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#BookReport 05/21

Not a spectacular week. I enjoyed The Boy who Harnessed the Wind, the others were #moremehthanyeah. But the good news is I‘m having To Paradise in progress!

This book is a counterpart to Camus' The Stranger. Told by the brother of Moussa, the Arab man murdered in that book, this is a reflection on #Algerian identity and the consequences of French colonization.

#19822022 #2013 #ReadingAfrica2022 🇩🇿

#WeeklyForecast 05/22

I have the tagged book in progress for #ReadingAfrica2022 . On audio I started The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - also for Africa. I have plannend to start Pan next but man, To Paradise seems determined to ruin my planning and keeps calling my name!

After reading "The Stranger" by Camus, I knew I needed to read Daoud's "The Mersault Investigation" to hear the story of the unnamed victim from the original text. We are now given a name, Musa, and his brother's plight of trying to figure out what happened to his brother.

Still in the realm of the absurd, you are forced to contend with another unreliable narrator, navigating Daoud's message within his narrator's story.

70 years later a response to Camus from the other Algerian side of the story. I connected more with the main protagonist and the themes. The book is a dialogue with L‘Etranger - with humour and respect. It highlights Camus‘ blind spots, borrowing and twisting the plot, offering different view points, meeting and disagreeing. Daoud writes beautifully. Amazing.

By the time I got to the end of this, I was into it, but the first half dragged. It‘s basically a novella that should have been a shorter novella. And I‘ll admit, I just wasn‘t in the mood for it.

Up next for my mystery book group.

The author of The Meursault Investigation is back!

This book has been on my radar since it came out. However, I‘m really nervous to read it. I love the The Stranger and reader reviews are all over the place.

#ReadingResolutions | 14: #BookSequel

📷: Made with PhotoGrid & Google Books

The three star rating is based on my personal enjoyment of the read, not an objective scale. I would 100% recommend this book to anyone who has read The Stranger by Camus. It provides a fascinating contrast and goes to show that there are many sides to every story. I struggled a bit with the meandering, rambling way it was written, but it served a purpose and it was well-done overall. Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

A classic - the story of a foreigner in a different culture who commits a murder of a nameless "Arab", and a recent, brilliant novel of the the brother of the murdered "Arab" - subjective truth from #unreliablenarrators #maybookflowers

@RealLifeReading

If you've read The Stranger, you recognize the name Meursault as Camus' existential protagonist who's anything but a stranger at this point. Daoud creates the perfect Algerian foil to Meursault, echoing the storyline in brilliant counterpoint. In fact, Camus' novel is often mentioned here and becomes at once a reason to avenge AND to inspire this tale. Except this narrator's soul is that of a true poet and belies the coldness therein.

"Love is kissing someone, sharing their saliva, and going back all the way to the obscure memory of your own birth." Kamel Daoud, The Meursault Investigation

#readingoutdoors "This story takes place somewhere in someone's head, in mine and in your's and in the heads of people like you. In a sort of beyond." Since I'm more urban than outdoorsy, I snapped this photo of a man reading a book's spine as I passed Lefkowitz The Tailor's shop when I was downtown this morning and that's the best I can do! #somethingforseptember #windowshopping

"I slept again, for a very long time, while unseen trees tried to walk, flailing about with their big branches in the effort to free their black, fragrant trunks. My ear was glued to the ground of their struggle. "

"I'm sure you've never heard of this gentleman [Sadhu Amar Bharati]. He's an Indian who claims to have kept his right hand raised toward the sky for 38 years. As a result, his arm's nothing more than a bone covered with skin. It will remain fixed in its position until he dies. Maybe that's how it goes for all of us, basically." Internet photo.

Perfect retelling of THE STRANGER from the perspective of the brother of the Arab man who is killed. Beautifully written prose that gives much needed racial perspective to post-colonial Algeria. Deep emotional discussion of identity, names, race, family, & existentialism in a noir-like tone. 🇩🇿

"I never felt Arab, you know. Arab-ness is like Negro-ness, which only exists in the white man's eyes."

Rereading for Literature and Medicine book club, along with Camus

So many amazing passages in this book 😍 but this one about the effects committing murder has on your ability to love was 👌🏻 I had to reread it multiple times before moving on

Best book I've read in 2016 so far! If you have read L'étranger (The Stranger) by Albert Camus, I highly recommend this one. It will definitely enrich your experience of that story. FYI the English translation is out :)