Review of Gates-to-Tangier
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Regina Kasede
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- Latest Review: Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
Review by Regina Kasede -- Gates to Tangier
[Following is a volunteer review of "Gates to Tangier" by Mois Benarroch.]
3 out of 4 stars
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Gates-to-Tangier by Mois Benarroch and translated by Sara Maria Hasbun is a fictional story about the Jewish Benzimra family who were originally born in Tetouan-Morocco but later were forced to emigrate to different cities in 1974. Four of the children are forced to travel back to Morroco from the different cities in which they settled at the command of their Late Father’s will to search for their illegitimate half-brother, Yosef Elbaz, born to Fatima Elbaz, in order to receive their inheritance. Fortu, the eldest, who lives in Madrid, is a family medical doctor, having marital challenges particularly with his wife’s spending habits, Isaque, the homeopathic doctor with an affinity for salt and lives in Manhattan-New York (he too has marital challenges), Silvia , married to Raymond and lives in Paris on the rue Victor Hugo (she is struggling with racism against the Jews in the community they live) and Alberto , the writer who lives in Jerusalem and is obsessed with writing about his family and the challenges of Jews worldwide.
Mois delves into the private lives of each of these siblings; each narrating their life stories in the first person narrative voice which draws the reader closer to the thoughts and emotions of the characters during the journey. They talk about their reluctance to search for the long lost brother, their struggles with racism and family disintegration in the different cities they emigrated in and their pain and sorrow at the loss of their own youngest brother Israel who died in the war and they each actually have a run in incidence with the ghost of their late brother Israel at the airport in Barajas though they fail to recognize it as such.
There is also the sub-plot of Zohra Elbaz, daughter of Fatima Elbaz, a gynecologist who decides to become one because she cannot have her own children because she has no uterus. She is having an affair with Marcel Benzimra, a Jew whose parents are against the idea of him marrying a muslim and having Arab children. Mois gives the story a surprising twist when Zohra discovers that the reason she does not have a uterus is because she had a sex change when she was one-year-old as a result of a botched up circumcision; she was born a boy. When finally, the siblings Fortu, Alberto, Isaque and Silvia meet the ailing Fatima Elbaz, they learn that Yosef Elbaz died at the age of one and is no more. With the exception of Silvia, the others are relieved to hear this news and travel back to their different cities. Fortu passes through Ceuta and has an unforgettable meeting with the very person they were searching for. Mois weaves a memorable tale which ends at the point when the hunter becomes the hunted.
It is an interesting story though at times it would become too didactic particularly when the author would go on and on about the racial segregation and anti-Semitism; because the idea is repeatedly thought about by the characters, it becomes a drag.
Mois’ analysis of city life and how it destroys the soul is on point. Zohra talks about Paris bringing her down:
It is as if the whole city is full of depressed people that can’t reconnect to the world, can’t even give a smile to the person in front of them (pg 169)
This captures the lifelessness of our modern day cities where people live in seclusion and isolation amongst thousands of people. It’s like people in the cities today have lost their humanity and forgotten that life is about relationships. In the pursuit of humanity, I too, like Mois fear for the next generation.
Their children will be like Parisians, absent, expressionless, full of culture and customs, but without laughter. (Pg 170)
The book raises the possibility of Jews living in harmony with Arabs something Mois tries to evidence with the relationship between Zohra and Marcel and the fact that though Zohra is a muslim, almost everyone she is attracted to is Jewish. She disputes Marcel’s claim that the fact that her father was a Jew explains her affinity to Jews. Mois tries to make it seem unimportant that she is attracted to Jews because she is half Jew but because she is human when she claims that her being Jew explains nothing. I think however, that Mois fails at expounding this possibility of harmony between Jews and Arabs.
The book’s biggest challenge is that it did not go through professional editing. There are so many errors that could have been corrected with the help of an editor for example at the beginning at the reading of the will, Israel, the youngest son, is portrayed as alive (Pg 9) and yet later on it is mentioned that he has been dead for about seventeen years; when exactly did he die? There is also incoherence in some parts of the book for example if Fatima Elbaz was blind and lying on the bed when the Benzimra siblings went into her room, how could she see that Isaque had grown and give him a kiss? (Pg 97).
There is also a lot of inconsistency in the narrative voice. While in some parts, the author would indicate who was speaking by writing the name of the character as the heading under the city, he later on stops indicating the speaking character and it becomes impossible to know who the narrating voice belongs to (Pg 81 and Pg 94). Only the city names are mentioned for example Chaouen and Algeciras without mention of the narrator and yet the voices are in first person. There is also inconsistency in the names; in the beginning, the mother is known as Estrella, later on we are told that the father married Ruth and yet Ruth is his favourite daughter! One of the children is addressed as David, at the reading of the will, but we never meet him and there is no mention of him at all. Instead we meet Isaque who is not mentioned in the beginning. The punctuation also leaves a lot to be desired; throughout the book, there are words that are broken up by hyphens like chi-ldren (pg 107), influe-nce (pg 82), kn-ow (pg 88), sic-k (pg 91) etc. These are distracting.
I rate the book 3 out of 4; I believe that once the book is edited by a professional editor it will make a good read because the story-line is full of suspense and quite memorable tackling the issue of family disintegration, racial discrimination and Zionism.
