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In the concluding part of the novel, Amine, previously a marginal character, steps into the spotlight to articulate his philosophy of cross-cultural coexistence. This shift occurs during a conversation with his daughter Aicha about the ongoing hostilities in Morocco. Aicha questions the nature of the attacks, asking, “Papa, only the bad French people are being attacked, aren’t they? The workers will protect the good ones, don’t you think?” . Amine responds decisively, clarifying that the conflict transcends notions of good and bad, and justice, “There are good men whose farms have been burned and there are bastards who’ve gotten away scot-free. In war, goodness and badness and justice all go out the window” . Amine further explains that the struggle for independence in Morocco is complex, as it involves people who have been part of their lives for a long time. He observes, “Because our enemies-or the ones who are supposed to be our enemies-have lived with us for a long time. Some of them are our friends, our neighbors, our relatives. They’ve grown up with us and when I look at them I don’t see an enemy, I see a child” . However, this perspective tends to negate the violent history of colonialism. It paints the colonizer, with their military strength and exploitative systems, as innocuous, leading readers to perceive the nationalists as attacking defenseless colonists. This approach decontextualizes and dehistoricizes the struggle for independence, transforming aggressive colonizers into victims and the colonized into ruthless aggressors. When Aicha further inquires about their allegiance in the conflict, asking whether they were “on the side of the goodies or the baddies,” Amine declares their neutrality, “We’re not on either side.” He uses a metaphor of a hybrid tree, “half lemon and half orange,” to explain his stance and mixed identity .This raises questions about Amine's past as a Moroccan soldier who fought for France's liberation from Germany, yet views the French occupiers in his own country as friends, neighbors,23 and relatives. This perspective suggests that harming them is akin to harming an innocent child, reflecting Amine’s disoriented historical consciousness or Slimani’s erasure of the violent colonial history. As the novel concludes, there’s a tone of apology and nostalgia for colonialism. The narrative describes the vanishing world of the colonists, with their burning houses and lost possessions, creating a poignant spectacle, “The colonists’ houses were burning. The fire devoured the dresses of nice little girls, the chic coats of mothers. Books were reduced to ashes, as were family heirlooms brought from France and proudly exhibited to the natives. Aïcha couldn’t take her eyes off this spectacle”. Slimani’s portrayal, as a representative of French President Emmanuel Macron’s “la Francophonie,” suggests the nationalist struggle for independence is an immoral, absurd, and meaningless war. While attempting to create a conciliatory narrative of French colonialism and Moroccan resistance, the story disorients the victims' history and experiences. Consequently, In the Country of Others emerges as a characteristic example of colonial discourse. It presents a contentious portrayal of European and native characters, rife with stereotypes and dehumanizing tendencies. The narrative frequently employs violence, particularly gender violence, as a common trope, reducing indigenous communities to a simplistic portrayal centered on aggression. This reduction extends to the emotional landscape, with Europeans depicted as culturally superior and emotionally complex, while indigenous characters are often portrayed superficially, emphasizing the pervasive power dynamics of colonial discourse. 🙄
Thank you for sharing ! Am not in a book club. And didn’t know I was not the only one struggling to finish this. But I really want to do soak in and finish this as much as possible ☺️ thank you for the work you do !
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Being Egyptian, I can see how this book can be difficult to read for non-middle eastern readers. On the contrary to someone who grew up in the middle east or even just has ties to the culture, the dynamic is a lot easier to grasp, as well as the atmosphere of the book. Glad you made a video on it!
