An Unnecessary Woman: A Novel

By Rabih Alameddine

A happily misanthropic Middle East divorcee finds refuge in books in a “beautiful and absorbing” novel of late-life crisis (The New York Times).
 
Aaliya is a divorced, childless, and reclusively cranky translator in Beirut nurturing doubts about her latest project: a 900-page avant-garde, linguistically serpentine historiography by a late Chilean existentialist. Honestly, at seventy-two, should she be taking on such a project? Not that Aailiya fears dying. Women in her family live long; her mother is still going crazy. But on this lonely day, hour-by-hour, Aaliya’s musings on literature, philosophy, her career, and her aging body, are suddenly invaded by memories of her volatile past. As she tries in vain to ward off these emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.
 
In this “meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief and resilience” (The New York Times), Alameddine conjures “a beguiling narrator . . . who is, like her city, hard to read, hard to take, hard to know and, ultimately, passionately complex” (San Francisco Chronicle). A finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the National Book Award, An Unnecessary Woman is “a fun, and often funny . . . grave, powerful . . . [and] extraordinary” Washington Independent Review of Books) ode to literature and its power to define who we are. “Read it once, read it twice, read other books for a decade or so, and then pick it up and read it anew. This one’s a keeper” (The Independent)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Feb 4, 2014
• ISBN: 9780802192875

Book preview

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Also by Rabih Alameddine

Koolaids: The Art of War

The Perv: Stories

I, the Divine: A Novel in First Chapters

The Hakawati

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Grove Press

New York

Copyright © 2013 by Rabih Alameddine

Jacket art and design by Roberto de Vinq de Cumptich

Excerpt from Poems of Fernando Pessoa, translated and edited by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown, copyright © 1986 by Edwin Honig and Susan M. Brown; reprinted by permission of City Lights Books. Excerpt from I Sit by the Window from Collected Poems in English by Joseph Brodsky, copyright © 2000 by the Estate of Joseph Brodsky; reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. Excerpt from High Windows from Collected Poems by Philip Larkin, copyright © 1988, 2003 by the Estate of Philip Larkin; reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC. and Faber & Faber, Ltd. Happiness Writes White, from Special Orders: Poems by Edward Hirsch, copyright © 2008 by Edward Hirsch. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC; any third-party use of this material, outside of this publication, is prohibited; interested parties must apply directly to Random House, LLC for permission. Excerpt from Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by M. D. Herter Norton, copyright © 1942 by W. W. Norton & Company,Inc. , renewed © 1970 by M. D. Herter Norton; used by permission of W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. Excerpt from A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe: Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, translated by Richard Zenith, copyright © by Richard Zenith; reprinted by permission of SLL/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc. Poem VII, The Keeper of Sheep, from A Little Larger Than The Entire Universe: Selected Poems by Fernando Pessoa, edited and translated by Richard Zenith (Penguin Books 2006); translation copyright © Richard Zenith, 2006.

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Published simultaneously in Canada

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-2214-8

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8021-9287-5

Grove Press

an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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To Eric, with gratitude

From my village I see as much of the universe as you can see from earth,

So my village is as big as any other land

For I am the size of what I see,

Not the size of my height.

—Fernando Pessoa as Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep

Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God once reminded us before He too evaporated in this age of relentless humiliations—that we are more than ourselves; that we have souls. And more, moreover.

Or perhaps not.

—Richard Flanagan, Gould’s Book of Fish

The cure for loneliness is solitude.

—Marianne Moore, from the essay

If I Were Sixteen Today

Don Quixote’s misfortune is not his imagination, but Sancho Panza.

—Franz Kafka, Dearest Father: Stories and Other Writings

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You could say I was thinking of other things when I shampooed my hair blue, and two glasses of red wine didn’t help my concentration.

Let me explain.

First, you should know this about me: I have but one mirror in my home, a smudged one at that. I’m a conscientious cleaner, you might even say compulsive—the sink is immaculately white, its bronze faucets sparkle—but I rarely remember to wipe the mirror clean. I don’t think we need to consult Freud or one of his many minions to know that there’s an issue here.

I begin this tale with a badly lit reflection. One of the bathroom’s two bulbs has expired. I’m in the midst of the evening ritual of brushing my teeth, facing said mirror, when a halo surrounding my head snares my attention. Toothbrush in right hand still moving up and down, side to side, left hand reaches for reading glasses lying on the little table next to the toilet. Once atop my obtrusive nose they help me see that I’m neither a saint nor saintly but more like the Queen Mother—well, an image of the Queen Mother smudged by a schoolgirl’s eraser. No halo this, the blue anomaly is my damp hair. A pigment battle rages atop my head, a catfight of mismatched contestants.

I touch a still-wet lock to test the permanency of the blue tint and end up leaving a sticky stain of toothpaste on it. You can correctly presume that multitasking is not my forte.

I lean over the bathtub, pick up the tube of Bel Argent shampoo I bought yesterday. I read the fine print, squinting even with the reading glasses. Yes, I used ten times the amount prescribed while washing my hair. I enjoy a good lather. Reading instructions happens not to be my forte either.

Funny. My bathroom tiles are rectangular white with interlocking light blue tulips, almost the same shade as my new dye. Luckily, the blue isn’t that of the Israeli flag. Can you imagine? Talk about a brawl of mismatched contestants.

Usually vanity isn’t one of my concerns, doesn’t disconcert me much. However, I’d overheard the three witches discussing the unrelenting whiteness of my hair. Joumana, my upstairs neighbor, had suggested that if I used a shampoo like Bel Argent, the white would be less flat. There you have it.

As I understand it, and I might be wrong as usual, you and I tend to lose short wavelength cones as we age, so we’re less able to distinguish the color blue. That’s why many people of a certain age have a bluish tint to their hair. Without the tint, they see their hair as pale yellow, or possibly salmon. One hairstylist described on the radio how he finally convinced this old woman that her hair was much too blue. But his client still refused to change the color. It was much more important that she see her hair as natural than the rest of the world do so.

I’d probably get along better with the client.

I too am an old woman, but I have yet to lose many short wavelength cones. I can distinguish the color blue a bit too clearly right now.

