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A review by koreilly
الطابور by Basma Abdel Aziz
2.0
I appreciated this book's dedication to place, expertly creating a lived in world where bureaucracy and oppression have infiltrated every facet of people's lives. Notable for being probably the first post-Arab-Spring novel, The Gate is very good but bogged down by a lack of forward momentum and a stubborn commitment to bringing the bureaucracy to life for the reader.
The book is interesting and a fascinating portrait of modern life in the Arab World but the problem is that it becomes increasingly dull to read about people standing in line to fill in forms and having their forms rejected and then having different people stand in line to fill out forms and explain to the other people in line why they need their forms and boy it seems like the government asking for these forms sure is bad.
It would probably help if you're in the right headspace for a consistently slow novel but I really wasn't and for that reason, I appreciated what The Queue was going for but it just didn't click with me.
The book is interesting and a fascinating portrait of modern life in the Arab World but the problem is that it becomes increasingly dull to read about people standing in line to fill in forms and having their forms rejected and then having different people stand in line to fill out forms and explain to the other people in line why they need their forms and boy it seems like the government asking for these forms sure is bad.
It would probably help if you're in the right headspace for a consistently slow novel but I really wasn't and for that reason, I appreciated what The Queue was going for but it just didn't click with me.