The Cyclist: A Novel

Rating:
Summary: Style over Substance
Review: This absurdist debut is notable for its distinctive prose style, a highly manufactured cadence that sometimes sparkles with playfulness, and other times is cheezy and labored. The storyówhat little there is of itóconcerns a would-be terrorist whose mission is to deliver a bomb by bicycle to a luxury Beirut hotel in time for a major conference. Most of the book finds the roly-poly cyclist in intensive care in a hospital, recovering from a training accident. He lies there reminiscing over the events that took him to this place, and the people in his life, all of whom come to visit. The final part describes the actual day of the plot and the decision facing the cyclist when he instructed to graduate from delivery boy to suicide bomber.

If this sounds like a thriller, it isn'tóthere no dramatic tension, and there really isn't supposed to be. Instead, there is a series of loosely arranged vignettes, which serve to instill impressions rather than a concrete sense of the people or story. The terrorist in training belongs to a fringe group called "The Academy", whose views are ever-shifting but are apparently (per page 85) some kind of Israeli-sponsored "destabilizing" commando unit. The cyclist is given some motivation (a marketplace bombing in his village as a youth), but his group and his mission are so absurd (he's supposed to enter a cycling race in order to "blend in"?) that his situation can't be taken seriously as an insight to terrorist thought. What's more interesting is that he's an Israeli of mixed Druze/Jewish parentage, a choice Berberian makes for a reason, but it's not clear what that reason is. This is a point several reviewers have gotten completely wrong, calling him Lebanese (When he refers to fighter jets over Beirutóonly Israeli jets fly over Beirutóhe calls them "ours", and at one point he is brought a package of Bamba snacksóan Israeli productóto "remind him of home"). Other characters are ciphers: the flamboyant leader of his group, the loyal lover/childhood friend, the wizened grandfather, etc.

However, sights, sounds, and especially smells are quite vividly conveyed, especially when it comes to food, which is the central concern for the narrator. Indeed, foodies will revel in the lush descriptions of a wide variety of Middle Eastern dishes which Berberian writes about with a deft touch. Less deft is his use of simile: consider groan-inducing phrases such as "my dimensions were as big as a de Kooning canvas" or others like it. The prose is liberally dosed with rhyming couplets which can be fun to hunt for (they're not set off), but are at times too labored and coy. A neat trick, but in the service of what? Altogether, it's far too self-concious for its own good, and reads like a writing class project rather than a finished work.

Rating:
Summary: Style over Substance
Review: This absurdist debut is notable for its distinctive prose style, a highly manufactured cadence that sometimes sparkles with playfulness, and other times is cheezy and labored. The storyówhat little there is of itóconcerns a would-be terrorist whose mission is to deliver a bomb by bicycle to a luxury Beirut hotel in time for a major conference. Most of the book finds the roly-poly cyclist in intensive care in a hospital, recovering from a training accident. He lies there reminiscing over the events that took him to this place, and the people in his life, all of whom come to visit. The final part describes the actual day of the plot and the decision facing the cyclist when he instructed to graduate from delivery boy to suicide bomber.

If this sounds like a thriller, it isn'tóthere no dramatic tension, and there really isn't supposed to be. Instead, there is a series of loosely arranged vignettes, which serve to instill impressions rather than a concrete sense of the people or story. The terrorist in training belongs to a fringe group called "The Academy", whose views are ever-shifting but are apparently (per page 85) some kind of Israeli-sponsored "destabilizing" commando unit. The cyclist is given some motivation (a marketplace bombing in his village as a youth), but his group and his mission are so absurd (he's supposed to enter a cycling race in order to "blend in"?) that his situation can't be taken seriously as an insight to terrorist thought. What's more interesting is that he's an Israeli of mixed Druze/Jewish parentage, a choice Berberian makes for a reason, but it's not clear what that reason is. This is a point several reviewers have gotten completely wrong, calling him Lebanese (When he refers to fighter jets over Beirutóonly Israeli jets fly over Beirutóhe calls them "ours", and at one point he is brought a package of Bamba snacksóan Israeli productóto "remind him of home"). Other characters are ciphers: the flamboyant leader of his group, the loyal lover/childhood friend, the wizened grandfather, etc.

However, sights, sounds, and especially smells are quite vividly conveyed, especially when it comes to food, which is the central concern for the narrator. Indeed, foodies will revel in the lush descriptions of a wide variety of Middle Eastern dishes which Berberian writes about with a deft touch. Less deft is his use of simile: consider groan-inducing phrases such as "my dimensions were as big as a de Kooning canvas" or others like it. The prose is liberally dosed with rhyming couplets which can be fun to hunt for (they're not set off), but are at times too labored and coy. A neat trick, but in the service of what? Altogether, it's far too self-concious for its own good, and reads like a writing class project rather than a finished work.

Rating:
Summary: A Fast and Poetic Ride/Furiously Cool
Review: This book reminds me of the existentialist writers, who at the
core believed that life is absurd. It's a complex read in spite of its brevity. There is a lot of punning in the book. I highly reccommend it to anyone who has spent time in the Middle East or anyone who wants to understand it from an uncommon and untold point of view. At times, the gallows humor makes you wince, but in spite of the narrator's initial cynicism (which he outgrows), it is ultimately a very humane book, full of surprises. Like life, it doesn't end neatly. I highly recommend it, especially for a second read.