Allow me to offer a mild defense for being distracted. At the end of the year, before I begin a new project, I read the translation I’ve completed. I do minor final corrections, set the pages in order, and place them in the box. This is part of the ritual, which includes imbibing two glasses of red wine. I’ll also admit that the last reading allows me to pat myself on the back, to congratulate myself on completing the project. This year, I translated the superb novel Austerlitz, my second translation of W. G. Sebald. I was reading it today, and for some reason, probably the protagonist’s unrequited despair, I couldn’t stop thinking of Hannah, I couldn’t, as if the novel, or my Arabic translation of it, was an inductor into Hannah’s world.

Remembering Hannah, my one intimate, is never easy. I still see her before me at the kitchen table, her plate wiped clean of food, her right cheek resting on the palm of her hand, head tilted slightly, listening, offering that rarest of gifts: her unequivocal attention. My voice had no home until her.

During my seventy-two years, she was the one person I cared for, the one I told too much—boasts, hates, joys, cruel disappointments, all jumbled together. I no longer think of her as often as I used to, but she appears in my thoughts every now and then. The traces of Hannah on me are indelible.

Percolating remembrances, red wine, an old woman’s shampoo: mix well and wind up with blue hair.

I’ll wash my hair once more in the morning, with no more tears baby shampoo this time. Hopefully the blue will fade. I can just imagine what the neighbors will say now.

For most of my adult life, since I was twenty-two, I’ve begun a translation every January first. I do realize that this is a holiday and most choose to celebrate, most do not choose to work on New Year’s Day. Once, as I was leafing through the folio of Beethoven’s sonatas, I noticed that only the penultimate, the superb op. 110 in A-flat Major, was dated on the top right corner, as if the composer wanted us to know that he was busy working that Christmas Day in 1821. I too choose to keep busy during holidays.

Over these last fifty years I’ve translated fewer than forty books—thirty-seven, if I count correctly. Some books took longer than a year, others refused to be translated, and one or two bored me into submission—not the books themselves, but my translations of them. Books in and of themselves are rarely boring, except for memoirs of American presidents (No, No, Nixon)—well, memoirs of Americans in general. It’s the I live in the richest country in the world yet pity me because I grew up with flat feet and a malodorous vagina but I triumph in the end syndrome. Tfeh!

Books into boxes—boxes of paper, loose translated sheets. That’s my life.

I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside that box that gives me trouble. I have adapted tamely, though not conventionally, to this visible world so I can retreat without much inconvenience into my inner world of books. Transmuting this sandy metaphor, if literature is my sandbox, then the real world is my hourglass—an hourglass that drains grain by grain. Literature gives me life, and life kills me.

Well, life kills everyone.

But that’s a morose subject. Tonight I feel alive—blue hair and red wine alive. The end of the year approaches, the beginning of a new year. The year is dead. Long live the year! I will begin my next project. This is the time that excites me most. I pay no attention to the Christmas decorations that burst into fruitful life in various neighborhoods of my city, or the lights welcoming the New Year. This year, Ashura falls at almost the same time, but I don’t care.

Let the people flagellate themselves into a frenzy of remembrance. Wails, whips, blood: the betrayal of Hussein moves me not.

Let the masses cover themselves in gold, frankincense, and Chanel to honor their savior’s birth. Trivia matters naught to me.

Beginnings are pregnant with possibilities. As much as I enjoy finishing a translation, it is this time that tickles my marrow most. The ritual of preparation: setting aside the two versions of the book of choice—one English, the other French—the papers, the notebook that’s to be filled with actual notes, the 2B graphite pencils with the sharpener and Pearl eraser, the pens. Cleaning the reading room: dusting the side table, vacuuming the curtains and the ancient armchair, navy chenille with knotted fringes hanging off its arms. On the day of genesis, the first of January, I begin the morning with a ceremonial bath, a rite of scrubbing and cleansing, after which I light two candles for Walter Benjamin.

Let there be light, I say.

Yes, I am a tad obsessive. For a nonreligious woman, this is my faith.

This year, though, for the first time in quite a while, I’m not certain about the book I want to work with. This year, for the first time ever, I might have to begin a translation while having blue hair. Aiiee.

I’ve decided on Roberto Bolaño’s unfinished novel 2666, but I’m nurturing doubts. At more than nine hundred pages in both versions, it is no small feat, or no short feat. It will take me at least two years. Should I be taking on such a long-term project? Should I be making accommodations for my age? I’m not talking about dying. I am in good health, and women in my family live long. My mother is still going insane.

Let’s put it this way: I don’t hesitate when buying green bananas, but I’m slowing down. 2666 is a big project. The Savage Detectives required nineteen months, and I believe my work rate isn’t what it was then. So I balk.

Yes, I’m healthy, I have to keep reminding myself. During my biannual checkup earlier this week, my doctor insisted that I was in sturdy health, like iron. He’s right, of course, and I’m grateful, but what he should have compared me to was rusty iron. I feel oxidized. What was it that Yourcenar, as Hadrian, wrote about physicians? A man does not practice medicine for more than thirty years without some falsehood. My doctor has been practicing for longer than that. We’ve grown old together. He told me that my heart is in good shape, talked to me with his face hidden behind a computer printout of my lab results. Even I, a Luddite, haven’t seen such archaic perforated printouts in years. His mobile phone, a BlackBerry lying on the desk next to his left elbow, was definitely the latest model, which should count for something. I do not own one. But then, I have no need for a phone, let alone a smart one; no one calls me.

Please, no pity or insincere compassion. I’m not suggesting that I feel sorry for myself because no one calls me or, worse, that you should feel sorry. No one calls me. That’s a fact.

I am alone.

It is a choice I’ve made, yet it is also a choice made with few other options available. Beiruti society wasn’t fond of divorced, childless women in those days.

Still, I made my bed—a simple, comfortable, and ade­quate bed, I might add.

I was fourteen when I began my first translation, twenty dull pages from a science textbook. It was the year I fell in love with Arabic—not the oral dialect, mind you, but the classical language. I’d studied it since I was a child, of course, as early as I’d studied English or French. Yet only in Arabic class were we constantly told that we could not master this most difficult of languages, that no matter how much we studied and practiced, we could not possibly hope to write as well as al-Mutanabbi or, heaven forbid, the apex of the language, the Quran itself. Teachers indoctrinated students, just as they had been indoctrinated when younger. None of us can rise above being a failure as an Arab, our original sin.

I’d read the Quran and memorized large chunks of it, but all that studying didn’t introduce me to the language’s magic—forced learning and magic are congenital adversaries.

