THE NOVEL'S MAIN character, Sonia Nasir, is a professional actor of Palestinian origins who has mainly lived and worked in the United Kingdom. As the novel opens, she is paying an extended visit to an older sister who as an adult chose to live in Israel ("the "old country," so to speak, though under occupation). Sonia feels her sister does not entirely approve of Sonia's decision to stay in the west. Although it is not entirely clear how well-founded those feelings are, Sonia's need to prove herself true to the cause makes itself felt through the whole novel.
Through old connections, Sonia has a chance first to assist in the rehearsals of and then perform in an Arab-language production of Hamlet, to be staged in the West Bank. (Hamlet, I learned a few years ago, has often been adapted for performance in a Palestinian setting, as I wrote about in the post for December 21, 2020.)
The novel has several interesting storylines. We have Sonia and her family, both immediate and extended, working out their relations to each other and their family's past. We also get several short but vivid scenes of how Palestinians live under Israeli rule, both in Israel and in the West Bank. Most entertainingly, we have behind-the-scenes glimpses of theater professionals getting an ambitious production together, including dealing with a variety of surprises that have to be managed.
I could have used a little more information about the director's vision of the production. Hamlet has a variety of themes that might speak to the Palestinian situation--usurpation, generational conflict, the weight of the past, the difficulty of moving from thought to deed--so I was wondering which of them this production moved to the foreground. Even in the absence of that info, though, the opening night makes for a strong closing scene for the novel, and Hammad's writing was strong throughout.
No comments:
Post a Comment