more cal and written as a stream-of-consciousness with little in the way of a firm chronological narrative, the time and location of the novel is sometimes a little hard to follow - but this is part of the pace of the novel - running, jumping and darting around. It goes a bit further actually, and to pigeon-hole it as a gay novel would be a bit unfair, but this is what it is presented as and it does frame the novel in a particular way, which I talk about later on. Fast, fast." An Arab Melancholia is a sweetly written exposition of being gay in the Arab world. It reads like Anne Rice as a young, homosexual man with an overlarge sense of self importance despite a dull self hatred. Perhaps it is the fault of the translator, but the writing is passive and simple, the passionate diary style burdened by repetitive phrases and teenage lack of focus. I imagined having found a writer I would love with an interesting, beautiful style. Part incantation, part polemic, and part love letter, this extraordinary novel creates a new world where the self is effaced by desire and love, and writing is always an act of discovery.Review 1: Disappointed is how I feel about this book. The book spans twenty years, moving from Sale, to Paris, to Cairo. Irresistibly charming, angry, and wry, this autobiographical novel traces the emergence of Abdellah Taia's identity as an openly gay Arab man living between cultures.
Running is the only way he can stand up to the violence that is his Morocco. He's running after the Egyptian movie star, Souad Hosni, who's out there somewhere, miles away from this neighborhood-which is a place the teenager both loves and hates, the home at which he is not at home, an environment that will only allow him his identity through the cultural lens of shame and silence. He's running after his dream, his dream to become a movie director.
A lower-class teenager is running until he's out of breath. I suddenly saw things with merciless lucidity. I had no more leniency when it came to the Arab world. And there I was, right in the heart of the Arab world, a world that never tired of making the same mistakes over and over. An autobiographical portrait of a gay Arab man, living between cultures, seeking an identity through love and writing.
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