I was seven when I took my first Quranic class. The teacher—a wide, bespectacled stutterer—would lose her stutter when she recited the Quran; a true miracle, the other teachers claimed. She had it all committed to memory, and when she recited, her eyes glowed, her scarf-covered head swayed on a shaky neck, and her pointing stick twirled before her. In the first row we covered our eyes whenever the pointer came too close—to this day, when I sit in the front seat of a car during a rainstorm, I’m afraid the windshield wipers might poke my eye. The teacher’s stick may have appeared dangerous, but it was not what she beat us with. If we made a mistake in reciting, if a girl forgot a word or had trouble recalling a line, the teacher’s cheeks contracted and glowed, her lips pursed and shrank; she’d ask the child to come to the front and extend her hand, and would mete out punishment using the most innocuous of implements, the blackboard eraser. It hurt as much as any inquisitor’s tool.

As if forced memorization of the Quran—forced memorization of anything—wasn’t punishment enough.

Listen to the words, she exhorted, listen to the wizardry. Hear the rhythm, hear the poetry.

How could I hear anything when I was either in excruciating pain or fearing that I might soon be?

The language of the Quran is its miracle, she used to say.

Consider this: In order to elevate the Prophet Moses above all men, God granted him the miracle that would dazzle the people of his era. In those days, magicians were ubiquitous in Egypt, so all of Moses’s miracles involved the most imaginative of magic: rod into serpent, river into red blood, Red Sea into parting. During the Prophet Jesus’s time, medicine was king. Jesus healed lepers and raised the dead. During our Prophet’s time, poetry was admired, and God gifted Muhammad, an illiterate man, with the miracle of a matchless tongue.

This is our heritage, our inheritance—this is our magic.

I didn’t listen then. The teacher frightened faith out of my soul. I didn’t care that the Quran had dozens of words for various bodies of water, that it used rhythms and rhymes that hadn’t been heard before.

Compared to the Quran’s language and its style, those of the other holy books seem childish. It is said that after one glance at the Bible, the Maréchale de Luxembourg exclaimed, The tone is absolutely frightful! What a pity the Holy Spirit had such poor taste!

No, I might be able to poke fun at the Quran for its childishly imperious content, but not for its style.

It was finally poetry that opened my eyes; poetry, and not the Quran, that seared itself into the back of my brain—poetry, the lapidary. I’m not sure that the discovery of love is necessarily more exquisite than the discovery of poetry, or more sensuous for that matter.

I recall the poet who ignited the flame, Antara, the jet-black warrior-poet. I remember the shock of a doomed language being resuscitated.

And I remembered you as spears quenched their thirst

In me and white swords dripped with my blood

So I longed to kiss the blades that recalled

The gleam of your smiling mouth to my mind

Then again, maybe it was Imru’ al-Qays. He and Antara are my preferred of the seven included in the legendary Suspended Odes.

But come, my friends, as we stand here mourning, do you see the lightning?

See its glittering, like the flash of two moving hands, amid the thick gathering clouds.

Its glory shines like the lamps of a monk when he has dipped their wicks thick in oil.

I sat down with my companions and watched the lightning and the coming storm.

The language—we hear it all the time. News anchors speak classical Arabic, as do some politicians, definitely Arabic teachers, but what sputters out of their mouths sounds odd and displaced compared to our organic Lebanese tongue, our homemade, homegrown dialect. Television and radio announcers sound foreign to my ears. Those early poems, though, they are alchemy, something miraculous. They opened my ears, opened my mind, like flowers in water.

Yet my first translation was not a poem but twenty dull pages. In the school I attended, the sciences were taught in French. Rarely was Arabic used for physics, chemistry, or mathematics in any of the schools of Beirut, whose main curriculum has always been community conformity. It seems that Arabic is not considered a language for logic. A joke that used to make the rounds when I was a child, probably still going strong: the definition of parallel lines in geometry textbooks in Saudi Arabia is two straight lines that never meet unless God in all His glory wills it.

The twenty pages were a curiosity; I wished to see for myself. My first translation sounded odd and displaced as well.

The translations that followed improved, I hope.

By improved, I mean that I no longer felt as awkward about writing my name on what I translated as I did in the beginning.

My father named me Aaliya, the high one, the above. He loved the name and, I was constantly told, loved me even more. I do not remember. He passed away when I was still a toddler, weeks before my second birthday. He must have been ill, for he died before impregnating my mother with another, as he was supposed to, expected to, particularly since I was female and first. My country in the late 1930s was still trying to pull itself out of the fourteenth century. I’m not sure if it ever succeeded in some ways. My father was barely nineteen when he married and twenty-one when he died, my mother a widow at eighteen. They were supposed to spend aeons together. It was not to be.

What to do with a young widow? The families convened. My mother’s family, having thought they had one fewer mouth to feed, now had two more. It is said that my maternal grandfather hinted that they were given a defective model. The families decided that the young widow would be married off to her husband’s brother and try once more, except she wouldn’t receive a second dowry, her wedding gift. Three months after my father passed away—a three-month canonical period—my mother knelt obsequiously before a sheikh and watched as her father and second husband signed the contracts.

In time I was presented with five half siblings, none of whom I was particularly close to. Six children, one room, three narrow, lumpy mattresses on the floor; horizontal martial arts battles during the night, yawning bruised bodies in the morning.

My uncle-father was kind, if not particularly loving or affable. He paid little attention to his children, even less to me. I’m unable to recall much about him. I have no pictures of him, so in my memory his face is always obscured. In every evocation of a childhood scene, my stepfather’s face is the least detailed, the most out of focus; when I think of him my memory’s eyes have cataracts.

His sole remarkable trait was his unremitting passing of gas, which he had no inclination to control. Lunches and dinners, as the family sat on the floor surrounding him, were unbearable. The boys loved it, but I could barely eat after he broke wind. That’s probably why I’ve been skinny all my life. To this day, there are certain human smells that make my stomach swirl.

At his deathbed, on a night drunk with cicadas, as the family sat in his room, he called on each of his children to offer final wisdom, but he forgot to call on his youngest daughter or me. The youngest was devastated, and all tried to comfort her. They surrounded her, cooed to her, smothered her with mollifying maxims, passed her their handkerchiefs. I wasn’t distressed and none comforted me. No one passed me a handkerchief, not even a tissue. He had no wisdom to offer me; no one in my family did.

