Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #355332 in Books
• Published on: 2006-10-02
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

A Compelling first novel
Laila Lalami's novel is structured in three parts. The first one is called The Trip in which the reader gets acquainted with different characters attempting to reach in secret the Spanish coastline via the Strait of Gibraltar in a six-meter Zodiac. There is Faten, Aziz, Murad, Mouna and Halima.
In the second part of the novel called Before the reader learns what motivates these characters to wish to escape from Morocco
In the third part of the book called After we discover what happens to Faten, Aziz, Murad, Mouna and Halima once they reach the coast of Spain.
In a prose both spare and observant, the author follows her characters' varying fates. Men and women adrift and caught between the stagnation of Morocco and the hope of a better life in Spain. Laila Lalami is a sharp observer of the human condition and their characters are infused with universal emotions so that we can find part of ourselves in each of them. And it is also a vivid picture of the customs of modern-day Morocco.

Moroccans Adrift
The immigrant story is a fundamental theme in literature, and all too often, individual attempts to explore it are suffocated by the weight of all the examples one has to compare it to. Here, Lalami offers a refreshing (and much needed) perspective on the topic in her short debut, showing a cross-section of Moroccans seeking a better life in the Western world. Its opening section, "The Trip", throws us into the midst of a motorboat of huddled people who've paid an unscrupulous human trafficker to take them across the Strait of Gibraltar to the Spanish coast. The trip ends badly and Lalami then flashes back in time to four vignettes grouped in a section called "Before."

Here we learn about the lives of four of the boat's passengers and discover why they embark on the dangerous, desperate attempt to sneak into Spain. Like illegal immigrants around the world they know the odds are well-stacked against them, and yet hope to become one of success stories whose good fortune is recounted back home, ensuring a fresh wave of fortune-seekers. Newly married Aziz hopes to work hard and send money back home for a few years, building a nest egg on which to start some kind of small business. Murad is an educated English-speaking book lover, reduced to trying to be a freelance guide for Westerners on the trail of Paul Bowles. Halima is a mother of three, living in slums and married to an abusive drunk, she just can't take it any more. Faten is a devout teenage girl who gets into trouble at school and has no prospects.

The third section of the book is "After", and this is where we learn what has become of the characters following their ill-fated attempt. For those who eventually make it, the dream is not all they had hoped for. They must struggle to survive, and end up losing a sense of themselves and their humanity in the process. One of the most poignant parts is when a character learns from a letter that his father has died. But by the time he gets the letter and is able to call home, a month has passed, and everyone there is done grieving, leaving him with no outlet for his own grief and guilt. Lalami isn't judging however, those who must return home face the same problems as before. This is no morality tale -- these are complex characters facing insoluble dilemmas, and Lalami never takes the easy way out. Each of the four has dreams the reader can cheer for, but also weaknesses that undermine them. The book isn't perfect, one of the characters undergoes a transformation which feels rather false, but on the whole it is an acute observation of why people risk their lives to come to the West and work menial (or worse) jobs.

Poor
I awaited this book with much anticipation but unfortunately if fails to deliver. The charachters are poorly fleshed out and cliched and the story line drudges on with monotonous predictibility. Every arab sterotype seems to be in the book and upon completion one can only feel regret at the two hours of ones life that has been lost in reading it.