“No Knives in the Kitchens of This City” by Khaled Khalifa is a heartbreaking story of a Syrian family navigating Aleppo as politics, the president and loyalties ravage the city. Khalifa, who was born in Aleppo, is the author of four novels and the editor of the literary magazine Alif. He does not hold back in his descriptions of how Aleppo, from the 1960s to the 2000s, has fallen around families who have no choice but to live through the disasters. Translated into English by Leri Price in 2016, the novel won the Naguib Mahfouz Medal for Literature in 2013 and was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2014.
Khalifa’s story is told and retold by his characters who long for the past when life was not as difficult. Following one family, the novel reveals the story of a mother who died “ten years too late,” according to her son. Her family must find their way through the streets of Aleppo amid its dwindling lettuce fields, overcrowded streets and loyal party members looking for allegiances and punishing those who do not praise the leader as they do.
Not a loyalist and marred by misfortune, the mother must make do with her life, even if her son’s birthday is marked by the Ba’athist coup of 1963, an event in history she despises which makes her feel as if “her life was a collection of mistakes that could never be resolved.” Her life deteriorates slowly after she, a dreamy woman with dark eyes, marries for love and eventually is left by her husband for another woman. She is abandoned by her own family, except for her brother known as Uncle Nazir, and forced to continue life as a school teacher with three children and her shame. But as her own life takes a turn down a twisted and unplanned path, so does Syria’s and its beloved city of Aleppo.
The regime’s takeover is swift — it forcefully grasps the country and its people. Neither their lives nor their surroundings are in their hands anymore.
From the narrator’s grandfather Jalal Al-Nabulsi, who is “proud of being from a family which had been in Aleppo for a thousand years,” one of the first employees of the Railway Institute and one of the only witnesses to the inception of the Syrian railway system, to a mother who “perpetually extolled the past and conjured it up with delight as a kind of revenge for her humble life,” to Sawsan who at first is irrepressible and then “immersed herself into radicalism and fatwas day after day,” Khalifa’s book weaves through the generations of the family.
His book depicts a fading picture, one that was once vibrant and full of life. He moves from Aleppo to Midan Akbas and back, through dusty roads and the Cinema Opera where childhoods were filled with Egyptian and Bollywood movies “with happy endings.” He tells the stories of women who leaf through trinkets and forgotten wares in the Bab Al-Nasr second-hand shop and bring them back to life to feel a semblance of magic. As “walking in the streets had become a terrifying experience” and violence and temperamental political attitudes take hold, his sentences and metaphors captivate the reader and will immerse you in Syria.
Time and age weigh heavily on the pages as a collapsing life and city add to the darkness that begins to take hold of Aleppo. Tales of love and dreams, of faded images that serve as motivation to move forward, are rampant. Mother manages to move on when she believes she is “divorced, not abandoned,” but for others, it is a little more difficult to convince themselves and find inspiration to move forward.
Khalifa’s book is reminiscent of Turkish novelist Sabahattin Ali’s style in the manner in which he hints that it is life that shapes people and not people who shape life. Like Ali, Khalifa’s story is about how circumstance decides the path one’s life will take. His love for the city and for Syria is ever-present in his every description and metaphor. He can enchant the reader with details of the city and its history, its buildings and the “rising fumes of death and the fear present in every street and on the face of every man and woman hurrying home in the early evening.”
But amid the fear are pockets of people who cling to music and passionate love, who attempt to keep hate away and defy the powers that be. Within the dark alleyways and molding walls, art, poetry and theater flourish. Sometimes, the characters live in their own momentary bubbles and are blind to the outside world in their pursuit of self-discovery and purpose. But ultimately, they are forced back to face the world and themselves.
In the darkness are bouts of light, but it is neither bright nor long-lasting and that is the truth and reality of Syria. Despite this, the resilience of Khalifa’s characters in their journeys is hopeful. This book paints horrifying pictures as beautifully as it does optimistic ones. Khalifa’s writing is whole, his sentences memorable, his characters strong and fearless. His strength lies in his ability to reveal harsh truths and ugly realities beautifully, to bring through the seas of hate, love and resilience.
In the end, when life hangs on by a thread, there is hope amid the pessimism as “Aleppo still embodied a dream of wealth and urbanity even though three-fourths of it had turned into slums unfit for human habitation.”
Book Review: A Syrian family stands tall as Aleppo falls
Book Review: A Syrian family stands tall as Aleppo falls
What We Are Reading Today: Out of One, Many
Author: Jennifer T. Roberts
Covering the whole of the ancient Greek experience from its beginnings late in the third millennium BCE to the Roman conquest in 30 BCE, “Out of One, Many” is an accessible and lively introduction to the Greeks and their ways of living and thinking. In this fresh and witty exploration of the thought, culture, society, and history of the Greeks, Jennifer Roberts traces not only the common values that united them across the seas and the centuries, but also the enormous diversity in their ideas and beliefs.
Examining the huge importance to the Greeks of religion, mythology, the Homeric epics, tragic and comic drama, philosophy, and the city-state, the book offers shifting perspectives on an extraordinary and astonishingly creative people.