I am my family’s appendix, its unnecessary appendage.

I was married off at sixteen, plucked unripe out of school, the only home I had, and gifted to the first unsuitable suitor to appear at our door, a man small in stature and spirit. Marriage is a most disagreeable institution for an adolescent. We moved into this apartment and it took fewer than four years for him to stand before me, as the law required, and declaim the most invigorating of phrases: You are divorced. Nothing in our marriage became him like leaving it.

The impotent insect stepped out the door, and these floors never had to feel his feet again. Young as I was, I shed not a tear. I did what my nature demanded. I cleaned and scrubbed and mopped and disinfected until no trace of

Reviews for An Unnecessary Woman

[rebarelishesreading · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The fly-leaf of the book describes our heroine/narrator, Aaliya, as "a book-loving, obsessive, seventy-two-year-old 'unnecessary' woman with a past shaped by the Lebanese Civil War". The story unfolds through Aaliya's description of current events and her mental musings of things past. She was married off at 16 to a young man who blames her for his impotence and, when she is 20, divorces her leaving her with the very nice apartment they lived in. To survive, and keep the apartment and her independence, she finds a job in a bookstore where she stays until the owner dies 50 or so years later. She is alone. She has never been close to her mother, step-father or half-siblings and has few friends. Her only close friend died years ago. She observes the friendship of three women in the building where she lives but thinks of them as the "weird sisters" while listening to their conversations while remaining unseen in her kitchen. She develops rituals around which she forms her life, chief among them, each year she translates a book into Arabic. She always begins the translation on January 1, with set rules for the equipment used and the way it is laid out. The book is always one written in a language other than English or French and she translates from previous English and French (both) translations. Once the translation is finished it is packed away in a box, with the French and English versions taped to the top, and stored away. No one else knows about her translations.Aaliya finds her self "unnecessary" to everyone. When disaster strikes she questions even her life-long passion of translation:I am nothingI'll always be nothing.I can't even wish to be anything.Aside from that, within me I have all the dreams of the world"I felt sad for Aaliyq but I also respected her. I found this book captivating because I was engaged by Aaliya's story but also because it was an interesting view of Beirut in the late 20th century. It's unusual in that Aaliya is extremely well read and her thoughts include many (very many) allusions to literature and writers. It was fun to see how many of them I had read (or even heard of).I marked several passages but decided to share the following because I thought most Lter's would relate.I walk myself back to my bedroom, back to the stack of books on my mirror less vanity, unread books that I intend to read, a large stack. Choosing which book isn't difficult. The choice is typically the last one I brought home I acquire books constantly and place them in the to-read pile. When I finish with whatever book I'm reading. I begin the last book I bought, the one that caught my attention last. Of course, the pile grows and grows until I decide that I'm not going to buy a single book until I read my stack. Sometimes that works

[brangwinn · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is an INTELLIGENT book, one to read slowly and contemplate the words. As a teacher, I always talked about using “voice” and the voice of Aaliya, a woman in her seventies is clear, concise and belies the title. She is not an unnecessary woman. Married and divorced by the age of 20, her story is the timeline of the timeline of Beirut’s violent history. Her love of books and her love of Beirut shine through in this story, as many other reviewers have said, as a love letter to literature and Beirut.

[trishbrowning · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

An Unnecessary Woman kept me interested through *most* of the book, which is a feat considering it takes place over a period of 3 days and is mostly just inner monologue. It dragged a bit in the beginning of the latter half, but picked up again soon after. I think this book is a love letter to other writers. While I enjoyed reading, I think I'll ultimately forget about it.

[wareagle78 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A study of solitude. Aaliya Saleh, divorced with no children, unloved by her family of birth, ignored by her neighbors, with a memory of one close friend now long dead, contemplates her advanced age. Aaliya ran a bookstore for years, and decided to use her spare time to interpret books into Arabic - translations unseen by anyone, that she holds to her fiercely, in boxes throughout her apartment. She only translates books from English or French translations, which often means holding the original work at some remove. Aaliya's telling of her story is enriched with insights and quotes from the books she has loved, and her tastes have been profligate yet elevated. It is the rare book that forces me to look up a word, but I recommend a dictionary at hand for this! In the end, human connection is forced on her, and changes contemplated. It is a beautiful book, gritty is the scenes it sets yet lyrical and profound in the study of Aaliya herself.

[lindoula-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Read this if you enjoy literary quotes and protagonists who like to quote them a lot. I enjoyed the flow of this book, but at the same time I was also somewhat bothered by the near absence of plot.

[lettypearl · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aaliya lives alone in her apartment in Beirut, the apartment she lived in with her husband until he divorced her, and she has fought to hang on to through civil wars, and family attempts to take it from her. Her best friend now dead for many years, Aaliya lives in solitude, retired from working in a bookstore. Her only endeavor aside from going through the motions of living, and avoiding her neighbors and estranged family, is to translate English and French translations of great literature into Arabic. This endeavor is carried out only for herself - she never intends to publish these hand-written translations, or have anyone else read them. When she finishes one, she boxes up the pages she has written and stores them in a spare bedroom. She sees both her existence and her translations as superfluous. Although quite sad in some places, the author's sense of humor emerges frequently in Aaliya's thoughts. As noted elsewhere, this truly is a love letter to literature, not simply the story of one reclusive woman. Beautifully written, startlingly apt turns of phrase. I really loved this book & recommend it when it is released in February 2014.

[janismack · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Very strange book but, for some reason, I kept on reading. Aalieya is an unfortunate woman who had a difficult life. She was unable to bear children so was basically tossed aside. This is her story and her obsession with translation of classic books into Arabic.

