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Bezig met laden... Frankenstein in Baghdad: A Novel (origineel 2013; editie 2018)door Ahmed Saadawi (Auteur)
Informatie over het werkFrankenstein in Baghdad door Ahmed Saadawi (2013)
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Meld je aan bij LibraryThing om erachter te komen of je dit boek goed zult vinden. Op dit moment geen Discussie gesprekken over dit boek. Interesting if never quite compelling, Frankenstein in Baghdad is a loose riff on the eponymous Gothic novel that unfolds in contemporary Baghdad. Here, Hadi the Junk Dealer starts to collect the parts of human bodies which litter the city, trying to create a whole body that can be properly laid to rest. But by chance, the soul of a young man killed in a bomb attack ends up animating the corpse—and the bulletproof Whatsitsname is soon bound on revenge. Ahmed Saadawai's novel has flashes of dark satirical humour, but mostly I found this a sombre read. The large cast of POV characters provides many different perspectives on what's happening—are the events we're reading about "actually" happening or are they a hallucination? a hoax?—but while I found some of them engaging, many of them were difficult to keep track of and generally fairly passive/reactive to what's going on around them. Which may be an understandable reaction to life in the kind of circumstances described here! But it made for a less propulsive read. Unfortunately this book wasn't really for me. The detached third-person omniscient writing style drifts between numerous characters, none of whom are particularly appealing. All the characters mostly just sort of have things happen to them, and feel vaguely dissatisfied about it. Time also sort of drifts around, with events often being told out of order for no particular reason. And the main plot sort of wanders off, never to return to that POV again. Saadawi's layering of the beginning makes for a slow dive into the traumatized city of Baghdad and its struggling inhabitants, but in a fashion that lures the reader deeper and deeper into what feels like the set-up for a realistic horror novel. When things go the way of Frankenstein, turning sideways into a puzzle of characters, bodies, and victimhood, the picture becomes both clearer and more labyrinthine. Paying homage to classics such as Frankenstein and Dracula also add further layers for the readers who've read the classics, and while this may be a slow horror read in comparison to other contemporary horror novels, I'm glad to have made my way through it. geen besprekingen | voeg een bespreking toe
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After he constructs a corpse from body parts found on the street, Hadi wants the government to prepare a proper burial, but when the corpse goes missing, a series of strange murders occur and Hadi realizes he has created a monster. Geen bibliotheekbeschrijvingen gevonden. |
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Google Books — Bezig met laden... GenresDewey Decimale Classificatie (DDC)892.7Literature Literature of other languages Middle Eastern languages Arabic (Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Sudan)LC-classificatieWaarderingGemiddelde:
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Hadi, a trash merchant, gathers human body parts and puts them together to construct a corpse in the desolate streets of US-occupied Baghdad. His stated objective is for the government to acknowledge the pieces as humans and provide them with proper burial. When the corpse goes missing, a wave of weird murders sweeps the city, and stories of a horrifying-looking criminal who, despite being shot, cannot be killed flood in.
Despite the dark elements to this concept, Saadawi handles with a light touch. He creates some fantastic characters and captures with white-knuckle horror and black humour the surreal reality of a city at war.
I included this excellent book in my Best Middle Eastern Books to read.
https://quizlit.org/10-best-middle-eastern-books ( )