Stunned Silence - Week 5 starter post

Well, fellow readers, I got the viscerally disturbing final portion of the book around which to catalyze our discussion. I don't recall/see the intentional prompt so I'll just go with my HFS reaction. From about page 103 through to the end I felt it increasingly difficult to breathe.

Again, I was interested in Bint Majzoub and the fact that she is the truth teller, the only one who will speak of the bloody murder (granted, drunk on whiskey and guilt). I respect her forthrightness and the fact that she breaks so many stereotypes of "proper" female comportment even as she verbally re-enforces those cultural rules. She goes so far, fer gawd's sake, as to relish the rape of Hosna (104) as evidence of Wad Rayyes' virility. Tangled up in the complexity of her character I, the reader, stumble into the rape/murder tableau and reel at the violence.

Numb, I wander through the community's reaction (106-110) and our narrator's futile raging over Hosna's death. I dislike him for his impotence...he dislikes himself, although he seems to reach self-forgiveness by the end, choosing life...the first choice, says he, that he really makes in his life (139). I don't know if I care...Hosna's already dead, she could have been spared that brutal experience if our narrator had exhibited more spine earlier. I may even be angry at him for reaching self-forgiveness so quickly...but then, what good does it do to drown?

But even this pales beside the long litany of dead women...Mustafa Sa'eed's conquests. And conquest is the theme, isn't it? The colonized subject (Mustafa) venting his rage, loathing, self-hatred, desire for, rebellion against the colonizer (Western European culture/power/imperialism embodied in the literal bodies and being of white English women. He wants and seemingly needs to possess, become, ruin the colonizing culture. From books (112) to bodies (113 and forward) he must, obsessively, have and destroy all that power and beauty and arrogance.

My suspicions as reader grow as I observe the parade of women killing themselves in Mustafa's wake. But...well, who knows, maybe he really is so charming and they are so fragile in self that his abandonment leaves each of them bereft of the will to live. But then...Jean (132). Two points. First, what a provocative description of an abusive relationship...between individuals, between cultures...at the levels of emotional entanglement and of the merciless ferocity of laser-focused lust. Second, when I finally took a breath and struggled free from the seduction of eroticized violence...I mean, really, once the knife gets shoved in to the hilt even delusions of sexiness evaporate (136)...I too, like the narrator, chose life. I chose to realize that the whole suicide-by-lover theme was Mustafa's conceit. We never actually get to hear what Jean thinks/wants/needs except through Mustafa's narration. And he's the murderer...so, does one trust a murderer when he tells you the victim egged him on, wanted to be f*cked to death with his knife?

I guess that's it. The book forces complex engagement of violent and/or disturbing ideas...about sex, about social roles, about forgiveness, about redemption, about desire. About intercultural politics. So, I really appreciate the deep emotional impact and intellectual challenge. But I'm also glad to be stepping out of the river now...to be able to breathe again.