Review by Lucie Adler -- Gates to Tangier by Mois Benarroch

[Lucie Adler]

[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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I had a morbid simile for summing up my impressions of Mois Bennarroch's Gates to Tangier – something about skeletons and bones and such – but one of the book's characters put it more succinctly than I ever could: “The critics always say in the end that my books are just notes for a novel.”

Gates to Tangier is about the death of the Benzimra family's patriarch, and how his long-held secret forces his adult children to reflect on their individual, familial, and Sephardic Jewish identities. In his will, the patriarch leaves his children – Fortu, Isaaq, Sylvia, and Alberto – a hundred thousand dollars each that is contingent on seeking out their half brother, a bastard son he fathered when they were children living in Tetouan. The siblings grudgingly travel to their childhood home together, initially driven by their imminent inheritance but quickly motivated by deeper questions. The story is told in the first-person, each chapter narrated by one of the four siblings as well as their deceased brother Israel and a young Muslim woman named Zohra.

I'm not a fan of Gates to Tangier for two reasons. First, I struggled with Bennarroch's writing style, and actually had to read the book twice to gain any appreciation for it. On my first read-through, his writing felt monotonous, clumsy, and inconclusive. I did some more research on Bennarroch though, learning that he is primarily renowned as a poet rather than a novelist, and decided to give Gates to Tangier another chance. I approached his prose as poetry the second time reading it, and his writing came across much more fluidly. It's also worth noting that Gates to Tangier was not written in English originally, so the “clumsy” writing could result from translation issues.

Second, for me at least, a good book has to have engaging characters in addition to well-written narrative. Since Gates to Tangier was severely lacking in the latter department, the characters' cardboard personalities did not help its case. Despite the changes in perspective from chapter to chapter, Bennarroch gave all six of his main characters the same voice, making it hard to distinguish who the narrator of a given chapter was and failing to give them individual identities. This not only made for tiresome reading after a while, but also made it difficult to identify with, or otherwise care about any of the characters.

However, what might merely seem like poor writing could've been the result of carefully thought-out and deliberate decisions. The most interesting aspect of Gates to Tangier is its sense of universality. By the end of the book, the reader gets the impression that this story is not particular to one member of the Benzimra family, or the Benzimra family within the Sephardic Jewish community, or even the Sephardic Jewish community in one specific time or place. Its core themes would persist if the story was told by only one of the family members, or if it took place in the past instead of roughly present day. If this was Bennarroch's purpose, then his stream-of-consciousness writing style and undifferentiated narrative voice were intentional choices, not mistakes, and very interesting ones at that.

In Gates to Tangier, Bennarroch also relates a highly personal situation to a broader social, political, and religious context. The story would have little to offer if it was solely preoccupied with a family's struggles over a dead man's secret – countless stories already recount this familiar tale under a number of guises. Instead, Bennarroch uses a family drama to discuss wider conflicts within the Jewish community, between Jews and non-Jews throughout history, and between Muslims and Jews in particular, keeping the reader on his or her toes. It's challenging at times to follow the characters' thoughts as Bennarroch uses them to explore these issues, but it does yield a new perspective on Jewish identity as well as a new importance to family affairs and matters of the heart.

In short, Gates to Tangier is a great idea that was poorly executed. I give it 2 out of 4 stars. If you enjoy fictional writing that is focused on themes and issues rather than characters or plot, then you will likely enjoy this book. Don't waste your time otherwise.

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Gates to Tangier
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