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Thanks for this lively review, in which you keep the discussion lively and even fun despite the very serious subject. 2.56 [First lady] 'It's overrun isn't it. The Greeks conquer the city, sack the city, kill everybody...I actually sobbed out loud...I was so horrified and mesmerized by the scene that was unfolding' ...[Second lady] I did cry at the opening' Wow, both of you were moved to tears by this part, even if you agree that the rest of the book does not reach the same standard. (Later in this discussion reference to a rape during this opening scene). Homer's original poems, the Odyssey and especially the Iliad (absolutely nothing like the Brad Pitt film Troy!) frequently refer to Greek warriors sacking enemy towns, but rarely say much about what this involves, except that the men of the conquered towns all end up dead and the Greeks end up with lots of valuable loot and enslaved women from the town. And the Greek warriors look forward to this. We rarely hear what happened to the children, nor of how all these women react to being widowed and enslaved. The poems are more concerned with the brave deeds and quarrels of the noble and royal warriors. Only occasionally do we get a real hint that Homer understands the cruelty and suffering that this must have involved. Near the end of Book 8 of the Odyssey, when the poet wants to express how Odysseus is crying floods of tears, Homer likens it to the way that in his World a woman in a town that is being conquered by invaders weeps over the body of her husband who has just been killed resisting them, leaving her defenceless, and the invaders do not even allow her the small mercy of allowing her a few moments to weep over her husband's body, but immediately beat her on her back with the shafts of her spears (I expect that hurts!) to make her get up so they can drag her away into slavery.
18.50 'If this book has a kind of ethical centre it's [Patroclus].' 'He still has a sex slave doesn't he?'... '19.23 'This idea of the softening of the relationship between Achilles and Briseis, he's still raping her every night! Well, he doesn't for a bit, he lays off after she's been sodomized by Agamemnon' 23.52 'That bit we talked about when Achilles has gone back to war and we hear about the people he has killed, that list of people, it's strong for me because she has gone out and spoken to their mothers, so she knows about those because she has spoken to the women' And the stuff about the captured women having to tread the blood out of the warriors' clothes by treading them in urine, the acid in the urine affecting their feet. Sounds not a book for the faint-hearted. A lot of that is not in the Iliad, although one can speculate that such things would have happened in the Trojan War. If you are interested in finding out about the Iliad, there is a new translation being published at the end of September 2023 by Emily Wilson, which, if it is like her Odyssey translation published a few years ago, will be so wonderfully natural and readable in English as to make other translations seem stilted. Professor Wilson makes a point (possibly overdose it occasionally) in translating words for slave in the original as 'slave', expressing the reality, where most previous translators often softened this to 'servant' or 'maid'.
Up until the 19th century, Egyptians were restricted from owning anything land, horses, cows or swords etc .... Nearly 98.5% of the population remained illiterate, and escaping the country was often the only path to a brighter future. And we never liked leaving the Nile Valley, So you can imagine in those circumstances the situation of the father and the mother who both have the ideas and beliefs of this era in the back of their minds. Egyptians endured a prolonged era of darkness, with the Ottoman Empire holding dominion for centuries in the 50 years leading up to the events in this book, the tide of change began to sweep through the nation. In this shifting landscape, being a shopkeeper or owning a small land is as Rich as you could get. painting Amina like this was also because of that, he was trying to show how was an illiterate women in that era saw the world. Nagib Mahfouz is far from being an islamist the man had an assassination attempt and got stabbed in the neck by extremist for his book : children of the valley which i highly recommend for you to read.
Loved every moment of the Alley books - and everything by this great writer. Mafouz is the master of metaphor. He’s a writer’s writer. I’ve read everything by him, actually. Genius!!! I was devastated when he was assassinated.
I felt privileged to have a whole different culture than the one I know unfold before me over these great books. How anyone can simply dismiss them is beyond me. With Nagib Mafouz, you hold gold in your hands. As a feminist I was shocked at how limited a woman’s life could be, but that does not make these stories any less precious, in fact, that’s the generosity and humanity of the great writer: he gives us a window into the suffering and the beauty of what it was like to live so differently from our current lives of freedom. The writing is vivid and uniquely his own. And again: the true geniuses of literature are gifted in metaphor, none more so than Nagib Mafouz.
