Review by mlcohen13 -- Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch
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mlcohen13
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- Latest Review: "Keys to Tetouan" by Mois Benarroch
Review by mlcohen13 -- Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch
[Following is a volunteer review of "Keys to Tetouan" by Mois Benarroch.]
2 out of 4 stars
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Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch is a historical novel which follows a multigenerational Moroccan Jewish family: the Benzimras. At the center of their world is Tetouan, a city founded by Jewish exiles from Spain after the infamous Spanish Inquisition. The story of this enduring city and the story of the Benzimra family are inextricably linked. Members of the family are born there; some set out for locales as far-flung as Venezuela, Brazil, France, and Israel; and some ultimately come to rest in the place of their origin. Throughout the novel, many characters contemplate the meaning of home and their place in the larger world.
The scope of Benarroch’s novel is ambitious. Through the lens of a single family, he attempts to cover several centuries of history (and possibly even the future) as well as a vast geographic range. The flaw in this attempt is that some locations are more fully realized than others. The most important setting, Tetouan, is given a myriad of descriptions: we meet its inhabitants, visit its sixteen synagogues, smell and taste its butcher shops and bustling markets, watch the streets change with time, explore the nearby sea, and feel the ache of home with its characters. By contrast, when multiple characters relocate to different parts of South America, there are far fewer descriptions of the Brazilian jungle and the streets of Caracas. If these settings had come alive, even to contrast with Tetouan, the sprawling nature of the novel would have felt more justified. Moreover, it is often unclear when each chapter takes place. The titles occasionally give years, but this is never clarified as the year of the events described or the year in which the character telling the story is doing the telling--often these are years apart. The final chapter is frankly confusing, though I will not go into detail about why, save for the fact that it has to do with setting, mainly time. A stronger central narrator, or a broad third person perspective might have clarified these confusions better.
The heart of the story is truly the Benzimra family. The many generations of Benzimras are reminiscent of the classic Buendía family in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez, though without magical realism. Benarroch uses a single family to represent the struggle of Moroccan Jews, and the philosophical aspect of the novel is its greatest strength. Identity and belonging are constantly on the minds of the characters. They wrestle with questions such as what it means to be Jewish in muslim-majority nation, what it means to be Moroccan but speak Spanish, what it means to be Sephardic Jews in Israel amongst native Israelis and Ashkenazis from Holocaust-stricken Europe, and whether exile is their true home. The Benzimras represent a scattered people who don’t quite fit anywhere, and one character sums it up nicely when they assert they have been “exiled from exile” (interestingly, the word “diaspora” never appears in the text, though the concept appears central). Many work against the simplistic stereotypes that the world tries to put them in. The historical scope of the book allows different characters to have parallel experiences, whether they are recent exiles from Europe or contemplating the Zionist movement of the 20th century.
Benarroch uses the entire network of Benzimras to speak with many voices. Unreliable narrators lie about their affairs, while others spread rumors that the novel shows to be truthful, creating great narrative tension. Even characters separated in the novel by years and miles can be found debating both sides of an argument, sometimes many pages apart. This chorus of narrators, while useful, also becomes somewhat distracting from the story. In some chapters, it is unclear who is speaking, or who they are speaking to, and this effect is compounded by the fact that several members of the Benzimra family share the same name, or derivatives of the same name (Moises, Mois, Moshe, etc.) In this reviewer’s opinion, the novel could have benefitted from including a family tree illustration in order for readers to keep track of the family’s tangled branches. (Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine explores a similarly knotted family tree, using a simple drawing to great success) Furthermore, much of the philosophically heavy dialogue reads very wooden, and doesn’t seem to progress like natural conversation. The stiffness of the dialogue detracts from the weighty themes, making it harder to get through the book.
The final aspect of the book I’d like to touch on is its purposeful breaking of grammatical rules. During many of the long monologues in which characters speak in the first person, the paragraphs are written as chains of clauses separated by only commas. These occur far too frequently to be considered average comma splices, and instead appear to be intended to represent a sort of stream-of-consciousness to the narrative. The characters are lost in their thoughts, rambling, and Benarroch uses a style of writing that represents this. However, the intentional rule-breaking, while effective, does call into question other errors in the book’s text. For example, incorrect words such as “warship” when clearly meaning “worship,” or “George Bernard Show” rather than “Shaw” for the famous writer; these errors could be considered intentional if they were the characters’ misuse of words, but this is unclear and these particular instances read simply as errors.
For these reasons--unclear grammar, stiff dialogue, and underdeveloped settings--I rate Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch 2 out of 4 stars. Given the importance of the themes discussed and the fact they are woven into a mostly coherent narrative, I considered giving the book 2.5 stars and likely would have if the option were available. I would recommend Keys to Tetouan to those who enjoy history, or wish to explore some philosophical questions about religion, particularly Judaism. However, I do not personally think I would read more by this author as the style of writing distracted from the plot and themes.
