The Queue, by Basma Abdel Aziz

9781612195162
Melville House Publishers, 2016
originally published 2013, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette
217 pp

paperback

Frankly, this is one hell of a good book.

I can just picture someone somewhere reading the back-cover blurb of this book where it says "The Queue is a chilling debut that evokes Orwellian dystopia, Kafkaesque surrealism,..." and wondering why he/she should read it if it's done before.  Well, it's certainly true that there are a lot of books that focus on people faced with the absurdities of a totalitarian government, but in this book, what strikes me is how optimistic some people are in believing  that if they just wait long enough, the state will take care of their problems.  Never mind that the Gate, the bureaucracy that is the unseen "absolute authority" in this unnamed country,  is never actually open to the citizens -- although rumors abound as to when it might open, people have been waiting long enough for help that a huge queue has formed and continues to increase in size while nobody ever seems to move.  The Gate continues to issue laws dictating that people will need permission from the state for an ever-growing number of activities, some as absurd as can be, and as these laws and proclamations become ever more intrusive and ever more numerous, more people continue to find a place in the queue and to wait with some measure of hope for what they need. And it's in the queue, really, where life goes on -- there are rules to be followed, commerce taking place, religious activities and activism, protests going on and  information being disseminated -- so that at some point, the queue becomes a society in its own right.

The major thread running through this story gives us a peek at how this authoritarian system works.  Tarek is a doctor who desperately wants to remove a bullet from a young man named Yehya Gad el-Rab.  Yehya, who wasn't protesting at the time, had been shot during the "Disgraceful Events," a four-day long "street battle" put down by the Quell Force, a unit specifically created to deter riots of this sort, and he now has a bullet lodged in his pelvis.   Hampering Tarek's efforts is a recent proclamation from the Gate that says that it is a "criminal act" to extract a bullet "except when performed under official authorization issued by the Gate of the Northern Building." After all,

"bullets and projectiles may be the property of security units, and thus cannot be removed from the body without special authorization." 

So Tarek has to wait until Yehya receives that "special authorization" from the Gate. As the story progresses, the proclamations issued by the Gate in this case become increasingly absurd, for example, with the forbidding of x-rays, and most especially the denial that the government ever fired on the crowd.  New hurdles continue to crop up -- Tarek discovers that Yehya's medical records have been tampered with, and that the x-rays have disappeared altogether. Things take a more sinister, dark and downright frightening turn when in her desperate attempt to help save his life, Yehya's girlfriend decides to bypass the system. In the meantime, Tarek continues to agonize over what he should have done and didn't out of his fear of repercussions from the Gate.  And all the while, history is being rewritten or whitewashed, forcing many people to try to rationalize what they know versus what the Gate is telling them.

There are a number of other stories here in this novel,  and it hits on so many things thematically, but I'll leave those for others to discover.  And as I said, while there are certainly any number of books out there that explore this sort of thing, this one is certainly different than most others I've read.  Looking at what other people have to say, The Queue is garnering some excellent reader reviews, although one reader called it "decidedly dull," with an ending that isn't "conclusive."   I will say that this book is not an easy read in the sense that answers/explanations aren't handed to you on a plate, and that it does take a fair amount of patience to read, for which in my opinion, you'll be rewarded. At the same time, as I read it, images were just exploding in my head, which is a good thing and to me the sign of a well-written novel.  For me, it was a serious page turner, a book I didn't want to put down for any reason.

real reviews of this novel:
from NPR
qantara
Literature After the Arab Spring

Azazeel, by Youssef Ziedan -- read this book!

9781848874299
Atlantic Books, 2013
originally published 2009
translated by Jonathan Wright
212 pp

paperback

"Don't confuse matters, my son, for those are people of power, not people of faith, people of profane cruelty, not of divine love." --131

In a 2010 interview, author Youssef Ziedan notes that his book

" is an invitation to reject religious intolerance, the claim that violent acts in society are done in the name of [God], and to reject those who have made themselves the congress of God on earth."  

He certainly doesn't need to convince me because I've thought this way for as long as I can remember.   I've also always thoroughly believed the next thing the author says in that same interview, which is that

"Religious violence is not linked to a particular religion -- it is linked to people who have specific secular interests and use religion to achieve these interests."

