Read Around the World Challenge: Lebanon

“We, like most humans, consider history a lesson on a blackboard that can be sponged off.”

The author, Rabih Alameddine was born in Jordan to Lebanese parents, and grew up in Kuwait and Lebanon. An Unnecessary Woman is a beautifully-written, award-winning literary fiction about Aaliya, an elderly woman, a book-loving recluse, living in Beirut. Through her somewhat irreverent and cynical eyes we see Beirut from the 1950s to the 2000s.

For the first half of the book I was enthralled by the glorious writing. The second half of the book lost my attention as there is very little plot, and the constant references to different works of literature became irksome.

This was a stunning book with lots of beautiful lines, but could have been at least one hundred pages shorter. Some of my favourite quotes are:

“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.”

“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.”

“Memory chooses to preserve what desire cannot hope to sustain.”

“We rarely consider that we're also formed by the decisions we didn't make, by events that could have happened but didn't, or by our lack of choices, for that matter.”

“There is none more conformist than one who flaunts his individuality.”

“you can tell how well a marriage is working by counting the bite marks on each partner’s tongue.”

“Mine is a face that would have trouble launching a canoe.”

“Forced learning and magic are congenital adversaries”

“The receding perspective of my past smothers my present. Remembering is the malignancy that feeds on my now.” ( )

This is one of those delightful books that makes you stop and want to write down bits of it in order to remember the words forever. The cover reviewer is correct - this book does break your heart - so beware.
The main character is a so-called "unnecessary woman", living in Lebanon during the civil war. No one seems to want or need her, even her husband. She spends her life translating writers, storing up boxes of gradually bettering translations of the classics and new writers into Arabic.
I loved this complaining, grumbly women. She's 72, but I can identify with her feelings of invisibility and her need for something significant to hang onto. I traveled through this book, gradually coming to dread the end - both because I thought it would end one way (it doesn't) and because I feel I've lost the kind of person I would have loved to have spent afternoons with, discussing literature.
The true pleasure in this book are the selected words of other writers and her wise, cheeky, worldly interpretation of them.
Highly highly recommended. I found myself smiling throughout and weeping near the end. Truly a read to wallow in.
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Interesting, SO many books to read! ( )

Aaliah Saleh resides in her old apartment in Beirut. She has translated 37 books into Arabic via a convoluted system, making 1 translation a year, but never submitted them for publication. She is in love with certain books and certain writers, Pessoa and his other identities especially.

In her 60s now, and having spent much of her life in solitude she reflects on her family with whom she has little to do, and the overheard title-tattle of three other women who live in her block.

While I liked this book, and some elements are likely to stay with me, I think other LTers enjoyed it more. ( )

Set in Beirut, the narrator is a reclusive 72 year old woman, Aaliya Saleh, struggling to maintain dignity, while coming to terms with aging and she reflects on the past and her life, through the books she’s read.

I enjoyed the ramblings of this beautiful soul. I loved how each of her thoughts led to other thoughts as she repeatedly digressed and interrupted herself and it didn’t matter as everything flowed so well. And the books she mentions …. there are sooooo many books! There is heaps of information packed into such a short book and all so interesting. I laughed, I watched and waited with trepidation, I cringed, I was overwhelmed with sadness and was left with much to think about as I began to care so much about Aaliya, as time progressed. This is my first time reading a book by Rabih Alameddine. It is a Bookclub read and am looking forward to the discussion in a few weeks time. ( )