[tangledthread · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aaliya, a 72 year old agnostic, agoraphobic, autodidact has resided in the same apartment in Beirut for around 50 years. She came to the apartment when first married at 16 and stayed there when her impotent husband divorced her within a few years. Over the years she had endured the long siege of the Lebanese civil war as well as sieges by her half-brothers' and mother's attempts to claim her apartment.Shortly after her divorce, she supported herself as the only employee of a Beiruti bookshop with an absent owner. She occupies her time translating books from English or French to Arabic. True to her obsessive personality, there are rules. She will not translate books originally written in English or French, only those that have been translated from another language, thus she does translations of translations. Her ritual is to begin a new translation with the New Year. But her translations are for herself only. When she is finished, they are boxed up with original book attached to the box and stored in what was the maids room of the apartment. But over 50 years and 30 translations, the maids bathroom has also been pressed into storage space.The book is written in a stream of consciousness format and begins during the end of year holidays while Aaliya, who has accidentally dyed her white hair blue, is contemplating what she will translate during the coming year. There are three other women in the apartment building who meet daily for coffee on a balcony where Aaliya can over hear them. The blue in her hair was an attempt to make her hair less white based on what she has heard them say about her, a failed attempt at conformity.Through her stream of conscious writing, Aaliyah references an erudite reading list which she uses to inform us of her understanding of the world. In this male dominated society with no direct connection to a male (her brothers are only half-brothers), no children, and no connection to religion, her life has no meaning for these relationships are the things that define a woman within that society. She refers to herself as an unnecessary woman based on a quote from a Nazi who spared a Jew whose skills were needed by calling him a "necessary Jew". In addition to her love of literature, she also has a love of music. Over the years she has had one friend, Hannah, with whom she shared these joys. Hannah was also an "unnecessary woman" by the standards of Lebanese society. There was also a young Palestinian male mentee who came to the bookshop seeking knowledge, but as he reached 18 he joined with the revolutionary forces.Aaliya's relationship with her mother has been strained through out her life. An encounter with aged, infirm mother causes Aaliya to attempt some resolution to that relationship. This second encounter causes Aaliya to recognize her own mortal fears. When she returns to her apartment to face what at first to be a catastrophe, she finds the resolution to those fears.

[judylou_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Aaliya Sohbi is 72 years old, living a solitary life in her Beirut apartment. The closest thing she has to friends are the three women from neighbouring apartments who meet every morning to gossip and drink coffee. Yet Aaliya never joins these women, who she calls the three witches; overhearing their chat is enough for her. Her loving father died when she was very young leaving her with an uncaring step mother and indifferent half-brothers. She rarely sees them. She was once married, but was divorced very young, and had no children. The only good thing from that marriage was the apartment in which she still lives. So she sees herself as an unnecessary woman; her family’s “unnecessary appendage”.Her only friends are her collections of books, from which she has read widely. She is a translator. She works to a strict regime; starting only on the first day of the year and only translating from books not in their original language. So she is a translator of translations. No-one has ever seen her translations. She keeps them locked away in her spare room.Aaliya is an obsessive thinker about culture, philosophy and literature. She barely has a thought which is not justified or guided by one of her literary heroes or an esteemed piece of literature. This book is reads like an anthem to literature in all its forms, but shows us that nothing is sacred, or capable of lasting forever.

[knittingmomof3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine a masterful work of literature. Alameddine writes about the midlife crisis of Aaliya Sohbi, a brilliant recluse in Beirut who has translated 37 books into Arabic, which no one has yet read. One day she overhears her neighbors and decides something must change. Alameddine will take the reader into Aaliya’s life, past and present, and allows the reader to understand this woman’s mid-life crisis through her past as well as what she is currently going through. An Unnecessary Women is extraordinary and a book for those who enjoy well written literature and most definitely for book discussion groups, as there is so much to discuss.

[ebt1002 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I don't usually operate in the realm of quarter-points, but this novel is better than a 4. Still, I'm not quite ready to say it's one of my favorite reads of the year (which would define a 4.5 or above). It's delightful and I will likely go purchase a copy so that I can read it again when I want to. Aaliya, a divorced woman in her 70s, lives alone in her very nice flat in Beirut where she reads voraciously. She also dedicates each year to the careful translation of one work of literature into Arabic. No one is allowed to read these translations (no one even knows she does this work!) but the boxes containing her translations are carefully stowed away. As Aaliya's memories weave through the past several decades in her beloved city of Beirut, her efforts to define herself and her place in the world weave through the literature she has also loved. A testament to the power of literature to lend meaning to a life, this novel is also a testament to the power of human connection even while it validates the socially isolated path Aaliya has chosen. There are some beautiful passages, one of my favorite being this. "As someone living alone, as an aging woman, the technological discovery I love most is the electric clock, though with Beirut's electricity, I should say the battery-operated clock. Do you have any idea how much anxiety those old clocks induced? Ticktock, you're all alone in an empty apartment. Ticktock, the world outside is going to come and get you. Ticktock, you're not getting any younger, are you? Give me a tranquilizer, please. The ticktock tattooing of the march of time. The ticktock of the tiny object full of gears suffocating all existence, wringing life out of life. After that wonderful discovery, the clock's hands still turned in the same direction -- it's called clockwise, for all you youngsters -- time still marched forward, but miraculously, its heartbeat, its ominous announcement, was reduced to a meek buzz."Of course, there is also her wonderful commentary on her own unreliability: "I'm not suggesting that I'm consciously dissembling. But to paraphrase the ever-paraphraseable Freud, who said something to the effect that when you speak about the past you lie with every breath you take, I will say this: When you write about the past, you lie with each letter, with every grapheme, including the goddamn comma."As I look over these passages that I marked, I believe they fall far short of capturing Aaliya's wonderful narrative voice. So I say just go get this book and read it.

[lit_chick_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

"I long ago abandoned myself to a blind lust for the written word. Literature is my sandbox. In it I play, build my forts and castles, spend glorious time. It is the world outside the box that gives me trouble." (6)Aaliya Saleh is a blue-haired, reclusive, septuagenarian living alone in her Beirut apartment. Fatherless, godless, childless, and divorced, Aalyia is to her family and to society an unnecessary woman. Covetous of her spacious apartment, her mother and half-brothers oscillate between threatening her with eviction, terrorizing her, and ignoring her. But Aaliya stays put, even as the Lebanese Civil War rages around her, threatening all that she loves about her city. She abandons herself to literature, and every year, on the first of January, begins a new translation of a book into Arabic. Over a period of fifty years, Aaliya has translated thirty-seven books: "I'll be sitting at my desk and suddenly I don't wish my life to be any different. I am where I need to be. My heart distends with delight. I feel sacred." (109)An Unnecessary Woman is beautifully written, Aaliya herself unforgettable. I particularly enjoyed her visions of Beirut, past and present – a subject which Alameddine has inspired me to explore further. And I love the idea of allowing the principles found in great literature to be the guiding influence in one’s life. But I think for all of her sass and bravado, Aaliya was a sad, even angry, woman – and I empathize with her very human yearning for what might have been. "No loss is felt more keenly than the loss of what might have been. No nostalgia hurts as much as nostalgia for things that never existed." (155)

