A review by ajith
An Unnecessary Woman by Rabih Alameddine

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? N/A
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.5

The history, the culture, the cuisine, the cataclysm defying spirit, the intellectuals, Gibran, Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Rawi Hage - everytime I identify one or the other from Lebanon I find myself stupefied. Predictably so, Rabih Alameddine has also joined that enchanters list, albeit in my second encounter with him.

Only a few pages in, you would figure out the title is misleading for the seventy-odd Aaliya Saleh is on her own, independant and recluse by choice but is also a bibliophile, a melophile , an aesthete in the Beirut of 2010. She indulges herself in doing translations, translations of translations to be precise, of famous works to Arabic.The book is replete with references to writers - Sebald, Nabakov, Proust , Walter Benjamin, Dostoevsky,  Pessoa, Edward Hirsch, Marguerite Yourcenar, Danilo Kis and many others, some of whose names has put the unversed me to shame - and their respective oeuvres. 

Segued into the side tracks of literature, art and music Aaliya's septuagenarian thoughts deftly meanders unveiling her own life and her solitude. The three witches - Fadia, Joumana, and Marie -Therese - Ahmad, Aaliya's mother and Hannah are a few of the other characters who assist in driving the plot. 

Rabih is a masterclass who is in full control of his language - post modern, free flowing and majestic - in this almost-a-300-pager with no chapter breaks.

A reader's delight and an intelligent read about solitude, old age and Beirut.