- Hardcover: 272 pages
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (16 May 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0747577560
- ISBN-13: 978-0747577560
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.4 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,295,797 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Sunday Telegraph
‘This novel movingly examines the absences eating away at the core of all of its characters’
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Review
'Rarely in a lifetime can you open a book and find that reading it encapsulates the qualities of a love affair.' The Times on 'By The Sea' 'Achingly good...urbane, graceful and wholly captivating.' Sunday Telegraph on 'By The Sea' 'Gurnah is a compelling storyteller and Admiring Silence exercises a mnemonic hold on the reader.' Russell Celyn Jones on 'Admiring Silence' 'What a beautiful, strange book...What an interesting writer and what a compelling, pitiless, dazzling world he knows.' Jane Gardam on 'Paradise'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
When Martin Pearce, an Englishman nearly dead from thirst, staggers out of the desert and into the life of Hassanali, a shopseller in a village south of Mombasa, he sets in motion events and themes which echo throughout the novel. It is 1899, and Pearce has been traveling on foot for four days. Believing that "This [man] was a burden [God] had...chosen for him," Hassanali enlists his wife Malika, and his sister Rehana to help care for him until a local British official brings him back to "civilization." When Pearce returns to thank Hassanali, he becomes enamored of Rehana, and their eventual affair becomes a scandal in both the British and the Indian/Muslim communities.
Part II, which takes place fifty years later in Zanzibar, focuses on a new set of characters--two brothers, Amin and Rashid, and their sister Farida. The story of Amin's love for Jamila, which soon unfolds, bears some resemblance to that of Pearce and Rehana--both loves involve cultural and religious taboos and raise questions about the ability of love to survive such difficulties.
Part III, which further develops the stories of Amin, Rashid, and Farida, takes place about fifteen years after that. Amin is still in Zanzibar, while Rashid is studying in England. The British have granted Zanzibar independence, but a revolution has taken place. The traumas of this period and its bloodshed, primarily in the 1970s, keep the brothers apart, and, because of censorship in Zanzibar, their communications are difficult and vague. "A Continuation," the five-page epilogue, eventually connects all the stories and resolves some unanswered questions.
Illustrating, to some extent, the effects of colonialism, along with desertions and displacements in the characters' lives, Gurnah concentrates primarily on stories of family, courtship, and relationships--ordinary people living their daily lives. His style is smooth and descriptive, conjuring the moods and images of different times and places, but structurally, the novel feels like three separate stories, rather than a continuous whole. The characters we meet in Part I (the most exciting part) are never mentioned again until the five-page epilogue, and that epilogue, which connects the various stories, depends on coincidence for its surprises and feels artificial. Individually, the stories, told primarily by Rashid, are intriging, but they feel more like three separate novellas than one unified novel. Mary Whipple
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The blurb tells us that the story begins in 1899 in a coastal village near Mombasa in what was then called the East Africa Protectorate and would later be called Kenya, and that it is about a passionate love affair between Martin Pearce, an Englishman, and Rahana, a Muslim girl, but we have to wait until page 108 before that starts. By then the novel has established several characters: three Englishmen - Pearce; a District Officer called Frederick Turner; and a coarse estate manager called Burton - and Rahana's family - her brother Hassanali and her sister-in-law Malika. It has also brought to life the local scene, with its African, Arab and Indian population and the customs of the villagers. The plot so far has been on the thin side; but we have learnt the history of the area and the attitude of the British towards the local people mainly from several didactic passages in the dialogue between the Englishmen.
A mere twelve pages after the love affair has started, it has reached its conclusion, and so has Part I. In Part II we are suddenly brought into an apparently unrelated story, with a different set of characters, this time set in Zanzibar a little over 50 years after the earlier story. These new characters - two brothers, their sister, and their parents - and their relationship to each other are well described (that between the brothers is particularly touching), but again there isn't much of a plot. The older brother, Amin, is in love with a girl - and like the love affair in Part I, this one runs in the face of disapproval - in the first part on account of race, in the second part at least on account of the girl's background and uncertain reputation.
Part III is written twenty years later, in the 1980s. The younger brother, Rashid, had won a scholarship to study in London, and he recounts the unfriendliness and the racism he found there (this is 1963). Soon after his arrival Zanzibar had became independent, and within a few months of independence there had been a bloody revolution on the island when the African majority there turned against the ruling Arab minority. Rashid's father had told him not to return home, so Rashid now also saw himself as an exile. He made a career for himself at an English university. This all seems very autobiographical). His correspondence with his family becomes more artificial. We now understand for the first time the title of the book. But there is another desertion we will learn about.
And suddenly, in what seems a throw-away line, we find that the stories of Part I and Part II have a link, (though perhaps we might have guessed what it was); we understand why there seemed to be such a break between it and the later parts; and the story that was broken off so abruptly at the end of Part I is now resumed.
Unlike another reader, I found this third part much the best - perhaps because it describes Rashid's (i.e. the author's) feelings instead of the feelings of all the other characters in the book, which, by comparison, are seen more from the outside and perhaps not quite as deeply experienced. And you cannot say of Part III that there is hardly any plot! My estimation of the book went up a great deal.