Century after century, in one medium after another, the Greeks addressed big questions, many of which are still very much with us, from whether gods exist and what happens after we die to what political system is best and how we can know what is real. Yet for all their virtues, Greek men set themselves apart from women and foreigners and profited from the unpaid labor of enslaved workers, and the book also looks at the mixed legacy of the ancient Greeks today.
The result is a rich, wide-ranging, and compelling history of a fascinating and profoundly influential culture in all its complexity—and the myriad ways, good and bad, it continues to shape us today.
What We Are Buying Today: ‘If Cats Disappeared from the World’
- Beautifully written and emotionally moving, it is also a testament to the power of storytelling and reminds people of the deep impact of making personal choices and connections
Author: Genki Kawamura
“If Cats Disappeared from the World” is a novel written by Japanese author Genki Kawamura. The book was published in 2012 and was rated 4/5 by over 75,000 readers worldwide.
Kawamura is a worldwide bestselling author. “If Cats Disappeared from the World” was his first novel, which sold over 1 million copies in Japan and was translated into over 14 languages.
In this novel, Kawamura tells the story of a postman who is diagnosed with an uncurable illness. However, when he accepts his destiny, the Devil appears to him with an unusual proposal. The postman must choose one thing to eliminate from this world for him to live one more day. During his journey, the postman then starts examining the true value of everything he owns.
Kawamura’s writing style is simple yet evocative, inviting readers to dive deep into the layers of their own emotional journey with every page. The narrative provides a delicate balance between moments of happiness and sorrow, using cats as a symbol of companionship and joy.
Moreover, the book allows readers to reflect on the value of relationships and experiences. It raises questions regarding the decisions people make, the legacies they leave behind, and the core meaning of everyday moments, which eventually shape people’s characters and how they think.
The novel encourages people to take a deep breath and reflect on the blessings people have, yet neglect, due to their busy lives.
With Kawamura’s thoughtful message and memorable characters, this novel is a compelling exploration of the human experience, providing comfort and inspiration, and a new appreciation for the beauty and brevity of life.
Beautifully written and emotionally moving, it is also a testament to the power of storytelling and reminds people of the deep impact of making personal choices and connections.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Chinese Espresso’ by Grazia Ting Deng
Italians regard espresso as a quintessentially Italian cultural product—so much so that Italy has applied to add Italian espresso to UNESCO’s official list of intangible heritages of humanity. In this book, Grazia Ting Deng explores the paradox of “Chinese Espresso”— the fact that this most distinctive Italian social and cultural tradition is being preserved by Chinese immigrants and their racially diverse clientele.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘Bartleby and Me’
Writers love to write about writing and none seemingly more so than Gay Talese, the journalist known as a pioneer of the American literary moment called “New Journalism.” This style of writing originated in the 1960s and ‘70s and combines journalistic research with creative non-fiction.
Talese started his career as an obituary writer at the New York Times and, later, as a magazine writer who ended up reluctantly penning the most widely read magazine articles of all time. He showcases some of that editorial wisdom — and reporting mishaps — in his 2023 book, “Bartley and Me: Reflections of an Old Scrivener.”
Now 92 years old, he writes vividly about his early reporting days and the stories behind the stories; he masterfully weaves in stray strands that somehow come together into a coherent narrative. Talese writes crisp copy. He writes about nobodies and somebodies with equal fervor.
He recalls his time as a young reporter on assignment where, at the insistence of his persistent editor, he attempted to sit down for an interview with the elusive and super-famous star Frank Sinatra. Talese recounts how he repeatedly tried — and failed — to pin down “Ol’ Blue Eyes” while chasing him around California in the 1960s. He eventually published his distinctively titled profile, “Frank Sinatra Has a Cold,” in the April 1966 issue of Esquire. That piece of writing is considered one of the most celebrated pieces of magazine journalism to date.
Talese’s tales are mostly centered around his time in New York. He recalls things in meticulous detail — for example, pointing out the exact address and precise building within a neighborhood to help the reader visualize the space. The city is always a leading part of the story.
“New York is a city of things unnoticed,” he wrote 60 years ago, something that could easily be written today. He recalls the early days of his journalistic career in New York, churning out newspaper copy and still, now, being ever-so-curious about everything. The pages of this book show that we all, alongside him, still have much more to notice.
The title of the book was inspired by American author Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” published in the 1800s. This is a social criticism piece about a lawyer who hires a peculiar scrivener or clerk, Bartleby, and the adventures (or misadventures) that ensue.
In his version, Talese shares with us a fresh piece of original reporting titled “Dr. Bartha’s Brownstone,” which is his version of “Bartleby.” This time, however, Bartleby is an unknown doctor who makes his bombastic mark on the city one random summer day. It is a brilliant piece of journalism about journalism.
What We Are Reading Today: ‘The Proof Stage’ by Stephen Abbott
The discovery of alternate geometries, paradoxes of the infinite, incompleteness, and chaos theory revealed that, despite its reputation for certainty, mathematical truth is not immutable, perfect, or even perfectible.
Beginning in the last century, a handful of adventurous playwrights took inspiration from the fractures of modern mathematics to expand their own artistic boundaries.
