Review of Embrace by Brooklyn Bridge by Ezzedine Choukri
Fishere
As I started reading Embrace by Brooklyn Bridge by EzzedineChoukri Fishere, I found myself thinking of David Guterson’s East of the
Mountains. Beautifully written prose of great men coming to terms, with their
imminent death, tiding up their worldly affairs and moving on, into the
wilderness to face their ends, away from the distractions of their busy
successful lives. The book starts with recently diagnosed Professor Darweesh,
an accomplished Egyptian American academic, who is planning his departure from
New York City after hosting a big birthday dinner for his granddaughter, who is
visiting him from Egypt. I had read Fishere’s latest book The Exit’s Gate first
and was somewhat surprised at the different pace of Brooklyn, exactly as I had
been ten years ago, reading Guterson’s transition from Snow Falling on Cedar to
East of the Mountains; from fast moving, taut dramas to a slow reflective,
contemplative end of life meanderings.
The first chapter of Brooklyn introduced us to Darweesh’s
life and his difficult family relationships. Fishere managed to weave several
complex characters with nuances and peculiarities around his central figure.
When I finished the first chapter, I was still fully expecting a continuation
similar to Guterson’s East of the Mountain, but no! I was in for a surprise, a real
treat, other characters came to the fore ... I started to think Barbara
Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible, with multiple family members recounting similar
events and also recalled another Egyptian writer Youssif Al Qaid, whose work
was my first exposure to a this new class of Egyptian writers employing innovative
literary instruments in their work.
Fishere kept on, with each new chapter introducing us to
fascinating new people, all connected to Darweesh, mostly through family. So
the masterful character development displayed at the first chapter continued,
with yet more nuance, more color around extended family and associates,
seamlessly connecting to yet, mostly, additional well-rounded characters.
The people we meet in Embrace by Brooklyn Bridge reveal so
much to us about the immigrant experience, from the fully assimilated to those
distant and estranged, struggling with identity issues. Fishere’s creations are
amazingly real; I feel that I have met people like them. After few chapters, I
discovered that Brooklyn is not really centered on Darweesh or his illness but
rather a collection of sub plots, each focused on its own heroes and only some
remotely related to Darweesh. Virtually each of the people we meet is worthy of
their own full-length novel, to deal with their lives and their identity
struggles. Novelists rarely display the blatantly obvious truth that all human’s
life is ultimately, mostly self-centered; Fishere gets it!
Many Egyptian readers would probably learn more, about the
tragedy of neighboring Darfur from Fishere’s book as we get to know Darweesh’s
son. To American readers, when this wonderful work is ultimately published in
English, Darweesh’s son would probably come across, as a typical American worldly
type, the sort that is enlists with Peace Corps, a genuinely conscientious
college type struggling with the evils in the world, so not the struggles of an
immigrant, but those resembling the native born Americans. The Islamist Dawood, playing at moderation is
a character that would shock western readers, but his beliefs would not shock
Egyptians so much. Fishere’s creativity and restraint are amazing; restraint
comes in, as he feeds us enough about a character, but leaves us hanging,
wanting more; it is seductive restraint! With Dawood, we are left unsure of who
the man really is, does he suffer from delusions of grandeur or was he really a
master terrorist.
With the large number of primary and secondary characters
such as those created by Fishere, it is inevitable that some would wind up
being carton like, single dimensional, and we do have a small minority of those
here, the most obvious for me ,were the overly cruel and overly loving
Washington DC immigrants, where the son eventually ceases contact with the
father. Perhaps, the single dimensional aspect here, is a mere reflection of
the son own development and struggles as the lone brown boy in his school.
While Fishere avoided the trap of flowery Arabic with overly repetitive and
redundant adjective, some of his words came across, overly distant, almost of
the type one would find in a book translated into the Arabic Language rather
than actually written in it.
It is hard to review this work without actually “spoiling
it”. The literary quality of the writing and the character roundedness are real
treats, but we are actually offered a feast, not just a couple of treats; there
is immense suspense too, at multiple levels!
Virtually every single chapter, leaves in suspense as to what will
happen next to the particular person, not just in the immediate future, but, we
are brought into empathizing with the person in total, their relationships,
their future, we want them to overcome, to be happy, to manage … to find
solace. The suspense is at different levels, will this person make it to the
party on time? What will happen to his or her work, life or love affairs? Even
Darweesh’s daughter, who we don’t directly meet, we want to know what really influenced
her … what it is next for her.
Ezzedine Fishere created a true masterpiece, beautifully
crafted and developed. The style is highly unusual, especially for Arabic
Literature, but utterly contemporary. The
detail of the places and customs reflect keen observation and pleasure in the
subtle details. As I finished the book, I couldn’t help thinking that,
published in the English Language, this book would surely be Pulitzer Prize material.
And looking back at it, in total, my Guterson and Kingsolver comparisons apply,
only to parts, but not to the whole. Embrace by Brooklyn Bridge leaves me with
that sense of loss and emptiness that I had reading works of Annie Proulx; The
Shipping News, but more so Accordion Crimes
and Close Range. Embrace by Brooklyn Bridge is a very special work, by an
amazing writer who has, truly, mastered his craft.
AA
January 20, 2013
No comments:
Post a Comment