******
Keys to Tetouan
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2 out of 4 stars
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Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch is a historical novel which follows a multigenerational Moroccan Jewish family: the Benzimras. At the center of their world is Tetouan, a city founded by Jewish exiles from Spain after the infamous Spanish Inquisition. The story of this enduring city and the story of the Benzimra family are inextricably linked. Members of the family are born there; some set out for locales as far-flung as Venezuela, Brazil, France, and Israel; and some ultimately come to rest in the place of their origin. Throughout the novel, many characters contemplate the meaning of home and their place in the larger world.
The scope of Benarroch’s novel is ambitious. Through the lens of a single family, he attempts to cover several centuries of history (and possibly even the future) as well as a vast geographic range. The flaw in this attempt is that some locations are more fully realized than others. The most important setting, Tetouan, is given a myriad of descriptions: we meet its inhabitants, visit its sixteen synagogues, smell and taste its butcher shops and bustling markets, watch the streets change with time, explore the nearby sea, and feel the ache of home with its characters. By contrast, when multiple characters relocate to different parts of South America, there are far fewer descriptions of the Brazilian jungle and the streets of Caracas. If these settings had come alive, even to contrast with Tetouan, the sprawling nature of the novel would have felt more justified. Moreover, it is often unclear when each chapter takes place. The titles occasionally give years, but this is never clarified as the year of the events described or the year in which the character telling the story is doing the telling--often these are years apart. The final chapter is frankly confusing, though I will not go into detail about why, save for the fact that it has to do with setting, mainly time. A stronger central narrator, or a broad third person perspective might have clarified these confusions better.
The heart of the story is truly the Benzimra family. The many generations of Benzimras are reminiscent of the classic Buendía family in One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Marquez, though without magical realism. Benarroch uses a single family to represent the struggle of Moroccan Jews, and the philosophical aspect of the novel is its greatest strength. Identity and belonging are constantly on the minds of the characters. They wrestle with questions such as what it means to be Jewish in muslim-majority nation, what it means to be Moroccan but speak Spanish, what it means to be Sephardic Jews in Israel amongst native Israelis and Ashkenazis from Holocaust-stricken Europe, and whether exile is their true home. The Benzimras represent a scattered people who don’t quite fit anywhere, and one character sums it up nicely when they assert they have been “exiled from exile” (interestingly, the word “diaspora” never appears in the text, though the concept appears central). Many work against the simplistic stereotypes that the world tries to put them in. The historical scope of the book allows different characters to have parallel experiences, whether they are recent exiles from Europe or contemplating the Zionist movement of the 20th century.
Benarroch uses the entire network of Benzimras to speak with many voices. Unreliable narrators lie about their affairs, while others spread rumors that the novel shows to be truthful, creating great narrative tension. Even characters separated in the novel by years and miles can be found debating both sides of an argument, sometimes many pages apart. This chorus of narrators, while useful, also becomes somewhat distracting from the story. In some chapters, it is unclear who is speaking, or who they are speaking to, and this effect is compounded by the fact that several members of the Benzimra family share the same name, or derivatives of the same name (Moises, Mois, Moshe, etc.) In this reviewer’s opinion, the novel could have benefitted from including a family tree illustration in order for readers to keep track of the family’s tangled branches. (Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine explores a similarly knotted family tree, using a simple drawing to great success) Furthermore, much of the philosophically heavy dialogue reads very wooden, and doesn’t seem to progress like natural conversation. The stiffness of the dialogue detracts from the weighty themes, making it harder to get through the book.
The final aspect of the book I’d like to touch on is its purposeful breaking of grammatical rules. During many of the long monologues in which characters speak in the first person, the paragraphs are written as chains of clauses separated by only commas. These occur far too frequently to be considered average comma splices, and instead appear to be intended to represent a sort of stream-of-consciousness to the narrative. The characters are lost in their thoughts, rambling, and Benarroch uses a style of writing that represents this. However, the intentional rule-breaking, while effective, does call into question other errors in the book’s text. For example, incorrect words such as “warship” when clearly meaning “worship,” or “George Bernard Show” rather than “Shaw” for the famous writer; these errors could be considered intentional if they were the characters’ misuse of words, but this is unclear and these particular instances read simply as errors.
For these reasons--unclear grammar, stiff dialogue, and underdeveloped settings--I rate Keys to Tetouan by Mois Benarroch 2 out of 4 stars. Given the importance of the themes discussed and the fact they are woven into a mostly coherent narrative, I considered giving the book 2.5 stars and likely would have if the option were available. I would recommend Keys to Tetouan to those who enjoy history, or wish to explore some philosophical questions about religion, particularly Judaism. However, I do not personally think I would read more by this author as the style of writing distracted from the plot and themes.
******
Keys to Tetouan
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon | on iTunes
Like mlcohen13's review? Post a comment saying so!
Latest Review: "Keys to Tetouan" by Mois Benarroch
