman who knew how to fly. You clasped my chilled hand in yours and lowered your gaze to our fingers. I hoped I’d said the right thing. My mother always used to say that people in mourning prefer not to talk about the earth. “What a wonderful thing,” you said, “for just one instant, to be so close to God.”
Review posted – June 5, 2020
Publication dates ----------Hardcover was supposed to be May 19, 2020 – but got CV19’d to November 3, 2020 ----------Trade paperback - July 13, 2021
I received an ARE of this book from Atria in return for a few seeds, worms, and some extra twigs for nest fortifications.
I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years
I was born without a voice, one cold, overcast day in Brooklyn, New York. No one ever spoke of my condition. I did not know I was mute until years later, when I’d opened my mouth to ask for what I wanted and realized no one could hear me.
Deya Ra’Ad, a Brooklyn teenager, had been raised by people who guarded old-world beliefs and customs. It was expected of her that she would agree to marry one of the Muslim suitors who passed her family’s muster, and begin producing babies as soon as possible, and as for having a separate career, a separate identity, well, not so much. It could have been worse. She could have had her mother’s life.
This is a tale of three generations of women told primarily in two time periods. Isra Hadid, was born and raised in Palestine. We follow her story from 1990 when she was 17. She dreamed of finding someone to share her life with, someone to love.
Isra cleared her throat. “But Mama, what about love?” Mama glared at her through the steam “What about it?” “I’ve always wanted to fall in love.” “Fall in love? What are you saying? Did I raise a sharmouta?” [slut] “No…no…” Isra hesitated. “But what if the suitor and I don’t love each other?” “Love each other? What does love have to do with marriage? You think your father and I love each other?” Isra’s eyes shifted to the ground. “I thought you must, a little.” Mama sighed. “Soon you’ll learn that there’s no room for love in a woman’s life. There’s only one thing you’ll need, and that’s patience.”
Isra looooooved reading A Thousand and One Nights, a book that holds special meaning for her. The book would come to her aid in years to come.
Isra was married off as a teen and moved with her new husband, Adam, from her home in Palestine to Brooklyn. No land of milk and honey for her. She was barely allowed out of the family’s house. Had no friends. Did not speak the language. Husband worked mad hours for his father. Mother-in-law was more of a prison warden than a support. Isra was expected to produce babies, preferably boys. And pregnancy happened, soon, and frequently. But sorry, girls only, which was considered a source of shame. So was allowing her face to be seen by anyone after her disappointed, worked-nearly-to-death, increasingly alcoholic husband beat the crap out of her for no good reason. The shame was on her, for she must have done something to have earned the assault, the shame of a culture in which dirty laundry was washed clean of indicating marks, and only the victim was hung out to dry.
Keeping up with the Khans was of paramount importance, in reputation, if not necessarily in material wealth, in perceived propriety, and, of course, in the production of male heirs. Isra struggles with feeling affection for her daughters as each new daughter becomes a reason for her husband to hate her even more. As if post-partum depression were not enough of a challenge to cope with, post-partum shaming and assault is added to the mix. Already a quiet young woman, Isra becomes even more withdrawn as she is subjected to relentless criticism, denigration, soul-crushing loneliness, and even physical abuse. She is largely left to her own devices, is hampered even by a hostile mother-in-law, and finds no support system in other Islamic women in Brooklyn. Of course, being kept on a cultural-religious leash which was basically strapped to the household kitchen and nursery made it all but impossible for her to even have a chance to make social connections. Have a nice day.
[image] Etaf Rum - from her site
We follow Deya Ra’Ad from 2008 when she is eighteen, and under pressure from her grandparents to choose a husband. Her journey is two-pronged. We accompany her as she does battle with her family, wanting to have her own choices. They may come from a Palestinian background, but Deya was born in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, New York, USA, New World, and is not ok with feeling forced into a set of rules that not only is alien to this place, but which she finds personally indefensible. We also tag along as she tries to peel back carefully guarded family secrets. She and her siblings have been raised by her father’s parents since she was eight, her parents having been killed in an auto accident, an event that has always been clouded in mystery. She does not remember any warmth between her parents, even remembers some of the abuse her mother had endured. We want to learn more about the circumstances of Isra and Adam’s passing, and so does Deya.
Finally, Fareeda Ra’Ad, Adam’s mother, Isra’s mother-in-law, Deya’s grandmother, comes in for a look. Not nearly so much as Deya and Isra, but enough to get a sense of what her life was like, and how her experiences helped shape the person she became. She is pretty much a gorgon to Isra, but we get to see a bit of how she became so awful, getting some sense of why she clings so doggedly to beliefs and customs that are hardly in her own interest.
One day a mysterious woman leaves a message for Deya on the steps of her grandparents’ house, which raises even more questions. Might her mother still be alive? Pursuing this lead, she begins to get answers to many of her questions. But even with new knowledge, Deya is still faced with difficult choices, and still has to cope with some difficult people.
The stories of Deya and Isra in particular are compelling. We can probably relate more to Deya who is straddling two worlds with a firmer foot in the new than her mother ever had, being able to act on the questions and concerns she shared with her mother. But Isra’s story is gripping as well. We keep hoping for her to find a way to make things better, boost our hopes for her when chance opportunities present for her to alleviate her suffering, her isolation.
