Review by Buchacha21 -- Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch

[Buchacha21]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Gates to Tangier" by Mois Benarroch.]

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2 out of 4 stars

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In Gates to Tangier, written by Mois Benarroch and translated by Sara Maria Hasbun, several adult children gather for the reading of their father’s will following his death. What is read to them by the lawyer, however, is completely unexpected; they have another brother, an illegitimate child, and none of the children will receive their inheritance until they have done everything they can to locate him. The remainder of the book follows each of the brothers and sisters (minus Ruth, the sister who is too busy with her “factory of children”) in their personal journeys to understand and accept the news given to them in their father’s will.

I admit that this is an incredibly difficult book to review. I question whether I, as the reader, am capable of reading at the level at which the author writes. I really wanted to like this novel – I think the concept of it is brilliant – but I just found it too confusing to follow.

Having each chapter written from a different character’s perspective was very effective and suitable to the story. Unfortunately, I felt the author failed in elocution. I believe that the intent of the author was to follow the thoughts, as they came, of the people from whose perspective he was writing. As a reader, however, I found it to be disjointed and difficult to follow. Most of the book reads like a rough draft, where the author writes just to get his ideas down. Unfortunately, it gives the impression that the book was neither edited nor proofread after the initial writing. Too many commas, missing quotation marks, and countless run-on sentences made it difficult to concentrate on the novel, and I found myself rereading the same page over and over trying to make sense of it.

In addition, the author uses a lot of Jewish words that are not explained throughout the book. As someone who is not Jewish and, admittedly, is largely unfamiliar with the Jewish culture and language, I found it frustrating to not be able to understand these words. Even searching for them online did not yield any meaningful results.

I felt that this book had a lot of potential for rich character development as the brothers and sisters were forced to look inward and question their own identities as well as that of their father. I was, however, seriously disappointed by this expectation. This novel is not one of character development, but rather of cultural exploration and the question of where and how Jews fit into the world today. This topic was most often presented through the ranting of Alberto, an author who never stops writing. At first, I tried to reread and make sense of all of his ramblings, but eventually I gave up and focused instead on finishing the book.

Gates to Tangier is a book that I would someday like to reread, perhaps after learning more about the Jewish culture. It is a difficult read and one that will not appeal to everyone. I would give this book 2 out of 4 stars. I would recommend this book to people who have some knowledge of the Jewish culture and language and appreciate novels about exploring identity.

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Gates to Tangier
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[AliceofX]

I had nearly the same thoughts as you did. It felt like an early draft, the bones of a story that someone just didn't want to finish. I could barely tell the characters apart. And you shouldn't be sorry for "not getting it." It's the author's job to make his work understandable.