3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"For me it is always 1983 in Beirut, a year frozen in time, mired in failure.", October 5, 2007
This review is from: Season of Betrayal (Paperback)
In the throes of civil war, 1983 Beirut is a hotbed of warring factions and competing interests, the Americans about to engage in a peacekeeping mission in a place that has known no peace. Journalists gather at common watering holes, in this case The Commodore Hotel, sharing the tales of their wanderings over the globe reporting world events and cheering one another after brutal days best faced in the oblivion of drink. New arrivals, Americans Barrett McCauley and his wife, Lara, join this eclectic band of brothers, most of them, like Mac, addicted to the danger and an urgency to tell a story that can only be written by observers of the daily carnage. At the Commodore, the unofficial headquarters of the Beirut press corps, Lara makes friends with Thomas, a bit of an outcast now that the McCauley's have arrived.
An outsider herself, nothing more than Mac's wife, Lara is attracted to Thomas' sensitivity: "Fluid in the languages and cultures of other lands, he was at home in none."
Clearly Mac is a bully, a fact Lara either ignores or denies, struggling to map out a small territory in a war zone that terrifies her with its recurring carnage and mix of Syrians, Lebanese, Israeli's, Americans, Palestinians, Maronite Christians vs. Druze, Hezbollah, CIA, an ever-changing cast as volatile as the weapons that inundate the city. Her naiveté is stunning and dangerous, inciting Mac's jealousy and brutality, blundering through tradition in her need to explain the inexplicable: "There was no peace. There was no quiet. This was Beirut." Unlike her husband, ever in a hyper-vigilant state much like Frances in Hilary Mantel's Eight Months on Ghazzah Street, Lara clings to Thomas for comfort, careless assumptions fueling her rationalization of the choices she makes.
To understand the nature of the Middle East in 1983, the conflicts that rage unabated, exacerbated by the intrusion of other countries is challenging; but in this tense novel, the debris of death clears incrementally, allowing a view of passionate individuals, true believers, arrogant opportunists, helpless civilians and the international journalists in search of the story, "a place where rampant evil was an inventive, daily occurrence". Lara's passivity is most unsettling... and dangerous, approaching every circumstance of her life dressed as a victim of circumstance. She should leave Mac. She doesn't. She should have realized the danger. She denies it, the theme the fierce partisan battle in Beirut vs. the internal struggle of a woman who continues to betray herself out of fear; unfortunately, her personal discomfort reaches outside the marriage, destroying others, contributing to the chaos. Out of place and out of her depth.
In 1983, Beirut is a pivotal piece of the violent game that will play out over the years, culminating in the destruction of the World Trade Center. Unfortunately, it is Lara's immaturity that defines her time in Beirut, confronted finally by an elderly woman: "You amaze me Lara. All this time here and still you are so clumsy, still you trample like and elephant into such delicate areas." The Ugly American writ small, but deadly. Luan Gaines/2007.
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