[beamis12 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I stared reading this in e-book format a while back and just wasn't in the mood for an introspective novel. Plus there are just some novels I need to read in actual book form and though I set it aside I knew this was a book that I would probably love at some point or another. So it proved. This is a very introspective novel, a 72 yr old woman, although once married long ago she has been divorced for a very long time. Her world is books, poetry and music, she loves her solitude and her city, Beruit. She has seen the best and the worst of this city, the civil war, shops closing and friends leaving. Her main occupation is translating a new novel once a year.This is a book lovers novel, she thinks of things in literary terms, quotations and bits of poetry. Her musing are sprinkled through with all these bits and pieces of novels, authors and poets. She loves Seybold and Pessoa, Faulkner is a favorite of hers and so many authors are mentioned that I was gradually adding to my already huge to read list. But I loved this book, loved her character and the other three woman in the complex that she calls the three witches. A tiny sliver of a woman and a city changing fortunes. At the end of ones life what will be your biggest accomplishment? This is another thought with which she continuously wrestles. The biggest shocker in this wonderful, quiet novel is that the author is male.

[nero56 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

At times throughout this book, I loved it, hated it, liked it and found it ambiguous. I decided half way through the book that I was not going to finish it, but then couldn't put it down. I still can't decide. This book reminds me of books written by Russian authors--they take time to stew over.

[jwhenderson_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Sometimes the voice of the narrator enchants the reader with her life and that of those around her. That is what happens in Rabih Alameddine's captivating novel. The narrator is a woman named Aaliya. She is a book-lover in her seventies who runs a book store and translates books. She is an obsessive translator of books, a vocation that was spurred by reading about a criminal, Raskolnikov, in a book, Crime and Punishment, that she remembered as "the first adult novel I read, or the first with a fully developed theme." (p 102) That memory is one that she shares in one of her many asides that in this case last for several pages and included a discussion of the translating abilities of Constance Garnett, the Edwardian woman who introduce the English-speaking public to the wonders of Russian literature. This is a book made up of her asides which intersperse her story about a life lived in Beirut. Beirut becomes a character in the novel as she shares her love for the city. This love does not prevent her from warning the reader that, "Every Beiruti of a certain age has learned that on leaving for a walk you should never be too sure of returning home, not only because something might happen to you personally, but also because your home might cease to exist." (p 175) There are other characters who drift into and out of the story including her friends Fadia, Joumana, and Marie-Therese. Most important in several senses is Ahmad who enters her bookshop as a young boy and matures on the streets and in the battles of Beirut city. The most interesting of her friends for this reader are her books. Anything and everything brings her back to her books. Nostalgia for the city of Beirut reminds her of the smell of jasmine floating in, the colors and patterns of sheets in the dark" which leads her to Proust:"But then I feel nostalgia for the walks by Swann's Way, as well as by Guermantes Way, for how Charles Kinbote surprises John Shade while he's taking a bath, for how Anna Karenina sits in a train." (p 129) She tosses off one-liners with the gift of a literary charmer. You may have noticed how she added references to Nabokov and Tolstoy while waxing about Proust. These and other riffs on the life of reading through quotations and asides warm the heart of any reader and challenge him as well. Her favorite book is Marguerite Yourcenar's Memoirs of Hadrian and I could not think of a better choice. She also loves music and Chopin becomes another character as his music wafts through her mind and life, especially when performed by the great Sviatoslav Richter. Yet she is mainly a homebody, "No matter where I've been or how long I've been away, my soul begins to tingle whenever I approach my apartment." This is a place that is no longer new and cold in the winter but it is warmed by the heart of Aaliya the book-loving translator. She says near the end of her story that "In order to live, I have to blind myself to my infinitesimal dimensions in this infinite universe." (p 277) Nonetheless she is not "unnecessary" as the reader finds that laughter and tears and wonder are all part and parcel of the wonder of reading about her magical life.

[garyseverance-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

An Unnecessary Woman is the story of a 72 year old woman living a mostly self- contained life in a Beirut apartment building that has withstood the devastation of the Lebanese Civil war and many sectarian skirmishes. The divorced, retired bookstore owner has been a translator of literature for 50 years and survived the violence of life in her beloved city and has adjusted to the lack of inclusion in the life of her family. Aaliya (Arabic for "the high one, the above") has created a world view from living words in her apartment “reading room” immersing herself in the world’s great works of philosophy, history, poetry, and novels. She has furnished her room with the large old stained desk saved from the bookstore, and has filled the furniture surfaces with books. Aaliya also surrounds herself with recordings of the best performances of classical music, and she has taught herself how to appreciate them. She is accompanied by three women living in separate flats in the apartment building, one of whom owns the building. Aaliya leads a life of solitude in the tenuous comfort of her apartment and minimal social support of her three neighbors whom she observes but keeps at arms-length.Aaliya’s reading and translating of books are her actions toward enjoying life. She does leave her apartment for solitary walks, errands, and rare family visits. But, Aaliya believes she is unnecessary to others and to herself and finds meaning in her memories, habits, and annual goals. She is disciplined in her work using English and French translations of books as her source of translations into Arabic. She fell in love with the classical language of Arabic while studying the Quran in religion classes as a young girl. Her love was for the structure of the writing rather than the content of what was considered the apex of Arabic writing. Aaliya takes a structured approach to her translations always proceeding in the same way, one book per year. Her results are a combination of the literal English and more emotional French translations that leads to her third-hand interpretation of the original work. She translates classical literature, historical non-fiction, and contemporary books into her own world perceptions. Drawn into a free-ranging life review by advancing age, Aaliya interprets her past and the history of her home in Beirut through the wisdom of writers who enhance her limited world experience. She teaches the reader a way of understanding life using quotations and unique interpretations, almost exclusively in English, drawn from books that she loves. She reminds us of Proust’s idea that when a writer publishes a book, the interpretation belongs to the reader and is correct regardless of the artistic/logical intent. The dilemma Aaliya must resolve is what will she do with her decades of translations when her age and fate require action.This is a wonderful novel that reinforces the reader’s own choice of the most rewarding method of understanding life and times. Using personal values of the world’s greatest literature and their own “translations” of the work of favorite writers, readers can experience great comfort in the solitude (not loneliness) of imagination. I recommend that readers identify with Aaliya and allow Mr. Alameddine to show them how to create their own cartons of translations.