Recently I have read a horror story book named Adams descent into darkness, it was really spookiest book I have ever read .I suggest this book to those of you who love horror, suspense, thriller stories😊
He's a wonderful writer, very thoughtful about cultural differences and parallels throughout, based on his own background and what he observes while he is in Greenland. Thanks for listening :)
Yes, yes, yes. I read Kurt Vonnegut and Joseph Heller years ago and initially didn't like that association, or even a more modern association with Tarantino, playing grisly images of carnage and gross-out brutality for entertainment value (was the author to be believed about the disposition of bodies? was this intentionally gross-out, over-the-top macabre humor?) But finally the question of factual accuracy didn't matter. Substitute hard-core facts for the author's imagination and there's not a lot of difference: the war was as brutal and inhuman and indefensible as they come. What supplied the moral spine of the novel for me was Maali's earnest desire to get his photographs out in public: in spite of his cynicism he really WAS committed to exposing the scandalous truth about the regime and war generally. It seemed more important than discovering who killed him and why. It took me a long time deciding exactly how highly I regarded this novel, but that's OK. i may start reading it again since it's been a month since I put it down and want to re-test my opinions. Thanks for this.
Yes, Maali is quite hard to like initially, but gradually as the book goes on you start to understand why he might be the way that he is, and admire his attempts to do the right thing. Such a resonant book that I find has stayed with me beautifully since reading it. I confess I've never read any Kurt Vonnegut - should I? And if so, which? If you enjoyed this, by the way, you might like our full podcast episode on Seven Moons - here's the link: pod.fo/e/155e09
A book I highly recommend that takes on these themes is Nella Larsen's Passing... This book was published in the 1920's and the themes of passing are still relevant to this date
Yes, that's a great recommendation, thank you, it actually comes up in the episode just at the end. We also came across this New Yorker article on the 'literature of passing' by Sarah Resnick that we found really interesting too - perhaps you might enjoy it: www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/22/brit-bennett-reimagines-the-literature-of-passing
Excellent discussion of SECOND-HAND TIME, one of my all-time favorite books. By the way, if I were suggesting Alexievich's book to a bookclub, I'd encourage members to read just half the book, totally at random. (A chapter here, a chapter there.) Then I'd have folks discuss the stories which grabbed them the most. Glad to discover your channel!
That is such a good suggestion. I do feel a lot of people might feel daunted by such a long book on a difficult subject, but reading sections of it would be such a good way in and you'd get a good sense of everything that is so wonderful about her work. Happy you enjoyed the show - lots more episodes coming, we're uploading our back catalogue :)
It’s a very dark book, but so well written, and translated, it really caught and held my attention. I read it last summer but the experience has stayed with me.
Thanks! Book group is in an hour and your pronunciations and background will help. Not to get into it too deeply but the rather extensive treatment of astrology plays a role in the main character's development. Astrology also links to Tokarczuk's first career as a Jungian psychoanalyst. The setting and some other aspects of Janina's personality (e.g. environmental activism) also are tied to Tokarczuk's life. Finally, the book itself was a lark by the author to blow off steam from her previous nearly 1,000 page long book which is what got her all the attention in the first place.
Ah wish I could have been a fly on the wall at your book group - has been a long time since I discussed it with mine, but I remember it so fondly. I started The Books of Jacob but kept getting interrupted and so put it aside. I like having it there waiting for me (before I stopped I had been enjoying it). I'm thinking to tackle it again over the summer.
I was drawn to it because of my love of Blake. I was captured by the idiosyncrasy of Janina which is at odds with her world as Blake was with his world. She is not necessarily everybody's cup of tea but she is a strong woman who believes in her own values. I loved her strengths and her weaknesses. They made her so real. I also want to say how much I enjoyed the translation too. I don't think I've read such beautiful English since Joseph Conrad. This little book is a gem.
Oi! That's lovely to hear, thank you. We've been concentrating on our new website, but when that's up and running I'm going to do some more of these on RU-vid. So many great books to talk about out there! If you haven't found it you might like our podcast: the book club review: podfollow.com/bookclubreviewpodcast - Kate
Thanks for this great info on Tokarczuk's novel. I found a rave review of it on another site. I plan to go out now to see if the *independent* bookshop near my home stocks it. It was an honor to be your first subscriber. More videos please!
2b Sirius Ah glad you liked it. I’ve been meaning to do some more of these. Always so many books so little time and I’m usually busy editing the podcast. But these are fun to do so I’ll try to think up some good ones to come :) Hope you enjoy Drive Your Plow. K.