A mere twelve pages after the love affair has started, it has reached its conclusion, and so has Part I. In Part II we are suddenly brought into an apparently unrelated story, with a different set of characters, this time set in Zanzibar a little over 50 years after the earlier story. These new characters - two brothers, their sister, and their parents - and their relationship to each other are well described (that between the brothers is particularly touching), but again there isn't much of a plot. The older brother, Amin, is in love with a girl - and like the love affair in Part I, this one runs in the face of disapproval - in the first part on account of race, in the second part at least on account of the girl's background and uncertain reputation.
Part III is written twenty years later, in the 1980s. The younger brother, Rashid, had won a scholarship to study in London, and he recounts the unfriendliness and the racism he found there (this is 1963). Soon after his arrival Zanzibar had became independent, and within a few months of independence there had been a bloody revolution on the island when the African majority there turned against the ruling Arab minority. Rashid's father had told him not to return home, so Rashid now also saw himself as an exile. He made a career for himself at an English university. This all seems very autobiographical). His correspondence with his family becomes more artificial. We now understand for the first time the title of the book. But there is another desertion we will learn about.
And suddenly, in what seems a throw-away line, we find that the stories of Part I and Part II have a link, (though perhaps we might have guessed what it was); we understand why there seemed to be such a break between it and the later parts; and the story that was broken off so abruptly at the end of Part I is now resumed.
Unlike another reader, I found this third part much the best - perhaps because it describes Rashid's (i.e. the author's) feelings instead of the feelings of all the other characters in the book, which, by comparison, are seen more from the outside and perhaps not quite as deeply experienced. And you cannot say of Part III that there is hardly any plot! My estimation of the book went up a great deal.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This was not an easy read. There was something about the style in which it was written, almost poetic in places, that made to mere 260 pages feel like a tome.
I chose to read the book because it is written by a Zanzibari author and I was visiting Zanzibar at the time. From this perspective I found I could relate more to the second half of the book, set in the 50's in the capital, Stone Town. Many of the buildings mentioned I had walked past or visited and this lifted the book for me.
The first half was set at the turn of the previous century and some of the historical detail was quite dense.
There are five main characters in Part I; the shop keeper Hassanali, his sister Rehana and his wife Malika are all natives of Zanzibar but with Indian descent. Martin Pearce, an English adventurer stumbles into their lives after being abandoned in the desert by his Somali guides and falls for Rehana. Frederick Turner, a representative of the British colonial rule, houses and befriends Martin. Apart from a lot of background description and rambling, not a lot happens.
The move to part II is jerky, without explanation, and involves a family in Zanzibar; mother, father, daughter Farida and two sons, Rashid and Amin. Amin falls for Jamila, an older woman with a chequered history. At the time we are not told that she is the grand-daughter of Martin and Rehana but I don't think it would hurt to mention that here as it makes the story more comprehensible and I would have prefered to have known how the characters were significant. This was a less historical section which gave a strong feel for the importance of shame and appearances in the Muslim community and I felt for the lovers in their trials.
Finally the parts are brought together and the background story revealed.
I had previously read By the Sea and found it hard going so the style was no surprise this time around. If you are travelling to Zanzibar, however, then I would highly recommend this book.
I chose to read the book because it is written by a Zanzibari author and I was visiting Zanzibar at the time. From this perspective I found I could relate more to the second half of the book, set in the 50's in the capital, Stone Town. Many of the buildings mentioned I had walked past or visited and this lifted the book for me.
The first half was set at the turn of the previous century and some of the historical detail was quite dense.
There are five main characters in Part I; the shop keeper Hassanali, his sister Rehana and his wife Malika are all natives of Zanzibar but with Indian descent. Martin Pearce, an English adventurer stumbles into their lives after being abandoned in the desert by his Somali guides and falls for Rehana. Frederick Turner, a representative of the British colonial rule, houses and befriends Martin. Apart from a lot of background description and rambling, not a lot happens.
The move to part II is jerky, without explanation, and involves a family in Zanzibar; mother, father, daughter Farida and two sons, Rashid and Amin. Amin falls for Jamila, an older woman with a chequered history. At the time we are not told that she is the grand-daughter of Martin and Rehana but I don't think it would hurt to mention that here as it makes the story more comprehensible and I would have prefered to have known how the characters were significant. This was a less historical section which gave a strong feel for the importance of shame and appearances in the Muslim community and I felt for the lovers in their trials.
Finally the parts are brought together and the background story revealed.
I had previously read By the Sea and found it hard going so the style was no surprise this time around. If you are travelling to Zanzibar, however, then I would highly recommend this book.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Solid ethnic literature...with historical overtones!
Gurnah has always been a favorite author of mine, partly due to my love of ethnic literature and partly due to the fact that he is from my neck of the woods. Read more
Published on 1 May 2010 by W. Datoo
Discussing Desertion
The novel is complicated, but worth the energy required to get through it and understand it. It speaks to the theme of desertion, but in my view, is more about relationships in... Read more
Published on 17 May 2009 by Fayaz Noormohamed
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