Recent reading III

Last weekend I finished another book, one that has been with me for a couple of years but which I haven't gotten around to read until now. It was "Desertion" by Abdulrazak Gurnah. The book is divided in three parts, the first taking place at the turn of the 19th Century featuring one set of characters, while part two mainly treats the 1950s and 60s and part three looks back from a not totally specified but more recent "now" (the last two parts featuring a second set of characters). Geographically it is located to a somewhat obscure East African coastal town (the first part), to Zanzibar (the second and parts of the third) and to Great Britain and London (the third). The book is throughout quite imprecise, almost to an irritating extent, regarding geographical location, time periods, etc, although there are clues as the approaching independence day for Zanzibar and other historical events. The division of the book in parts, with the different sets of characters and different tones in the text, also brings me close to frustration. I'm not convinced by the sudden change in who's telling the story, when it turns from a more general account of events (including a European turning up from the wilderness and eventually falling in love with the sister of his East African saviour) in part one to a person, "I", who's suddenly taking charge of the story from the second part - and who claims to be the one who has told the first part as well. Neither am I convinced by the way Gurnah weaves the stories of the different parts and time periods together, letting the woman, Jamila, in the love story in the second part, be a granddaughter of Rehana, the woman from the first part's love story. It feels a little too constructed, not least due to the sudden change in styles and characters.

This said, I love the book! I love it for its thoughtful prose, and I love it for its sad tone and its non-dramatic script. This doesn't mean that there are no dramatic events; Rashid, the teller of the story, moves to Great Britain to study and finds himself more or less exiled when the first independent government is overthrown only a month after its installation, something that was all but non-dramatic. Gurnah also sketches a picture of the time after this revolution, and the insecurity the characters experience combined with Rashid's distant worries for his family that remains in Zanzibar. And at least for the second love story between Jamila and Rashid's brother Amin, it is dramatically ended when Amin's family realises what is going on and which they don't approve of. Thus, I don't agree with the reviewer in the Observer who describes the appearance of the British traveller Martin Pearce in the first part as the only dramatic incident. However, the events mentioned above are tuned down and told of in a low-key fashion, maybe making them seem less dramatic but also lending them their melancholic and unyielding character.

Both "By the sea", also written by Gurnah and which I have read before and appreciated for pretty much the same reasons, and "Desertion" treat similar themes; how to cope with life in general and specifically so when having moved abroad, more or less voluntarily. This also seems to be a common, and important, theme throughout Gurnah's production, according to a review of one of his more recent books in the Guardian - and it is something they have in common with Rosenberg's and Anyuru's books which I have read recently. However, in contrast to Rosenberg and Anyuru this is not a tale about an immigrant father. Instead, Gurnah writes his novels with his own immigration experiences as a background, also having the lived experience from his childhood and youth in Zanzibar to draw on.

What the books mentioned above do have in common is that they leave you with pretty bleak prospects as for the future for immigrants, picturing suspicion and outright hostility in the societies the immigrants are to settle in as well as the melancholic acceptance of the situation by the immigrants. Problems do arise during migration processes, not least when they are outlined against traumatic experiences, but now I yearn for a more optimistic narrative. It is true that it is easier to see and describe problems (which this and many other blogs can serve as examples of), and nice people or events in uncomplicated situations seldom make up good material for a book, but I am convinced that there is a need to learn from the good examples in the same way as I am convinced that we also need good news to counterbalance all the depressing news that are washing over us. We need not only to identify what is bad, but also to define what is good and what we are aiming for.