One element that permeates the novel is the notion of reading, or books, as sources not only of learning but of comfort, company, hopefulness, and inspiration. Isra’s love for Arabian Nights is palpable, and an affection she passed on to her daughter. It is an interest that is revived in Brooklyn when a relation notices Isra’s affection for reading and begins providing her with books. Isra carves out precious personal time in which to read, a necessary salve in a wounded life.
“A Thousand and One Nights?” Sarah paused to think. “Isn’t that the story of a king who vows to marry and kill a different woman every night because his wife cheats on him.” “Yes!” Isra said, excited that Sarah had read it. “Then he’s tricked by Scheherazade, who tells him a new story for a thousand and one nights until he eventually spares her life. I must have read it a million times.” “Really?” Sara said. “It isn’t that good.” “But it is. I love the storytelling, the way so many tales unfold at once, the idea of a woman telling stories for her life. It’s beautiful.” Sarah shrugged. “I’m not a big fan of make-believe stories.” Isra’s eyes sprung wide. “It’s not make-believe!” “It’s about genies and viziers, which don’t exist. I prefer stories about real life.” “But it is about real life,” Isra said. ”It’s about the strength and resilience of women. No one asks Scheherazade to marry the king. She volunteers on behalf of all women to save the daughters of Muslims everywhere. For a thousand and one nights, Scherehazade’s stories were resistance. Her voice was a weapon—a reminder of the extraordinary power of stories, and even more, the strength of a single woman.”
Isra, Daya, and Fareeda’s stories are the means by which Etaf Rum fills us in on a largely overlooked aspect of contemporary life. There are Palestinian, immigrant and American-born, women who have been and who continue to be subjected to outrageous treatment by their communities, by their families, by their spouses, solely because of their gender. She points out the culture of self-blaming and social shaming that aids and abets the brutalization, and virtual enslavement of many such women. I do not know if Rum intended her book to reflect on the wider Arabic culture, or on practices in Islamic cultures in diverse nations, so will presume, for the moment, that her focus is intended specifically for Palestinian women.
A Woman is Not a Man is not just a riveting story of the trials of immigration, but a powerful look at the continuation of a culture of socio-economic sexual dimorphism that treats males as rightful beings and females as second-class citizens at best, breeding-stock or slaves at worst. The book put me in mind of several other notable works. Exit West is another recent novel that looks at the stark differences in Middle Eastern versus Western cultures through the experiences of an immigrant couple. A Thousand Splendid Suns shows the oppression of women in Afghanistan under an extremist religious regime. Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows considers East-West strains in a London Punjabi community. 2018’s Educated shows a more domestic form of oppression of women, foisted by an extreme form of Mormonism. What Rum has provided with A Woman is No Man is a look at a particular set of women who have been suffering for centuries without the benefit of much public awareness.
“Silence is the only option for Palestinian women suffering domestic violence, even here in America, and I hope to give voice to these women in my…novel.” - Etaf Rum
One thing that I particularly appreciated was that Rum put the men’s brutality into some context, not treating it as some immutable male characteristic, or excusing it, but pointing out that it had an origin in the wider world, and showing how women could come to accept the unacceptable.
The wounds of her childhood—poverty, hunger, abuse—had taught her. That the traumas of the world were inseparably connected. She was not surprised when her father came home and beat them mercilessly, the tragedy of the Nakba [The 1948 Palestinian diaspora] bulging in his veins... She knew that the suffering of women started in the suffering of men, that the bondages of one became the bondages of the other. Would the men in her life have battered her had they not been battered themselves?
Still, might have been a decent thing for them to have exercised a bit of self-control, maybe take their rage out by shooting at bottles or something.
It did her no good for Isra to leave Palestine only to be caged up in Bay Ridge. With our national proclamation of secular authority and religious tolerance, and even with the anti-Islamic sentiment that set in after 9/11, the USA should still be an excellent place for Islamic people to be able to practice their faith, free of the oppression that afflicts so many Eastern nations, in which one branch of Islam outlaws the practices of other sorts. But if Islamic people who come to or are born in the USA are not allowed to participate as Americans, but only as foreigners living on American soil, where is the gain, for them or the nation?
There may not be a thousand and one tales in Etaf Rum’s impressive novel, which should be an early candidate for sundry national awards recognition, and will certainly be one of the best books of 2019, and we can expect that there will be more unfortunate women who will suffer miserably unfair lives that no Sheherezade can spare them, but one can still hope that the tales told by Etaf Rum may open at least a few eyes, touch at least a few hearts, offer some a feeling of community, or at least a sense of not being totally alone, spare at least some the dark fates depicted here, and hopefully inspire others to action. Patience can be a virtue, but in excess it can function as a powerful link in a chain keeping the present far too attached to an unacceptable past. Rum’s book is a powerful story, one that impatiently calls the world’s attention to the plight of Palestinian women, an oppressed minority within an oppressed minority, and proclaims rather than asks, “Can you hear me now?”
==========In the summer of 2019 GR reduced the allowable review size by 25%, from 20,000 to 15,000 characters. In order to accommodate the text beyond that I have moved it to the comments section directly below, in comment #3
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