Adama

Rating:
Summary: "What would be left of life if we stripped it of feeling?"
Review: As fascinating as this book is for its glimpses of a young man's political and philosophical coming-of-age in Saudi Arabia, it is equally fascinating for what its banning reveals about the several countries which have tried to suppress it. Few western readers will find anything really incendiary here. No specific criticism is made of any individual nations or governments, and the political debate which features so prominently in the action is characteristic of young college students around the world. Yet several Middle Eastern countries have banned it, and four fatwas calling for the death of the author have been issued.

Published in the Middle East in 1998, this novel recreates the awakening of a bright and idealistic Arab student to intellectual and political realities. Hisham al-Abir is only fourteen when a young teacher first inspires him to think critically, and he soon begins to read voraciously in history, political theory, philosophy, and literature. He devours works by nineteenth century Arab nationalists, Marxists, and existentialists, and studies the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. Writings by Che Guevara, Engels, and Lenin compete for his attention with literature by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Gorky, and even Dickens, Pearl Buck, and Flaubert, and he becomes an active debater in his school. Contacts made by an older student and by the school monitor soon lead him to become a "freedom fighter" and member of the Arab Socialist Baath Party, a clandestine organization dedicated to resisting oppression, though he is told, ironically, "Anything I say you must do immediately without discussion. Act first, talk later." It is not long before his exposure to competing ideas causes him to question his commitment to the movement.

Al-Hamad's novel humanizes young men like Hisham, showing his aspirations to many of the same goals as the rest of us. His love for his family, his desire to honor his parents, his idealism, his natural curiosity about the opposite sex, and his commitment to his own heritage show him to be like teenagers around the world. His unquenchable thirst for knowledge of the wider world brings him into direct conflict with the needs of those in power, however, and the author successfully conveys the emotions of this young man and the disillusionment he feels. While the book is a bit didactic and the plot somewhat predictable by western standards, it may offer new realms of thought to the young people who obtain it via the underground in the Middle East. Those of us reading this book in English will appreciate anew the freedom of the press, while perhaps gaining new insights into the conflict between ideas and reality in other parts of the world. Mary Whipple