An Unnecessary Woman

Posted on 08 May 2017 by Rabih Alameddine

One of Beirut s most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, The Hakawati, with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut s beauties and horrors along the way.Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family s unnecessary appendage Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away The thirty seven books that Aaliya has translated have never been read by anyone After overhearing her neighbors, the three witches, discussing her too white hair, Aaliya accidentally dyes her hair too blue.In this breathtaking portrait of a reclusive woman s late life crisis, readers follow Aaliya s digressive mind as it ricochets across visions of past and present Beirut Insightful musings on literature, philosophy, and art are invaded by memories of the Lebanese Civil War and Aaliya s volatile past As she tries to overcome her aging body and spontaneous emotional upwellings, Aaliya is faced with an unthinkable disaster that threatens to shatter the little life she has left.A love letter to literature and its power to define who we are, the gifted Rabih Alameddine has given us a nuanced rendering of a single woman s reclusive life in the Middle East. Best Read An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine For Kindle ePUB or eBook – kino-fada.fr Although I know the characters of a novel as a collection of scenes as well, as accumulated sentences in my head I feel I know them better than I do my mother I fill in the blanks with literary personas better than I do with real people, or maybe I makeof an effort I know Lolita s mother better than I do mine, and I must say, I feel herthan I feel my mother I recognize Rembrandt s painted face of his mother better than I recognize the real face of mine Aaliya s city otherwise Although I know the characters of a novel as a collection of scenes as well, as accumulated sentence...Rabih Alameddine is a name dropper By page 61 of this really exceptional novel he had dropped Sebald, Bolano, Svevo, Pessoa, Javier Mar as, Dickens, Calvino, Balzac, Nabokov, Conrad, Donne, Bataille, Miller, Moravia, Shulz, Chekov, de Sade, Jong, Keats, Proulx, Garner, Rilke, Marquez, Burroughs, Mann, Becket, Welty, Saramago, Cioran and his favorite Arab writers of erotica al Tifashi, al Tijani and al Tusi He has something to say about each of them An...This was an unnecessary read for me until the last several pages in which I could fully appreciate the extent and expanse of the story, the character Prior to that, it was depressive and heavily laden with poetical and literary references that were hurting my head This is the story of 72 year old Aaliya, from Lebanon A reflection of her life which she deemed as unnecessary Her definition being she was a divorcee, a mediocre cook and childless Yet, she was highly educated, well versed in This was an unnecessary read for me until the last several pages in which I could fully appreciate the extent and expanse of the story, the character Prior to that, it was depressive and heavily laden with poetical and literary references that were hurting my h...Rating 4.25 of fiveThe Publisher Says One of Beirut s most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, The Hakawati, with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut s beauties and horrors along the way.Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family s unnecessary appendage Every year, she translates a n Rating 4.25 of fiveThe Publisher Says One of Beirut s most celebrated voices, Rabih Alameddine follows his international bestseller, The Hakawati, with a heartrending novel that celebrates the singular life of an obsessive introvert, revealing Beirut s beauties and horrors along the way.Aaliya Sohbi lives alone in her Beirut apartment, surrounded by stockpiles of books Godless, fatherless, divorced, and childless, Aaliya is her family s unnecessary appendage Every year, she translates a new favorite book into Arabic, then stows it away The thirty seven books that Aaliya has translated have never been read by anyone After overhearing her neighbors, the three witches, discu...Update to review, October, 2017 First, I agree with my initial review completely I love the book, again, in the same and new ways This time I read itslowly, giving attention to Alameddine s prose, his style and the actual words and phrases he used in describing Aaliya, her neighbors, family, neighborhood...The usual mood that prevails while reading An Unnecessary Woman is something that can be observed during the time of a candid conversation with a fellow book lover who not only share your passion for books but also have similar reading preferences for most of the part Mention of a personal favorite writer here, an interesting anecdote there and embellishing such dreamlike atmosphere with some lovely quotes It s like a sensible pampering of a reader s soul in the most fun and exciting way pos The usual mood that prevails while reading An Unnecessary Woman is something that can be observed during the time of a candid conversation with a fellow book lover who not only share your passion for books but also have similar reading preferences for most of the part Mention of a personal favorite writer here, an interesting anecdote there and embellishing such dreamlike atmosphere with some lovely quotes It s like a sensible pampering of a reader s soul in the most fun and exciting way possible I m not sure that the discovery of love is necessarilyexquisite than the discovery of poetry, orsensuous for that matter.Under the perforated shade of Lebanese skyline, the window...Was it necessary to read An Unnecessary Woman About a woman in the twilight of her life, a product of rusted times A woman from a foreign land, and of foreign blood A woman who offered pursed whimpers amid teeth that reeked soupy yellow One with a musty room and a flickering temper A borderline linguist who made peace with the unspoken word She was nothingthan a drifting sprinkle of dust in this swirling world of men and ambition May be, it wasn t It wasn t necessary at all to re Was it necessary to read An Unnecessary Woman About a woman in the twilight of her life, a product of rusted times A woman from a foreign land, and of foreign blood A woman who offered pursed whimpers amid teeth that reeked soupy yellow One with a musty room and a flickering temper A borderline linguist who made peace with the unspoken word She was nothingthan a drifting sprinkle of dust in this swirling world of men and ambition May be, it...There is actually no such thing as atheism There is no such thing as not worshipping Everybody worships The only choice we get is what to worship David Foster Wallace Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God once reminded us before He too evaporated in this age of relentless humiliations that we arethan ourselves that we have souls Richard FlanaganAaliya does not believe in God to her he is There is actually no such thing as atheism There is no such thing as not worshipping Everybody worships The only choice we get is what to worship David Foster Wallace Perhaps reading and writing books is one of the last defences human dignity has left, because in the end they remind us of what God onc...The words in my element flashed through my mind several times as I was reading this book because I was literally in my element, as if the adverb literally and the phrase in my element had been invented so that I could apply them to the experience of reading An Unnecessary Woman It seemed as if the book concerned me and my life in a very personal way, though I am not a self taught Lebanese intellectual, as is Rabih Alameddine s narrator, Aaliya Sohbi If the book spoke to me so intimately, The words in my element flashed through my mind several times as I was reading this book because I was literally in my element, as if the adverb literally and the phrase in my element had been invented so that I could apply them to the experience of reading An Unnecessary Woman It seemed as if the book concerned me and my life in a very personal way, though I am not a self taught Lebanese i...4.5 Rating Until I came to page 195 I was sure I was going to give this book a 5 star rating The positives for this book are STRONG The negative on the top half of page 195 does not sit right with me This is what The New York Times wrote about this book I almost agree An Unnecessary Woman is a meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief, and resilience If there are flaws to this beautiful and absorbing novel, they are not readily appar 4.5 Rating Until I came to page 195 I was sure I was going to give this book a 5 star rating The positives for this book are STRONG The negative on the top half of page 195 does not sit right with me This is what The New York Times wrote about this book I almost agree An Unnecessary Woman is a meditation on, among other things, aging, politics, literature, loneliness, grief, and resilience If there are flaws to this beautiful and absorbing novel, they are not readily apparent YES THE FLAW on page 195 completely shifted my zen space of enjoyable reading experience What the author wrote at the top of page 195 did not ADD ANY value to the storytelling it wasn t worth the risk Being Jewish I was offended I would bet Israeli s might feel pissed But damn I don t want to make this entire review about one paragraph Yet make clear I didn t like it As for the rest of the book personal emotions aside for page 195 I LOVED LOVED EVERYTH...

English
08 May 2017

Rabih Alameddine