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Book review: The Road From Damascus
Title: The Road From Damascus
Author: Robin Yassin-Kassab
Info: Robin Yassin-Kassab 2006; Pub Penguin 2009; ISBN: 978-0141035642
Reasons for reading it: I was into town and had some time to kill and some money in my purse. Deadly combination. Went into La Feltrinelli and this book caught my eye, mainly because the back cover blurb was interesting and then realised the author is half Syrian, so I thought the book could count for my![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
50books_poc.
How I got it: Bought it at La Feltrinelli.
Review: The Road From Damascus was a very nice surprise. I went in with zero expectations since I picked it up more or less randomly, and it definitely was a stroke of luck.
It's the story of Sami Traifi, a second-generation British Syrian thirtysomething in the midst of a huge identity crisis. Sami's struggling to finish is PhD, so he goes back to Damascus in search for ideas and stumbles across an old, nasty family secret. He comes back to London to find that his wife Muntaha wants to take up the hijab. This is a big blow for Sami, whose late father strongly believed in secularism and taught him to despise religion. I won't say anything else about the plot, except that the it involves a non-linear narration of the lives of all the people close to Sami, and it ends with Sami's somewhat predictable but satisfying epiphany about himself, his loved ones and faith (or lack thereof).
This last point is one of the things I liked the most about this book - how it does not dismiss faith and believers and how it acknowledges that non-believing can shape your life just as strongly. In particular, I thought the depiction of Muntaha's quiet faith was very true, imho. She's by far the most vibrant and believable character and I adored her dialogues with her more radical and a bit misguided little brother.
I also loved how richly-drawn the backstory of each character is, even the minor ones, and how varied. Sami, his father and his mother come from Syria. Muntaha and her family are from Iran. Muntaha's colleague is Russian/Hungarian. I learnt a lot about the history of Syria and (to a lesser degree, but only because I knew a bit more about it) about Iran.
As for the writing,it was absolutely top-notch. Yassin-Kassab's prose is very fluid and lyrical in places (full of references to many Oriental poets and philosophers, because of Sami's academic background - it got me quite curious about them and made me feel very ashamed of my ignorance of Arab-language literature).
In short, I kept comparing this book to Monica Ali's Brick Lane (they do have some thematic similarities)and thinking that The Road From Damascus is just so much better.
Author: Robin Yassin-Kassab
Info: Robin Yassin-Kassab 2006; Pub Penguin 2009; ISBN: 978-0141035642
Reasons for reading it: I was into town and had some time to kill and some money in my purse. Deadly combination. Went into La Feltrinelli and this book caught my eye, mainly because the back cover blurb was interesting and then realised the author is half Syrian, so I thought the book could count for my
50books_poc. How I got it: Bought it at La Feltrinelli.
Review: The Road From Damascus was a very nice surprise. I went in with zero expectations since I picked it up more or less randomly, and it definitely was a stroke of luck.
It's the story of Sami Traifi, a second-generation British Syrian thirtysomething in the midst of a huge identity crisis. Sami's struggling to finish is PhD, so he goes back to Damascus in search for ideas and stumbles across an old, nasty family secret. He comes back to London to find that his wife Muntaha wants to take up the hijab. This is a big blow for Sami, whose late father strongly believed in secularism and taught him to despise religion. I won't say anything else about the plot, except that the it involves a non-linear narration of the lives of all the people close to Sami, and it ends with Sami's somewhat predictable but satisfying epiphany about himself, his loved ones and faith (or lack thereof).
This last point is one of the things I liked the most about this book - how it does not dismiss faith and believers and how it acknowledges that non-believing can shape your life just as strongly. In particular, I thought the depiction of Muntaha's quiet faith was very true, imho. She's by far the most vibrant and believable character and I adored her dialogues with her more radical and a bit misguided little brother.
I also loved how richly-drawn the backstory of each character is, even the minor ones, and how varied. Sami, his father and his mother come from Syria. Muntaha and her family are from Iran. Muntaha's colleague is Russian/Hungarian. I learnt a lot about the history of Syria and (to a lesser degree, but only because I knew a bit more about it) about Iran.
As for the writing,it was absolutely top-notch. Yassin-Kassab's prose is very fluid and lyrical in places (full of references to many Oriental poets and philosophers, because of Sami's academic background - it got me quite curious about them and made me feel very ashamed of my ignorance of Arab-language literature).
In short, I kept comparing this book to Monica Ali's Brick Lane (they do have some thematic similarities)and thinking that The Road From Damascus is just so much better.