Review by Jasmine M Wardiya -- Gates to Tangier

[Jasmine M Wardiya]

[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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Gates to Tangier, written by Mois Benarroch and translated by Sara Maria Hasbun, follows the tale of a family digging a few skeletons out of their closet. It begins at a will-reading in Jerusalem, where the patriarch has left a little surprise in his will. He's left bequests for his children, but they can't touch it for five years unless they find another family member: a half-brother and illegitimate son of the family none of them have heard about until this moment. And so begins their journey to find him. At first, it's about the money. But that changes along the way, along with the perspective of the characters who've travelled through the world to search for someone they've never met - and for others, who've undertaken other sorts of journeys as well. It's a story that is rooted in family, individuality, religion, and identity.

The family takes shape quite quickly, and within an interesting context. The reader is thrown straight into the will-reading without any background description and it's up to the dialogue, for the most part, to frame our initial impressions of them. It's teasing at first, but it provides substance soon enough: maintaining the integrity of an in medias res style opening without becoming too confusing or too tedious.

After this, the novel changes to a narrative format, with different chapters told from the perspective of different characters. Their individual characters and conflicts shine in this manner, however it sometimes detaches from the overall plot introduced in the first chapter. It takes reaching the end of the novel to see how it all ties together and not all readers might be willing to bear with the meandering path that the first third of the novel, in particular, takes. What I found particularly sluggish about the first part was how repetitive it became, and how little seemed to happen between one character and the next. It is a long travel, and the long sentences in the narration of some of the characters prolong this. Ironically, where I believe the story starts to truly move, is where the narrator at the time states: "no time had gone by." And when the plot twists start, I'm happy to say I see very few of them coming. It's intellectually stimulating in that manner: guessing and guessing wrong, and then going back and realising all the hints that had been passed over or misinterpreted before. The ending is quite interesting as well, in that: "It explains nothing. Absolutely nothing." or so a certain character says. There's a sense of incompleteness about the ending. We have all the information we need but there's no real conclusion for the characters. They've made a somewhat fruitless journey, discovered things along the way, and now they continue on and there are still things in the future: problems to solve, answers to chase, people to meet... It's an ending very reminiscent to real life and a gutsy move by an author. Although this appears to be the first book in a series, so that might wind up a moot point. Having not read the sequel, I can't say anything on that matter.

In particular, there is a fairly heavy focus on Judaism in the context of Morocco as well as religious and ethnic conflict (eg. between Arabs and Europeans), as the Benzimra family travels to Tetouan. There is a lesser focus on Islam as well. Both are personal and interpersonal: about how the characters perceive themselves as a part of the religion, their place with others, and the place of others with them. There is very little about rules and rites; rather it is a tale of how these characters define themselves, and religion is one arm of that definition.

While not errors per say, there were instances of a dash in the middle of words, as though the word was half on one line and half on the next even though it was in the middle of a line in the format I received my book in. That may simply be a case of it not translating over different book formats, but when publishing electronically, that's something to consider when formatting. There were also a few cases of the wrong word being used in context, and while normally a few in almost two hundred pages wouldn't be very noticeable, one particular instance is one of those unexpected plot-twists and a pretty crucial point in the novel and so it stands out. Additionally, some of the characters' names were spelt in two different ways - presumably related to the translation as opposed to a reflection of the original piece.

There are a couple of sexual scenes. Not overtly graphic, but to the point where I would not feel comfortable allowing a young teen to read them. Therefore, I think the novel is best suited for adults, but fine for a young adult if they are comfortable with the content.

Overall, I love the plot twists, the ending...and the characters are really well developed as well. My main concern was the pacing particularly in the first third, and a few points of confusion with wording or varying name spellings. Although it comes together in the end, if a reader puts down the book before then, they won't see it happen. Therefore I give this book 2 out of 4 stars, and recommend it particularly to people who like character studies, and/or are curious about religious and ethnic issues raised, but not for someone who likes a focused, plot-driven piece of work.

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Gates to Tangier
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