[thelostentwife · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

It's not often that a new year begins and I pick up a book that will not only start the new year off with a bang, but also catapult me into a mode of massive self-reflection and discovery. It was astonishing to me that a man was able to write a woman that not only completely captured the person that I am, but also that our very fundamental differences would be a reason that the similarities between our lives would become even more prominent. The author of An Unnecessary Woman, Rabih Alameddine, has reached a status never before attained by any author I've read. Quite simply, I would like to meet him and, through tears because I'm sure I would be weeping, thank him for understanding and for making me feel, for the first time ever, that all of the thoughts that go through my head are not unusual. In fact, they are usual enough for him to craft an entire woman around them in this book.Read the rest of this review at The Lost Entwife on Jan. 3, 2014.

[brainannex · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A contemplative book about the nature of isolation, translation, and feminism, although not in so many words. Our narrator is an older woman who has devoted her life to her books. She moves between past and present, simultaneously reflecting on her life and dealing with her neighbors in her building in Beirut.

[muddyboy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book takes place in Beirut, Lebanon and is about an elderly lady who spent her entire life translating great works of literature into her native tongue. The catch is that she never attempts having any of her translations published. She has been abandoned by her family and has great difficulty connecting with people in general. What is great about this book is the author's grasp of literature. There seem to be hundreds of quotes interspersed throughout from a wide variety of authors and books. They are both thought provoking and relevant, I can certainly see why this book got all the acclaim that it did.

[poetvictoria · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Fantastic book! I started highlighting books and authors mentioned in the book, as well, to create a list of important works/authors to read. I miss my teachers, who used to help me with this.

[cariola_6 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I know I'm in the minority, but I found this book pretentious and dull. It's pretty much a nonstop monologue--a 72-year old woman rambling on about her life in Beirut, past and present. Divorced, childless, and estranged from her family, Aaliyah begins to translate a novel into Arabic every January 1--but no one has ever read any of the 37 novels she has translated and stores in her bathroom. She throws in a plethora of international literary references and her opinions of various writers along the way. Frankly, I just didn't find her or her life of much interest. I'm not surprised that one of the books mentioned as being similar is The Elegance of the Hedgehog--a book I really detested and ultimately couldn't finish.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A look at the life of an older woman who lives on her own in Beirut, Lebanon. She loves literature and classical music and those are her companions since her best friend (and sort-of sister-in-law) died many years earlier. But then a catastrophe to her small world forces her to accept and welcome the community of women who live around her.

[shazjhb · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Excellent book. Always interesting when a man writes in a woman's voice

[brocade_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Do not read unless you are prepared for a single character's ruminations about various authors and writing.

[brenzi_3 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

”You could say I was thinking of other things when I shampooed my hair blue, and two glasses of red wine didn’t help my concentration.”And so we are introduced to Beirut resident, 72-year-old Aaliya Saleh, bookstore owner and, for the past fifty years, translator of important literary works, or, at least, literary works that are important to her. Her translations are actually books that have already been translated into French and English from their native German, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese or from whatever their native language was. Aaliya then translates the translations into Arabic. She has been storing these translations away for all these years, unseen by anyone else. These literary marvels all impact her life and, therefore, her story. And Aaliya passes their wisdom on to the reader in bits and pieces as she tries to describe this city that she both loves and hates.Her descriptions of Beirut, during and after its long civil war are vivid and hellishly gruesome, but it’s her adroit observations, fueled by her extensive reading, that really stand out.”My books show me what it’s like to live in a reliable country where you flick on a switch and a bulb is guaranteed to shine and remain on, where you know that cars will stop at red lights and that those traffic lights will not cease working a couple of times a day. Compared to the Middle East…Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Macondo is more predictable. Dickens’ Londoners are more trustworthy than the Lebanese. Beirut and its denizens are famously and infamously unpredictable. Every day is an adventure…When trains run on time…when a dial tone sounds as soon as you pick up a receiver, does life become too predictable? With this essential reliability, are Germans bored? Does that explain The Magic Mountain? Is life less thrilling if your neighbors are rational, if they don’t bomb your power stations whenever they feel you need to be admonished? Is it less rousing if they don’t rattle your windows and nerves with indiscriminate sonic booms just because they can?” (Page 52)Aaliya has led a lonely, solitary life, for the most part and she’s quite bitter about life in all its phases. Married at a young age to a “Freudian dyslexic” who could provide her with no sexual satisfaction and who announced unexpectedly, “you are divorced,” she lost her best friend, Hannah, to an untimely death over forty years ago. So to fill her empty hours she has her books and she is remarkably well read. The fact that over 80 books and authors are mentioned, some in great depth, make this an ultimate book about books and, therefore, irresistible. Add to that the fact that the prose is absolutely stunning and I’m scratching my head to figure out why it took me so long to get into this book. I have to think it had to be me and the first person narrative, which was quite jarring and took some getting used to. But get used to it I did and by the mid-point I was deeply engrossed. The ending was pitch perfect, maybe more satisfying than any book I’ve read. Highly recommended.

[voracious_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Aaliah is a 70 year old divorced woman living in her own apartment in Beirut. Estranged from her family since her divorce many years previously, Aaliah was continually rebuked by her mother and family for not giving her apartment over to her more needy siblings and their numerous children. Over the course of her many years of living alone, Aaliah embraces her isolation, and spends the majority of her time reading and translating obscure texts from French and English to Arabic. Since she refuses to publish the texts, they start to pile up, taking over her extra bedroom and bathroom in her apartment. Throughout the story, Aaliah rambles on, living primarily in her stream-of-conscious thoughts, which bounce around to memories from her past and continual tangents about different obscure literary works. Although I love literature and love to talk and read books (and read books about books), I found this novel to be sometimes boring and exhausting. Aaliah's ramblings were frequently so far off-topic that I skimmed ahead to get back to the story. However, even the story lacked much action, which made the novel slow. Although I considered giving up on this one, I was generally glad I stayed with it because it got more interesting in the last 1/3 of the book. However, I was quite surprised to see this one short-listed for the National Book Award, since it seems like it could have used some serious editing along the way.

