Osama: A Novel [Paperback]

Lavie Tidhar (Author)

Book Description

Release date: October 9, 2012

"The author of Osama is young, ambitious, skilled and original. Osama is an ingenious inversion of modern history: Osama bin Laden is the central character in a string of pulp novels allegedly written by one Mike Longschott. The terrorist crimes exist, in this novel, in a different realm...excellent, evocative and atmospheric." - Award-winning novelist and author of The Prestige Christopher Priest

In a alternate world without global terrorism Joe, a private detective, is hired by a mysterious woman to find a man: the obscure author of pulp fiction novels featuring one Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante...Chased by unknown assailants, Joe’s identity slowly fragments as he discovers the shadowy world of the refugees, ghostly entities haunting the world in which he lives. Where do they come from? And what do they want?

Lavie Tidhar was in Dar-es-Salaam during the American embassy bombings in 1998, and stayed in the same hotel as the Al Qaeda operatives in Nairobi. Since then he and his now-wife have narrowly avoided both the 2005 London, King’s Cross and 2004 Sinai attacks—experiences that led to the creation of Osama.

In a alternate world without global terrorism Joe, a private detective, is hired by a mysterious woman to find a man: the obscure author of pulp fiction novels featuring one Osama Bin Laden: Vigilante...

Joe’s quest to find the man takes him across the world, from the backwaters of Asia to the European Capitals of Paris and London, and as the mystery deepens around him there is one question he is trying hard not to ask: who is he, really, and how much of the books are fiction? Chased by unknown assailants, Joe’s identity slowly fragments as he discovers the shadowy world of the refugees, ghostly entities haunting the world in which he lives. Where do they come from? And what do they want? Joe knows how the story should end, but even he is not ready for the truths he’ll find in New York and, finally, on top a quiet hill above Kabul—nor for the choice he will at last have to make...

In Osama, Lavie Tidhar brilliantly delves into the post-9/11 global subconscious, mixing together elements of film noir, non-fiction, alternative history and international thriller to create an unsettling—yet utterly compelling—portrayal of our times.

WINNER OF THE 2012 WORLD FANTASY AWARD FOR BEST NOVEL.

"An awesome book, dark, twisty alt-universe terrorist noir" - Lauren Beukes, author of Zoo City

‘Bears comparison with the best of Philip K Dick’s paranoid, alternate-history fantasies. It’s beautifully written and undeniably powerful.’ - The Financial Times

‘A strange, melancholy and moving refl ection, torquing politics with the fantastic, and vice virtuosically versa.’- best selling author China Miéville

‘Not a writer to mess around with half measures…brings to mind Philip K Dick’s seminal science fiction novel The Man in the High Castle.’ - The Guardian

‘The author is young, ambitious, skilled and original. Osama is an ingenious inversion of modern history...excellent, evocative and atmospheric.’- best selling author Christopher Priest

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Born on a kibbutz in Israel, Lavie Tidhar’s unusual childhood has inspired a life devoted in equal parts to books and to travelling. He has lived and travelled in Southern Africa for years and is a keen player of the ancient game of Bao. He’s since spent nearly a decade living in London before setting off again. He spent a year living in a bamboo shack on a remote island in the South Pacific – “I still miss the volcanoes, sometimes,” he said – and two years in South East Asia, followed by a couple of years back in Israel. He is now back living in London, a city he finds endlessly captivating.

Lavie is a prolific writer, keeping up a steady stream of highly-regarded novels, novellas and short stories. He has been described as an “emerging master” by Locus Magazine, with his work compared to the late, great Philip K. Dick’s in both The Guardian and the Financial Times. His novels include the Bookman Histories trilogy of steampunk novels – comprising The Bookman (2010), Camera Obscura (2011), and The Great Game (2012) – which borrow equally from mythology, classic literature, pulp fiction and noir and kung-fu cinema.

Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Solaris; Original edition (October 9, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1781080755
• ISBN-13: 978-1781080757
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #787,844 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Hallucinatory and Half-Baked April 23, 2013

