It is a great pleasure for me to host this review of Lavie Tidhar's Unholy Land, written by none other than Cristina Jurado. Hope you enjoy it! And remember that you can also read this review translated into Spanish.
Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar:
Travelling through fragmented reality
Review Soundtrack: Cristina suggests reading this review while listening to a session by Palestinian DJ Sama (YouTube).
This review of Unholy Land is a bit different from others I’ve written over the years. Let me explain you why. Sometimes, you encounter a story at a particular moment, and at a particular place, that changes your whole perspective about the theme. This happened to me while reading Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar, an ARC my friend Elías passed on to me, and for which I am greatly appreciative. You see: I was staying with my in-laws in Lebanon this summer when the novel came to my hands. The most extraordinary is that, right when I was in the middle of the story, we were invited to visit some friends in the South, a small village called Qlayaa, just few kilometers from the border with Israel. In the afternoon, before going back home, our hosts proposed us to go near the border, to Odaisseh, where one can see Israel at the other side of the fence. The contrast is striking: a perfectly manicured landscape over there, and a cluttered and disorganized one, here. I saw other visitors taking pictures with the Italian UN peacekeepers that were patrolling the Lebanese side. For a moment, I could identify with the main character in Unholy Land, Tirosh, the author of unexceptional novels, being a writer myself struggling to be known as an artist. But not only that. Also like him, I often times feel in between worlds. In my case, the Western culture in which I grew up, and the Middle Eastern of my husband. Both of us, I thought, share the sensation of being inserted in a hurry into our realities. I understand that I’m not a character and this is not my story, but I think the circumstances in which I read the book have enormously influence my experience, and I had to made them explicit.
This review of Unholy Land is a bit different from others I’ve written over the years. Let me explain you why. Sometimes, you encounter a story at a particular moment, and at a particular place, that changes your whole perspective about the theme. This happened to me while reading Unholy Land by Lavie Tidhar, an ARC my friend Elías passed on to me, and for which I am greatly appreciative. You see: I was staying with my in-laws in Lebanon this summer when the novel came to my hands. The most extraordinary is that, right when I was in the middle of the story, we were invited to visit some friends in the South, a small village called Qlayaa, just few kilometers from the border with Israel. In the afternoon, before going back home, our hosts proposed us to go near the border, to Odaisseh, where one can see Israel at the other side of the fence. The contrast is striking: a perfectly manicured landscape over there, and a cluttered and disorganized one, here. I saw other visitors taking pictures with the Italian UN peacekeepers that were patrolling the Lebanese side. For a moment, I could identify with the main character in Unholy Land, Tirosh, the author of unexceptional novels, being a writer myself struggling to be known as an artist. But not only that. Also like him, I often times feel in between worlds. In my case, the Western culture in which I grew up, and the Middle Eastern of my husband. Both of us, I thought, share the sensation of being inserted in a hurry into our realities. I understand that I’m not a character and this is not my story, but I think the circumstances in which I read the book have enormously influence my experience, and I had to made them explicit.
In Unholy Land, Tidhar chooses a second person narrator to immediately appeal to the audience. It's a risky move, but I found it very effective, more risky if one takes into consideration that later he alternates also first and third person narrators. But his proves to be an intelligent choice, although revealing why at this point it would mean to spoil the book.
The story follows the journey of an average writer into his native country, an alternate Jewish State called Palestine and created in East Africa (today’s modern Kenya). Tidhar follows the efforts of Hungarian Theodor Herlz in the early 20th century in establishing a suitable land for the Jewish people at an (supposedly) unclaimed territory. While Tirosh goes back home to escape from an unimaginable loss, the disappearance of his niece brings to the surface the violence of the colonial political and economic model, and the existence of cracks in time and space. We discover a fragmented reality, not only through Tirosh or Special Investigator Bloom, the man who follows him and the voice “conductor” of the story, but also through Nur, the female agent who tries to reestablish balance in the time-space continuum.
I must confess I tremendously enjoyed this story. Not only the culture sounded very familiar (Lebanon is even briefly present); the dynamics of a fundamental social fracture -in alternative Palestine it is between Africans and Palestinians- are sadly known territory for everybody who follows the news. Many countries are divided now more than ever, between national sentiments, religious affiliations or political stances. The product of all this is, precisely, a permanent fragmented state of things, in which each group seems to live in their own reality.
Tidhar’s magic touch is the result of a very concise and evocative prose, an ingenious imagination, and the ability to poke the reader’s social conscience. The story nicely flows, like the smoke of a water pipe, and in the descriptions the reader can almost sense the scent of cinnamon, cumin and roasted pine nuts in the streets of Ararat city. Any fan of good speculative fiction with a pitch of noir, some pulp hints and a lot of sense of wonder will enjoy Unholy Land, Lavie Tidhar’s voyage into the power of historical possibilities.