[sleahey_3 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Told in the first person voice of Aaliya, a woman in her 70's in Beirut, this novel contains the musings and recollections of a brilliant, isolated lifetime. A translator and former bookstore manager, Aaliya inhabits a world of literature while war and conflict surround her. Human capacity for wrongdoing is reflected in her family as well as on the streets of Beirut, and she has withdrawn from any relationships. Alameddine's writing is stunning, and this is a novel to savor.

[jcambridge_4 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I read this for a bookclub and then, unfortunately, was unable to attend the discussion. This was not an easy book to read, despite the excellent writing. Perhaps I was challenged by the fact a male author was telling a very personal tale from a woman's perspective. I think one needs a discussion group to fully appreciate it -- different perspectives and reactions to the book would help the reader to better understand the many facets of this story.

[timbazzett · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Rabih Alameddine's exquisitely crafted novel, AN UNNECESSARY WOMAN, is a book to read slowly and savor, a book for lovers of literature and books. Because it is filled with literary allusions, quotations from authors both famous and obscure, authors from many countries whose works have been translated into many languages, from Greek and Roman classics, Russian and French masters of fiction - ah, what the hell, the book is simply rich with language and literature and the solace, wisdom and comfort to be found in books.The story itself is deceptively simple, and not a whole lot happens. It traces the life of septuagenarian Aaliya Saleh, a retired bookseller, divorced from an "impotent insect" of a man. She has lived in the same Beirut apartment for more than fifty years and has seen wars and revolutions and insurgencies come and go multiple times. But she lives frugally and carefully, surrounded by her books and memories. Her real work, the work she lives for, is translating favorite books into Arabic, using English and French translations. Her final product, then, is a translation of translations - a couple removes from the original work. She works at her own pace, translating one book per year, beginning anew with each new year.Aaliya herself is a character to treasure; because she is a divorcee, she considers herself an 'unnecessary woman,' but she perseveres in her own private world, disowned and scorned by her own mother and half-siblings, she took comfort in the friendship of Hannah, another unique and special character. But now she is alone, grappling with the problems of physical frailty and aging, as well as the aging infrastructure and utilities of her apartment building with intermittent electricity and water. Books are her comfort, her solace, her life. But she has little patience for modern writers."Most of the books published these days consist of a series of whines followed by an epiphany. I call these memoirs and confessional novels happy tragedies. We shall overcome and all that. I find them sentimental and boring."Aaliya says she is not religious, but she is not an atheist either -"... I believe in gods. Like Ricardo Reis, aka Fernando Pessoa [her favorite poet], I am a pantheist ... I worship ... at the shrine of my writers. I am in large measure a Pessoan."Of her dear friend, Hannah, she says -"... she kept me company, but she left me undisturbed. We were two solitudes benefiting from a grace that was continuously reinvigorated in each other's presence, two solitudes who nourished each other."I found myself dog-earing pages throughout this book, and making notes about all the authors she references and quotes - Beckett, Moravia, Calvino, Joseph Roth, Kant, Sebald, Spinoza, Styron, Conrad, Proulx, and more - on and on, in fact. Too many authors to possibly remember, authors that filled the days of her life. And it was a life that knew tragedy and hard times, but Aaliya is a survivor. Books have been her salvation. The ending of the book is a hopeful one. Aaliya Saleh is a woman to remember, a necessary fictional character.Bravo, Mr. Alameddine. AN UNNECESSARY WOMAN is a book for booklovers everywhere to savor and treasure. Highly recommended.

[smiler69 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I picked up this book on Monday, I thought I might be in the mood for just this sort of thing, having seen another LTers glowing comments on it, and then the book summary itself convincing me completely I was in for a good time. The narrator Aaliya Saleh is a 72 year-old Lebanese woman who's lived all her life in Beirut. Though she was married off at 16 'to the first unsuitable suitor who came along', she ended up divorced by her impotent husband and childless 4 years later, rejected by her family and all but friendless, but always sustained by her great passion for literature, which also led her to develop a passion for music. The novel is told as a kind of memoir where she holds a long meandering monologue about herself, her youth, the civil war years, her current situation, the books she's read, the music she's listened to, and explains why she's the better part of her life translating 37 foreign-language books into Arabic starting from French or English translations (translations of translations), then putting the finished text in a box and sealing it away. On the day she starts her narration, her oldest half brother has just dropped by with their elderly insane mother, demanding that Aaliya take her in and take care of her, a task she narrowly escapes, but an incident that leaves he shaken nonetheless. From the outset, the book had all the elements which should have made for a very appealing reading experience, but very early on, I found myself repelled for all kinds of reasons which I am not sure I can detail without sounding petty. I started listening to the audio version, and found that narrated out loud, Aaliya came off sounding like an insufferable literary snob, with continual quotes from books and philosophers (which should have appealed, but didn't) and a strong tendency to complain about everything and everybody. I though if I switched to paper or an ebook edition, I might find her interesting rather than disdainful and annoying, and probably take lots of notes along the way about all these great books I should add to my wishlist and tbr. So I switched to the kindle version, but still could not get comfortable with the novel. For one thing, I wasn't buying Aaliya at all as a character, and just seem to hear the author's voice coming through loudly, very much a male voice to me. For another, I was displeased with the narrator's conversational tone, in which she constantly addresses the reader directly ('don't you think that's annoying? I certainly do') and makes too many apologies for veering off course. In short, I was too annoyed to enjoy the ride, and decided life was too short to spend it with an unlikeable 72 year-old trying very hard to be ornery like some of her favourite authors. Unconvincing, and pointless is what kept beeping in my head, and I dropped it. But, since I'd read almost three-quarters of the book and had truly made a big effort of time, money and patience to stick to it, I decided I was counting it toward my first 75 books, much as I did with Hygiène de l'assassin. I do not want to suggest I hated this novel anywhere as much as I did the latter, and I know beyond a doubt that most readers will find great satisfaction here. I felt sure I would love this book, and it certainly had all the right ingredients, but ultimately I think Alameddine and I would not have a great time having tea together. For one thing, I happen to like putting milk in my excellent Earl Grey blends (a reference you will understand once you've read the book). I'm okay with the fact I'll probably be among a very small minority that is not completely won over by this one.