Customer Reviews

Story of a City: A Childhood in Amman (Literature)

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This book provides a captivating view into daily life in Amman for a child growing up in the 1940s. Although the book consists of memoirs, Munif writes entirely in the third person, and the translator has used the "habitual would" instead of simple past tense, both of which serve to bring the reader into the immediacy of the context. The book focuses on general description rather than on personal experience, giving a flavor more of the city than of the life of a particular child. The historical information about general living conditions in 1940s Amman is quite fascinating, covering such topics as the various schools, medical clinics, markets, and children's past times, as well as the looming presence of war. The author is the recipient of numerous literary awards; the excellence of his craft comes clearly through the translation.

Although I very much enjoyed the descriptions of Amman and the people in Amman, I had a very hard time pulling through the book.

The style is very copious and hard to get through. Many of the descriptions are worth reading and are interesting, but as far as seeing the authors point at the memoirs, he doesn't get to until the end.
At the end you feel like the author had to get all of descriptions out of his mind on paper in order to start a new chapter in his life in Iraq. The only common motif throughotu the novel is the grandmother. Although descriptions and people come and go, the grandmother is at the beginning and the end fo the novel.
A lot of historical background is necessary in order to fully comprehend the details and events described in the memoris.