There's a special piece of media that exists in this world, and I always love finding it. It's the movie / book / show that you love and adore, but you find it incredibly hard to recommend. Two movies immediately come to my mind when I think of this. One is the quietly devastating Aftersun, a story about a father-daughter combo on vacation, and the memories it creates. This one is truly a heartbreaker, and you should ask someone how their relationship with their dad is before they see it. If it isn't great, I'd say pass. This movie is not fun, but it is incredible.
The other is a more recent watch, the A24 horror movie undertone. Readers, I mean it when I say this was the most terrifying, absorbing theater experience I have ever had. Being a movie almost entirely based on the nightmare that is podcasting, the required set up for this film is the quietest, darkest room you can find, with the loudest speakers you have. I genuinely watched the last 20 minutes through my fingers. This was the best horror movie I have seen in a while, but I don't know who I could possibly recommend it to. I wouldn't want anyone else to go through that.
The book I read last week was more akin to the first example, but still is probably as hard to recommend as either movie I've just mentioned.
For my BYOBook club this month, we read Arab authors, so I managed to find this recently published gem by Hannah Lillith Assadi. Paradiso 17 is the fictionalized story of the author's father, a man who was forcibly removed from his home in Palestine in 1948 during the Nakba. A timely story, this tells of a man who is lost; he lives a full life, he explores, he loves, but he never has a home after it was taken from him.
As well as being a fitting into the category of "books I'll have a hard time recommending", this one falls into another I've read quite a few of lately: books that are kind of about nothing. Sufien, our main character, lives a life that a lot of people would find ordinary. He travels abroad for a new life at 18, tries again in New York later, and settles with a family in his later years. This is truly the story of a life, but whether it is well-lived will certainly be up to the reader. Assadi does something really marvelous in this sparse plot, something that most writers can miss entirely -- she humanizes Sufien to a degree that feels so intimate, it's almost uncomfortable.
You feel every part of Sufien, and even if you don't always agree or understand, you certainly know that you are seeing him in his entirety in almost every interaction he has. The way that Assadi has captured this persona is impressive, and when you start to think about how these are the impressions she has of her father, you start to realize what a feat she has accomplished here. He isn't even particularly loveable, or even likable. But Sufien is a man you start to absorb, to feel sorry for, to root for, to hate, to adore, to pity. He encompasses multitudes, and in a way, don't we all?
From the first paragraph you know this story ends with Sufien's death, but it doesn't hamper anything that comes before those final sentences. Assadi is a true poet, and crafts so many sections I would go back to re-read slower, just to enjoy them a little bit more. At my book club I read two different sections, which is something I rarely do as I know they can be droll, but I thought these words really deserved to be said out loud to recognize their beauty.
I'm sure whoever is reading is wondering why I wouldn't exactly recommend this book since it seems all I have to say about it are good things. Simply put, this book is devastating. I finished it while sitting in a coffee shop having some breakfast, and I had to put my sunglasses on to hide from any other patrons my eyes were glistening. The story, the language, the heart and soul, everything poured into this book spills out and overfills your cup, and it leads to an exhalation of everything you've been feeling the past 240 pages. It reminded me of Homegoing, a book that can almost be defined by the power of its ending.
We obviously live in an insane time with regards to the Middle East and Palestine, so I do have a quick warning: if you are looking for a view of the Palestinian life, or understanding the plight that is currently plagueing the innocent people of Gaza, you won't find it here. Sufien is defined by his loss of home at an early age, and feels particularly Palestinian throughout the novel, but the story really isn't about his experience as a Palestinian, but rather as a man without a home, no matter where it was. He is so lost, so ungrounded, and while his story is undeniably a true representation of what these people have had to go through, it does little to comment on the modern plight that these peoples are experiencing.
Ultimately, if you want to read this book, you need to be ready to have feelings. Feelings across the spectrum, happiness to grief to surprise to jealousy to anger to sorrow. I truly think this is a book worth reading, even if I would find it hard to submit someone to going through the same experience I did. I promise that if you go on this journey, you will be different on the other side. His tale reminds me almost of Oddyseus's, and so I'll leave you with the opening line of that epic poem, which should prepare you for this book if you should choose to read it: "Tell me the tale of a man, Muse, who had so many roundabout ways to wander, driven off course."
Source: A Beautiful Tragedy
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