By nullpointer

Format:Paperback

I tried extremely hard to like this book. I was immediately sold on it the moment I saw it due to the Philip K Dick comparisons, the theme, the artwork, etc. I began my reading at a fast and steady pace, but not long after I started, the book began to become a mire of sorts, and my reading slowed down, and I eventually quit. Several months later, I picked it back up, determined to finish it, everything in my head, on the internet, and on the front and back covers of the book was telling me that I would love this book, but ultimately it became a very painful and un-enjoyable reading experience. Having read and enjoyed a variety of surreal, hallucinatory, or just avant-garde literature, I expected that those elements of Osama would be enjoyable. However, I found Osama to be poorly executed, lacking in effort, and full of a constant, lazy, and clunky surreal atmosphere. Osama suffers most from Tidhar's lack of skill in writing a novel that is so constantly "fuzzy". Creating a novel-length work that is constantly hazy and spectral is hard enough, keeping it compelling and making sure it doesnt become clumsy and boring is even harder. It takes a certain skill to execute a book like this, and which Tidhar unfortunately lacks. The concepts and ideas that Tidhar envisioned for Osama are full of potential and in theory would make for great story telling, and I hope another author tackles something similar to Osama soon. I am still craving a sci-fi-tinged look at our paranoid post 9/11 world where terrorism pervades.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Missed a few spots, but overall worth the read December 3, 2012

By Matt Smith

Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm really unsure about this book. I've moved between two and four stars so many times that I'd better just stick with three, but I can't.

This review contains spoilers that may ruin the book for you. After the tl;dr, which is safe to read, continue at your own risk. I won't be using the spoiler tag.

tl;dr
There's no satisfying conclusion, no detailed explanation, and some really overused techniques; it's really hard to grab hold of it and take it seriously. However, the book has a fascinating premise and tries to do home really interesting things with language. It even partially succeeds. The four stars are awarded partially on the strength of the attempt, but mostly on the questions of choice and identity that Tidhar raises, answering only with the least satisfying anti-western conclusion imaginable.
/tl;dr

The longer version should begin with an excerpt:

This was the third or fourth bar he's tried, each one dingier than the other, in each subsequent one the music quieter, the lights dimmer, the drinking more intense. There were women there, from Asia and Africa and Europe, a cosmopolitan blend who all wore the same exaggerated makeup, the same too-short skirts, the same look in their eyes that was at once an evaluation and a wariness and an invitation, and deeper than that, a great restless tiredness resembling fear, and the men who came to the bars returned that look with one of their own, a corresponding mix of hunger and reticence and unvarnished need and a little bit of shame: they were a dance, Joe thought, an intricate wavering pattern criss-crossing and hatching like the web of train lines outside of St. Lazare, criss-crossing and hatching, but never quite meeting, and if they ever did it would be fatal.

The book is full of language like that. I can (and did) imagine the narration over a dark, smoky black and white film. I heard Bogart's voice. Later, when elements from Casablanca were recreated, I either rolled my eyes or laughed. I'm not sure which. Maybe both.

Here's the thing - the narration is so stereotypical that it's really hard to take seriously. So is Joe, the protagonist. He has no last name and no identity outside of "detective." He has no motives other than investigation. He likes bad scotch, smokes too much, and drinks too much coffee. I hated him and wondered how a book centered on this character could win any award the author didn't pay for.

I normally give the bad, then the good, but I can't do that here. I can't give the good without giving an overview of the plot, and I hate giving plot overviews. Oh, well.

The novel is set in a universe in which terrorism isn't real. Osama bin Laden is a character in a series of pulp books written by a guy named Mike Longshott. Joe, the bland protagonist, really likes those books. He's in in his office when a woman appears. He doesn't see her come in, she just does. She gives Joe a credit card and tells him to find a guy the author. Without discussing payment, he agrees.

He hops around the world looking first for Medusa Press, then the author. He's harassed by two different groups, one obviously law enforcement, the other some kind of criminal organization. People smoke opium like crazy in order to dream, which Joe can't do. The one time he experiences opium, he dreams - and finds himself in our world, the real world.

In the end, we discover that Joe is one of countless refugees from our more violent world, that he doesn't belong in the world in which he finds himself. These refugees exist in varying states of solidity, sometimes disappearing from existence entirely. When Joe sleeps, he ceases to be. Other characters have entered nonexistence permanently, presumably because they never developed a real identity.

The woman who hired him to find Longshott is a lover or a friend from our world, trying desperately to convince Joe to become who he once was. He has a moment of clarity but refuses to accept the name she gives him. The book ends with Joe at his desk, doing nothing, accepting his life as a literal stereotype.

So at the end, we see all of Tidhar's hamfisted and stereotypical choices actually mean something. The language he uses changes at different points in the book to match the level of awareness Joe seems to have of reality and of himself. It's not so hamfisted after all.

I felt unsatisfied at the end of the book, but I really feel that it was intentional. Despite its obvious flaws, I think this is a really smart story. It could have been executed better, but it was well worth the read.

For a westerner in love with the idea of individuality and agency, Joe's choice might make no sense. It screams "don't take the easy way out" to anyone paying attention. I would hope that I would choose to be myself no matter how difficult it made the world seem. If I'm honest, I can only shake my head as I count the times I allowed myself to be subsumed under something that wasn't real simply because it was the easier path.