Indeed, this idea comes through very clearly in this book, which is one I very much enjoyed after a bit of a shaky start and one I can recommend most highly. Given what's happening in our world today, it  is a timely read, and  I hope it becomes more widely available in the US since only used copies are available, and those are mainly offered from the UK.

Before starting the novel, it is probably advisable to read the translator's notes at the back of the book, which I should have done but did not.  It seems that this book caused no small bit of controversy after its publication; Bishop Cyril is a "revered figure in the Coptic tradition," and evidently a number of Coptic commentators charged the author with misrepresenting him.  Ziedan's  response:  "the history of the period is part of his own heritage as an Egyptian, not the exclusive purview of the Coptic hierarchy."  The translator also notes that  English-language readers "can certainly ignore these controversies," and

"enjoy the work for its narrative power, for its evocation of a neglected period that was formative in the evolution of Christianity, and for its sympathetic portrayal of the humble monk Hypa's struggles with doubt and with the temptations of the world."

And that is precisely what should happen as people read this book,  although personally, now I'm really interested in this controversy so I'll probably read more about it.

 Ziedan begins this tale with a first-person narrative revealing that the story that the reader is about to experience had been found in 1997 during an archaeological excavation of ruins to the northwest of the city of Aleppo, in Syria; more specifically, a set of scrolls containing this account were found along the "last stage along the famous Silk Road,"  ranging from Asia to the Mediterranean; the road also linked the two cities of Aleppo and Antioch.  They tell the story of anonymous monk who had given himself the  name of Hypa, and who, in the year 431 AD, had undergone a self-imposed forty-day period of seclusion in the monastery where he currently lives.  It is an uneasy time in the Christian world -- as Hypa notes, 431 was an "unfortunate year, in which the venerable bishop Nestorius was excommunicated and burnt to death."

  [sidebar: if anyone is all interested in the conflict between Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople and Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria, a brief but intense examination of the Christological debate is available here.]

While I'm not going to go too much into plot here, the story (aka this novel)  handed to us by the anonymous translator of Hypa's chronicle interweaves Hypa's personal account of his journeys, both spiritual and physical, his doubts and "constant uncertainty," along  with the known history of the early Catholic church of this period.  Hypa writes his narrative urged on by the titular Azazeel, who is best known as the tempter causing Adam and Eve to be exiled forever from the  Garden of Eden; he is also, as Hypa comes to understand in a feverish delirium, an inner alter ego, "another me." Hypa's story takes him from childhood, where he first became a victim of Christian intolerance toward nonbelievers, into Alexandria to medical school.   It is also in Alexandria under the auspices of  Bishop (called Pope there) Cyril, who lives by the words of Christ

"Think not I am come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword,"

 that Hypa hears his fellow Christians proposing the most brutal and inhumane treatment of Jews and other non-Christians in their zeal to "cleanse the land of the Lord."  However, there is one particularly horrific event that not only leads to Hypa leaving Alexandria never to return,  but also to question his faith.    From Alexandria he wanders through the Sinai desert, making his way into Jerusalem, where he meets Nestorius; from there he makes his way to the monastery from which he is writing the account of "everything which has happened in my life."   It is also a novel that just begs the question of how  heresy can exist when truth/orthodoxy seems to be an elusive concept, and thus we go back to my opening quotations from the interview with the author.

To be very honest, I got to about page 112 or so and really wasn't getting much out of this novel. However, I turned back to all of the blurb raves about it at the beginning of the book and decided I must have missed something, so I started it completely over again. First, though, I spent some time doing some research on early Christian history, theological debates etc., to make myself familiar with the Cyril/Nestorius issues as well as Arian and other heresies before returning, this time much more confident. It's not necessary, really,  but it's just a personal thing -- I want to know what I'm reading, especially since I was not too familiar with the theological issues at stake here.  My point is that it seems to start out slowly but it does pick up, so for Pete's sake, don't apply that silly 50-page rule here, or the best parts of this novel will be lost. I can certainly and without hesitation recommend this book.