******
Gates to Tangier
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3 out of 4 stars
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Gates-to-Tangier by Mois Benarroch and translated by Sara Maria Hasbun is a fictional story about the Jewish Benzimra family who were originally born in Tetouan-Morocco but later were forced to emigrate to different cities in 1974. Four of the children are forced to travel back to Morroco from the different cities in which they settled at the command of their Late Father’s will to search for their illegitimate half-brother, Yosef Elbaz, born to Fatima Elbaz, in order to receive their inheritance. Fortu, the eldest, who lives in Madrid, is a family medical doctor, having marital challenges particularly with his wife’s spending habits, Isaque, the homeopathic doctor with an affinity for salt and lives in Manhattan-New York (he too has marital challenges), Silvia , married to Raymond and lives in Paris on the rue Victor Hugo (she is struggling with racism against the Jews in the community they live) and Alberto , the writer who lives in Jerusalem and is obsessed with writing about his family and the challenges of Jews worldwide.
Mois delves into the private lives of each of these siblings; each narrating their life stories in the first person narrative voice which draws the reader closer to the thoughts and emotions of the characters during the journey. They talk about their reluctance to search for the long lost brother, their struggles with racism and family disintegration in the different cities they emigrated in and their pain and sorrow at the loss of their own youngest brother Israel who died in the war and they each actually have a run in incidence with the ghost of their late brother Israel at the airport in Barajas though they fail to recognize it as such.
There is also the sub-plot of Zohra Elbaz, daughter of Fatima Elbaz, a gynecologist who decides to become one because she cannot have her own children because she has no uterus. She is having an affair with Marcel Benzimra, a Jew whose parents are against the idea of him marrying a muslim and having Arab children. Mois gives the story a surprising twist when Zohra discovers that the reason she does not have a uterus is because she had a sex change when she was one-year-old as a result of a botched up circumcision; she was born a boy. When finally, the siblings Fortu, Alberto, Isaque and Silvia meet the ailing Fatima Elbaz, they learn that Yosef Elbaz died at the age of one and is no more. With the exception of Silvia, the others are relieved to hear this news and travel back to their different cities. Fortu passes through Ceuta and has an unforgettable meeting with the very person they were searching for. Mois weaves a memorable tale which ends at the point when the hunter becomes the hunted.
It is an interesting story though at times it would become too didactic particularly when the author would go on and on about the racial segregation and anti-Semitism; because the idea is repeatedly thought about by the characters, it becomes a drag.
Mois’ analysis of city life and how it destroys the soul is on point. Zohra talks about Paris bringing her down:
It is as if the whole city is full of depressed people that can’t reconnect to the world, can’t even give a smile to the person in front of them (pg 169)
This captures the lifelessness of our modern day cities where people live in seclusion and isolation amongst thousands of people. It’s like people in the cities today have lost their humanity and forgotten that life is about relationships. In the pursuit of humanity, I too, like Mois fear for the next generation.
Their children will be like Parisians, absent, expressionless, full of culture and customs, but without laughter. (Pg 170)
The book raises the possibility of Jews living in harmony with Arabs something Mois tries to evidence with the relationship between Zohra and Marcel and the fact that though Zohra is a muslim, almost everyone she is attracted to is Jewish. She disputes Marcel’s claim that the fact that her father was a Jew explains her affinity to Jews. Mois tries to make it seem unimportant that she is attracted to Jews because she is half Jew but because she is human when she claims that her being Jew explains nothing. I think however, that Mois fails at expounding this possibility of harmony between Jews and Arabs.
The book’s biggest challenge is that it did not go through professional editing. There are so many errors that could have been corrected with the help of an editor for example at the beginning at the reading of the will, Israel, the youngest son, is portrayed as alive (Pg 9) and yet later on it is mentioned that he has been dead for about seventeen years; when exactly did he die? There is also incoherence in some parts of the book for example if Fatima Elbaz was blind and lying on the bed when the Benzimra siblings went into her room, how could she see that Isaque had grown and give him a kiss? (Pg 97).
There is also a lot of inconsistency in the narrative voice. While in some parts, the author would indicate who was speaking by writing the name of the character as the heading under the city, he later on stops indicating the speaking character and it becomes impossible to know who the narrating voice belongs to (Pg 81 and Pg 94). Only the city names are mentioned for example Chaouen and Algeciras without mention of the narrator and yet the voices are in first person. There is also inconsistency in the names; in the beginning, the mother is known as Estrella, later on we are told that the father married Ruth and yet Ruth is his favourite daughter! One of the children is addressed as David, at the reading of the will, but we never meet him and there is no mention of him at all. Instead we meet Isaque who is not mentioned in the beginning. The punctuation also leaves a lot to be desired; throughout the book, there are words that are broken up by hyphens like chi-ldren (pg 107), influe-nce (pg 82), kn-ow (pg 88), sic-k (pg 91) etc. These are distracting.
I rate the book 3 out of 4; I believe that once the book is edited by a professional editor it will make a good read because the story-line is full of suspense and quite memorable tackling the issue of family disintegration, racial discrimination and Zionism.
******
Gates to Tangier
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
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Latest Review: Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch
