Basma Abdel Aziz
Autore di The Queue
Sull'Autore
Opere di Basma Abdel Aziz
Opere correlate
The Apex Book of World SF: Volume 5 (Apex World of Speculative Fiction) (2018) — Collaboratore — 40 copie
Sunspot Jungle: The Ever Expanding Universe of Fantasy and Science Fiction (2018) — Collaboratore — 35 copie
Etichette
Informazioni generali
- Data di nascita
- 20th century
- Sesso
- female
- Nazionalità
- Egypt
- Luogo di nascita
- Cairo, Egypt
- Attività lavorative
- psychiatrist
columnist
writer
Utenti
Recensioni
Liste
Premi e riconoscimenti
Potrebbero anche piacerti
Autori correlati
Statistiche
- Opere
- 5
- Opere correlate
- 2
- Utenti
- 259
- Popolarità
- #88,671
- Voto
- 3.6
- Recensioni
- 7
- ISBN
- 11
- Lingue
- 2
Perhaps unsurprisingly if you think about it, this non-American, non-Western (Egyptian) book undercuts some of the certainties and assumptions you might find in America.
First, despite your need to hate the land that produced your alcoholic mother and workaholic father, or as the case may be, we find that there are villains in the world that aren’t American. Like when they tell the doctor that he’ll lose his license if he removes the bullet without the consent of the hidden tyrants. Human malevolence is not always conceived in the belly of the Yankee. But I’m sure your need to hate your parents takes precedence.
The other side of the coin is, although you might feel called by the God of your fathers to defend the neighborhood from the dark faces, there are plenty of foreigners who would benefit by coming here and defiling our racial and religious purity. Like that guy with the bullet still in him that the hidden tyrants stopped the doctor from removing. As wonderful as the world of television is, desirability and civic responsibility aren’t synonymous with one skin tone. (Wouldn’t that be a relief, if it all weren’t so deadly serious?) Not that I would want to offend a European eye.
“What’d they have to come here for?”
…. Near the end, the social drama philosophy/speech: (N.B. “The Gate” is the government, the mysterious non-democratic regime of the unnamed fictional country.)
“Amani was headstrong, a trait he hadn’t often seen in women, while Yehya’s tenacity never abandoned him, and he never lost his faith in his ability to turn a situation to his favor. Yehya would never admit that he was just a single, powerless man in a society where rules and restrictions were stronger than everything else, stronger than the ruler himself, stronger than the Booth and even the Gate.
Nagy had failed to convince them that everything in the world was interconnected, and that their lives were ruled by a network of intricate and powerful relations. Even things that seemed random operated according to this invisible system, even if the connections couldn’t be seen. Yehya laughed whenever they discussed it seriously, teasing him that the philosophy department had corrupted his mind and destroyed his faith in human nature. Amani would laugh, too—she could never be convinced that the independence she believed she possessed was in truth no more than an accepted illusion, part of a web of relations and contradictions. The Gate itself was an integral part of the system, too, even if from the outside it appeared to pull all the strings.”
…. Which implies for me, that in the face of our powerlessness and interconnectedness, mercy is a necessity.
And it has been observed before that often people as individuals suffer the effects of their society’s collective sins, which are then assumed to be somehow the result of their individual conscious choice, even though they aren’t.
…. And, on the other side, there is judgment on the choices we make.
Hidden Dictator/Cleric/Policeman: Should we admit we hurt him, or just let him die?
The Angel: Surely God is aware of what you do.
Hidden Dictator/Cleric/Policeman: I'm pretty sure we run this country, and not you. Who are you, anyway? You’re a deceiver.
The Angel: Surely I speak only the truth.
Hidden Dictator/Cleric/Policeman: Well you’ll be waiting a long time if you expect me to care about reality or common humanity, let alone the message of God’s justice.
The Angel: Wait, then, O hypocrites. We too are waiting.
Of course from a sort of sociological/scientific realism point of view, Islam as it exists now doesn’t come across too well, but I know them to be capable of so much more, than this.… (altro)