Book 4: What the Day Owes the Night by Yasmina Khadra

Yasmina Khadra’s “What the Day Owes the Night” tells a heartfelt story about the fight for independence, the fight for love and the fight for self-esteem in a world of uncertainty. This beautifully written book transported me to Northern Africa. It is narrated by Younes, an Arab boy who was forced to leave from his home after his father’s long-awaited harvest is set aflame. Suddenly deprived of his companion dog and a place he calls home, he migrates with his parents and younger sister to Jenane Jato, an Algerian slum possessed with unbelievable poverty. In the authors words, Jenane Jato is described as: 

"a slum of scrubland and shacks teeming with squeaking carts, beggars, hawkers, donkey-drivers struggling with their beasts, water-carriers, charlatans and ragged children; a stifling clay-red wasteland of dust and filth that clung to the walls of the city like a malignant tumour.” 

It was this futile life that drove his father to send Younes to live with his rich uncle in Rio Salado, a beautiful city on the west of Oran, Algeria. Rio Salado’s beauty is in stark contrast to Jenane Jato--there, “everything the sunlight touched turned to dream.” It is in sunny Rio Salado that Younes (renamed Jonas) makes friends with three other boys about his age. Like a “pitchfork,” they were inseparable.  Through their ageless friendships, the author explores loyalty, brotherly love and integrity.
Younes is educated and becomes a pharmacist like his uncle but life still dealt him many hard blows. Algeria is suddenly torn apart in a devastating war for independence and he must choose his fate; is he Younes or Jonas, Algerian Muslim or French Christian? Worse still, his love life is in shambles. Emilie, his childhood crush and now most beautiful girl in town, confesses her love to him but his youthful fling deems their relationship sacrilegious. Needless to say, even his love life is a story of war.
Younes' love life may have turned out a little different had he listened to his uncle, a happily married man who is kind-hearted and full of wisdom. About women, he says:

“Sunset, springtime, the blue of the sea, the stars in the sky, all the things that entrance us exert their magic only in the orbit of woman, my son...Because beauty, the one, true, unique beauty is woman. The rest, all the rest, exists simply to adorn her.”

Now you know why I’m in awe of his character :).
I have to say, this was a timely read for love month! Though I was sometimes frustrated with the love story, the overall plot was fast-paced, rich and intensely engaging. The author definitely has a way with words; his descriptions of poverty, emotions, beauty and grime were astounding! I will definitely go back to collect more quotes from the book. I highly recommend!

Rating: 5 bows

Yasmina Khadra's What the Day Owes the Night is available on Amazon

Click here to purchase

Book 3: Open City by Teju Cole

Last year, I read Teju Cole's Every Day is for the Thief and really enjoyed it. I was excited to learn about Open City but I'm afraid that my excitement didn't last past the first few pages of the book.

Teju Cole’s Open City is about Julius, a German-Nigerian physician, who resides in New York City. Julius, who has a somewhat supernatural ability to pay close attention to the mundane, wanders around the streets of New York reflecting on bed bugs, birds, his childhood in Nigeria, past and present relationships, culture, music, art and everything in between. Julius’s character is unlike any human being I have ever encountered which makes it very hard for me to believe that he is a real person. He is the type that has a well-informed opinion on just about anything. Being a full-time medical doctor in a busy academic center, it is quite preposterous how knowledgeable he is in not one but several other subjects such as history, classical music, art and philosophy to name a few. He remembers random lines from poems or books he read many years earlier. Even his friends or strangers he encounters are not "regular" folks but rather, folks with especially heightened sense of intellectual curiosity and vitality. Ah..who are these people? Or should I say, are these real people or are they simply projections of Julius’s imagination?

Albeit, in the last two chapters, the author tried to portray Julius as a human being but by then it was too late. Even the seemingly real interactions at this point in the book appeared abrupt and forced. However, it was in these last few pages that I found a quote I’ll definitely ponder on for a while. I would like to share it with those who will not make it to this part of the book:

"Each person must, on some level, take himself as the calibration point for normalcy, must assume that the room of his own mind is not, cannot be, entirely opaque to him. Perhaps this is what sanity is: that, whatever our self-admitted eccentricities might be, we are not the villains of our own stories. "

Overall, I found Teju Cole’s Open City monotonous, flat and boring. Flipping the pages was like pulling teeth--I was un-engaged for the most part and prayed earnestly that the book should end. I applaud myself and anyone else who reads this book cover to cover. We get 5 bows for making it through and Teju Cole gets 2 bows for helping us realize our resilience and patience.  

Rating: 2 bows

 

Teju Cole’s Open City is available on Amazon

Click here to purchase