When Characters Speak for Themselves

Book Review: The Automobile Club of Egypt by Alaa Al Aswany (Author), Russell Harris (Translator)

The Automobile Club of Egypt improbably opens with the author being visited by two of the characters from his novel. They inform him that, "Some of our thoughts and feelings are absent from the novel." He dismisses them, but not before they leave him with a CD containing THEIR version of the story. What follows is an intricately woven novel that is equal parts political history, social commentary, and interpersonal relationships. There may not be a lot of action of the "Die Hard" variety, but there is plenty going on.

Henry Ford saw the automobile as the great equalizer - his goal was to produce cars that his own workers could afford. And yes, in truth he was driven more by money than social altruism. At the other extreme lies the Automobile Club of Egypt, where the possession of a car is a mark of high social status, of being above the rank and file. At the Automobile Club the average person exists solely to serve those with means. Colonialism (and slavery) is predicated on the idea that those in servitude are less than human, that they require masters because they are unable to take care of themselves. The attitudes of the English founders of the Automobile Club are not much different than those of any ruling class in any society.

What sets the novel apart are the characters that populate it, and the relationships that evolve between them; in other words, the very character development that some seem to find so dreary. In my experience life is a process of gradual change, not grandiose gestures. Heroes and villains evolve over time, and often have contradictory motives; all is not black and white. Al Aswany allows his characters to speak for themselves, and they have plenty to say on every subject, from love and marriage to political and social inequality.

At some point we have accepted the dumbing-down of our art and literature. We have come to believe that action should be explosive, literally and figuratively. Characters should speak in easily digestible sound bites, and not complicate our thinking by having doubts and desires of their own. Alaa Al Aswany has given us a book about real life in all its glory: often messy and convoluted; ultimately beautiful and powerful. This is not the Reader's Digest version, something you can read in between texting; this is life as it actually is. The Automobile Club of Egypt is more than worth whatever time it may take - frankly I felt it ended all too soon.

Just Below the Surface

Book Review: Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique

" ... men who spend their lives on the water know that magic is real."

On the surface, Tiphanie Yanique's Land of Love and Drowning is a multigenerational tale of a family in the Virgin Islands in the early 20th century. As such, it is an interesting enough novel, detailing the ways in which the characters interact -- their lives and loves and travails. The reader gets a taste of the island culture: the flavor of the language, the beauty of the landscape, the aroma of indigenous cooking.

But when the reader dives deeper, into the warm depths of Love and Drowning, he finds an entire world hidden below the relative calm above. Strong currents of racism, roiling storms of war, schools of segregation, and whirlpools of adultery lie in wait.

The transfer of the Virgin Islands from Danish rule to American guardianship turns out to be simply the exchange from one type of colonialism to another. The Americanization of the Virgin Islands brings the foreign concept of private property ownership, and the fencing off of the beaches. There was a gain in material comforts, but it was in exchange for a loss of liberty.

With the influx of American cars and plumbing and electricity came American racism and segregation. The fences on the beaches extend into daily life, with restrictions based on color lines. Miscegenation was frowned on, the historical mixing of African and European and Asian and Carib. Islanders who served in the armed forces returned from the mainland disillusioned; they had expected to be accepted by their new American compatriots, only to find doors closed to them.

Yanique skillfully interweaves the personal stories with the larger events to create a whole cloth - we see history from the personal perspective of the characters, and each is given equal weight. Placed against the magical, mystical background of the islands, Land of Love and Drowning gives us the Virgin Islands as microcosm; where Jim Crow and Hollywood intersect with the ebb and flow of the Caribbean and the bleached bones of a shipwreck, lying just below the surface.