Beach Reading
Jul. 27th, 2010 10:49 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ajnabiehI'm headed off this evening to my annual family reunion at the beach. Pros: seeing my sister and her son, who only make it up from Texas once a year; unlimited free babysitting in the form of Grammy and Grandpa; access to the ocean, the swimming pool, and the Candy Kitchen; limited internet. Cons: Ten people in a single-wide trailer for a week; the descent of all 30 of my extended family members on one side for a six-to-ten hour period, which will inevitably end in drama; limited internet. I'll be around, but may not have a post for y'all until I get back next week.
In the meantime, let me leave you with some "beach-reading" recs that talk about Arab-American issues. (I should note, however, that I've been known to tuck The Foucault Reader into my bag along with sunscreen and avocado-and-queso-blanco sandwiches, so it's entirely possibly my gauge for what counts as beach reading is off.)
1. Suheir Hammad, Drops of This Story
This is, perhaps, a bit thematically heavy for beach-reading, but, well, I'm like that. Hammad's first publication was a poetic memoir, telling, in a disjointed way, her experience of growing up Palestinian in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Staten Island. It's a memoir about being an immigrant, about living in a multicultural world, about missing the homeland and not knowing it, about cultural apprpropriation, about alcoholism and abuse. It's a very poetic book--I'd perhaps argue that the poetic structuring ends up dominating the narrative--and not a linear one. But it's also fewer than 100 pages long, and is, in the end, hopeful, at least on my reading.
2. Mohja Kahf, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
It's a coming of age novel that then turns into, for lack of a better word, chick-lit, where Khadra, the eponymous Girl, has to make choices about her family, her marriage, her community, and her relationship with God and Islam. I'll admit I found the parts about Khadra's childhood slow going at first, but Kahf is a tremendously funny writer, which carried it through. All the people in her novel are portrayed with love, even those we later grow to dislike. Or, if you're in a different mood, you could pick up Kahf's collection of poetry, Emails to Scheherezad. Warning: reading it made me 1) cry on the train 2) not notice I'd gotten on the wrong train until we came unexpectedly above ground. It's good.
3. G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker, Cairo: A Graphic Novel
I don't have it anymore (sniff), so try going here for some preview pages with graphics.
Wilson's in an interesting position as a convert to Islam, and an American who's very conscious of her privilege when writing about the Middle East. She writes from a place of the outsider with deep knowledge, and does a good job, I think, of navigating the complex territory she's set for herself, in this novel about jinn and flying carpets and drug deals and attempted suicide bombings. It draws on Islamic and Egyptian mythologies in a complex way, and all the characters end up being able to speak for themselves and break through the divisions between them. She also is clearly someone steeped in the superhero comic genre (she's also written for DC, as well as Vertigo), and it shows in the structure and pacing of the book. I think that's a good thing, speaking as someone who has developed a newfound addiction to comics...
(Oh: what am I actually bringing to the beach to read? Moustafa Bayoumi's How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?, a short ethnography of the Indian community in Queens, a few YA genre novels, and a fistful of comics I picked up at the library yesterday. Hey, it's a vacation.)
In the meantime, let me leave you with some "beach-reading" recs that talk about Arab-American issues. (I should note, however, that I've been known to tuck The Foucault Reader into my bag along with sunscreen and avocado-and-queso-blanco sandwiches, so it's entirely possibly my gauge for what counts as beach reading is off.)
1. Suheir Hammad, Drops of This Story
It lives on the back of my tongue. Where the tastes of falafel and hummus mingles with the bite of plantain and curry. Pounded the garlic and peppers for my father's fava beans every Sunday morning. Why couldn't we just eat pancakes and bacon like everyone else? We had to have olives at every meal and pita bread with everything. I know now that I always loved that food. It's just hard to be different all the time.
This is, perhaps, a bit thematically heavy for beach-reading, but, well, I'm like that. Hammad's first publication was a poetic memoir, telling, in a disjointed way, her experience of growing up Palestinian in Sunset Park, Brooklyn and Staten Island. It's a memoir about being an immigrant, about living in a multicultural world, about missing the homeland and not knowing it, about cultural apprpropriation, about alcoholism and abuse. It's a very poetic book--I'd perhaps argue that the poetic structuring ends up dominating the narrative--and not a linear one. But it's also fewer than 100 pages long, and is, in the end, hopeful, at least on my reading.
2. Mohja Kahf, The Girl in the Tangerine Scarf
It took her twice the work to get where he got with half the effort. It got easier as they got more experienced together.
"I had no idea it was that much work, Juma said, his hand cupped over her crotch afterward, as she lay breathing hard, her whole heart pounding under his hand. "Mine's like a--what do you call it, the no-brainer camera? A point-and-shoot."
Khadra laughed at that.
It's a coming of age novel that then turns into, for lack of a better word, chick-lit, where Khadra, the eponymous Girl, has to make choices about her family, her marriage, her community, and her relationship with God and Islam. I'll admit I found the parts about Khadra's childhood slow going at first, but Kahf is a tremendously funny writer, which carried it through. All the people in her novel are portrayed with love, even those we later grow to dislike. Or, if you're in a different mood, you could pick up Kahf's collection of poetry, Emails to Scheherezad. Warning: reading it made me 1) cry on the train 2) not notice I'd gotten on the wrong train until we came unexpectedly above ground. It's good.
3. G. Willow Wilson and M. K. Perker, Cairo: A Graphic Novel
I don't have it anymore (sniff), so try going here for some preview pages with graphics.
Wilson's in an interesting position as a convert to Islam, and an American who's very conscious of her privilege when writing about the Middle East. She writes from a place of the outsider with deep knowledge, and does a good job, I think, of navigating the complex territory she's set for herself, in this novel about jinn and flying carpets and drug deals and attempted suicide bombings. It draws on Islamic and Egyptian mythologies in a complex way, and all the characters end up being able to speak for themselves and break through the divisions between them. She also is clearly someone steeped in the superhero comic genre (she's also written for DC, as well as Vertigo), and it shows in the structure and pacing of the book. I think that's a good thing, speaking as someone who has developed a newfound addiction to comics...
(Oh: what am I actually bringing to the beach to read? Moustafa Bayoumi's How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?, a short ethnography of the Indian community in Queens, a few YA genre novels, and a fistful of comics I picked up at the library yesterday. Hey, it's a vacation.)
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-27 03:35 pm (UTC)thank you for the note about alcoholism and abuse, i'll be able to approach more cautiously now
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-27 04:46 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-28 12:14 am (UTC)Oh, and I was also reading my first book by
Anyway. Have a lovely time at the beach!