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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"A Thousand Times More Awesome Than the Attacks of September 11", September 10, 2007
Yasmin Khadra (a female pseudonym for Mohammed Moulessehoul) in his novel THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD takes the reader inside the head of a young unnamed first-person narrator who has been recruited for a secret mission, the nature of which he himself does not know when the story begins when he has just arrived in Beirut to carry out the mission: "All I know is, what's been planned will be the greatest operation ever carried out on enemy territory, a thousand times more awesome than the attacks of September 11. . . ." The rest of this chilling novel covers the events in this young man's life that get him to this appointment with destiny.
The narrator was a humanities student who had to leave the University of Baghdad when the American forces invaded Iraq and return to his home in the remote village of Kafr Karam. Gentle and nonviolent by nature, he lives a relatively quiet life with his sisters and aging parents. "I had nothing to complain about in my parents' house. I could be satisfied with little. I lived on the roof, in a remodeled laundry room." Although he had no television, he listened to a "tinny radio." Then three events occur that make the narrator willing to do anything to get vengence against the American soldiers whom one character describes as shooting first and verifying later. He witnesses the killing of a retarded youth about his age by American soldiers at a checkpoint when he starts running away. The Americans mistakenly believe he might be carrying explosives. Then an American plane drops a missle on a wedding party. Finally soldiers break into the home of the narrator's family looking for terrorists and commit an atrocity that "a Westerner can't undertand," as the family is disgraced.
The young narrator returns to Baghdad, a man on a monomaniacal mission, where he encounters more violence and ignorance from all sides, betrayal and where his views clash with that of his friend Omar who tells him: "No one owns the truth." Although certainly most Westerners will disagree vehemently with most of the young narrator's conclusions, this novel is instructive as to the hopelessness and rage that can blind someone who has experienced what the narrator has and turn him into an Islamic fundamentalist terrorist.
To call this novel unsettling would be a gross understatement. It is frightening beyond measure. We have to ask ourselves (without revealing more of the plot) if the narrator's mission is possible. We can no longer call novels like this science fiction. It should be read with another finely-written, nuanced novel, THE RELUCTANT FUNDAMENTALIST.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Major Disappointment: But Don't Cancel My Subscription!, August 9, 2007
For the past few years I have been one of the biggest advocates for the works of Yasmina Khadra, especially the 'Swallows of Kabul,' which I found to be one of the most poetically powerful works of modern prose that I have ever read. I waited with such anticipation the 'Sirens of Baghdad,' hoping that it would serve as his defining opus.
But first, let me make it perfectly clear, I am not an advocate of George W. Bush's preemptive strategy that got us into Iraq. Yet I do take exception with Mr. Khadra's singular characterization of the tragedies of that war as being a manifestation of arrogant American imperialists ravaging a proud, noble Iraqi people; the analogy a la Graham Greene's renderings in 'The Quiet American' is a little shaky in this case. Could it not be said that a preponderance of the bloody violence in Iraq is inspired by ancient Shia vs. Sunni rivalries? This consideration, however, does not even remotely factor into the abyss of which he paints. Beyond that, while it had its moments of magic, I found much of the the book strung together with a series of clichés I associate with writers far below his caliber.
I regreted having to make these negative remarks, because I have found Mr. Khadra to be very gracious in responding to my inquiries. I truly hope that his next book will indeed live up to all of the notoriety---which he deserves---of his being France's best novelists since Albert Camus.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
What Price Honor, and How Does One Measure Revenge?, May 21, 2007
The concluding sentence of Yasmina Khadra's latest book, THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD, magnificently encapsulates the present-day Middle East and the worldviews of too many Westerners and Middle Easterners alike. Speaking from a hillside overlooking Beirut, the unnamed first-person narrator states, "I concentrate on the lights of the city, which I was never able to perceive through the anger of men."
THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD is essentially two books. For its first 240 pages, it is a study in the formation of a non-religious terrorist. The unnamed protagonist begins as a university student in Baghdad, a Bedouin from a remote Iraqi village named Kafr Karam. For this young man, college represents more than an opportunity for advanced education; it is family pride rstored, a pathway to a successful career, and a means to secure his family's future. The U.S.-led war in Iraq in 2003 forces the student to return home to Kafr Karam, and the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime mirrors the decline in the protagonist's fortunes.
When the neighbor blacksmith's young, mentally handicapped son loses two fingers to a metal gate, the narrator accompanies him for an emergency trip to the hospital, only to see the boy gunned down on the way there by American soldiers at a checkpoint. Not long after, an American drone missile explodes in the middle of a village wedding party, killing seventeen women and children. The final insult occurs when American soldiers invade the narrator's own home in the middle of the night in search of weapons. During their incursion, they treat the narrator's father so poorly that he involuntarily exposes himself to his son, described as the ultimate indignity for an Arab man and his family. "For Bedouin," the narrator tells us, "...honor is no joking matter. An offense must be washed away in blood, which is the sole authorized detergent when it's a question of keeping one's self-respect." Later in the book, he explains, "Either live like a man or die as a martyr - there's no other alternative for one who wants to be free....I'm waiting for the moment when I'll recover my self-esteem, without which a man is nothing but a stain." Thus, the sirens of the title are many - the siren call of commercial Western culture, the lure of terrorism and violence for revenge, and of course, the sirens sounding alert during warfare.
This succession of increasingly close at hand tragedies and affronts leads an otherwise secular and educated young man to seek revenge on their source, the ugly Westerners by joining a small terrorist cell. Time slows to a crawl for the narrator as he receives training and a series of small jobs by which he can prove himself. Up to this point, the book offers a chilling and realistic look into the making of a terrorist while simultaneously criticizing the West by inference for being the creator of its own enemies. The narrator's motivation is not religious fanaticism or radical fundamentalish, just revenge against the perceived abuses and animalistic behavior of these foreign invaders.
The final third of THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD devolves into a low grade and rather far-fetched Robert Ludlum thriller with a dash of James Bond added for good measure. The narrator, motivated by revenge but hardly a rabid, heartless killer, passes what seems a rather thin screening process in Baghdad and becomes the chosen vessel for the ultimate act of terrorism in London. It is a truly apocalyptic plan that will bring the West, and the rest of the world, to its knees. While he waits, the narrator steels himself for this coup de gras, this fatal thrust into the British heart of the Satanic West. He travels to Beirut with false identity and papers to receive his final instructions and the means by which he will conduct his awful revenge. Yet as the final moments approach for him to move forward on his mission, he must decide if the ends - his and his people's - justify the awful means he represents.
As he demonstrated earlier in THE SWALLOWS OF KABUL and THE ATTACK, Khadra is an accomplished storyteller with keen insight into the Middle Eastern mindset and culture. His stories are well-paced, and we find ourselves identifying, even empathizing, with his protagonists. Khadra's stories, especially his two most recent, strive to help Westerners see themselves through secular, well-educated Arabic eyes. There is much for us to see and learn from the vantage point he offers. THE SIRENS OF BAGHDAD is a welcomed addition to Khadra's growing body of work.
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