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gothamcityballet 's review for:
The Centre
by Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi
Extremely beautiful and competent in its themes, but Siddiqi can't seem to choose between two slightly distinct versions of the narrative. Even though the heroine is self-aware to a meta degree, especially in the last third, with a lot of discussion about storytelling, it doesn't quite come off.
I can see The Centre being added to reading lists for Postcolonial Literature modules over the coming years, because it's very rich with Problems and Themes and Context, but Siddiqi gets distracted by a cultural story about diaspora identity and never lets the reader fully appreciate the full implications of her SF premise, which would have actually served her broader themes about culture and exploitation if she had had the confidence to pursue them. The broad strokes of the plot have certainly been done before, probably a Twilight Zone episode, but Siddiqi doesn't especially care for it much beyond metaphor.
The heroine saying out loud that diaspora narratives are cliché isn't quite enough to distract from this turn in focus. The SF twist never truly gets examined as deeply and wholly as I'd like, and the supposedly chronically curious heroine decides not to ask some obvious choice questions after the reveal, nor really challenge what she is told. She's either exquisite in her flawed and realistic human hypocrisy, or this is a plot hole. Unclear and subjective.
I look forward to Siddiqi's follow-up, however, because she's clearly eminently skilled, and she'll hopefully have outgrown a reliance on hedging her bets in terms of unclear outcomes for characters. I'd like to know what actually happened to characters in a story, and not simply be abandoned by the author dumping out a pile of awkward questions and running away. The final scene had the energy of a student undermining an insightful and well-researched presentation by going, "and yeah, that's it."
I can see The Centre being added to reading lists for Postcolonial Literature modules over the coming years, because it's very rich with Problems and Themes and Context, but Siddiqi gets distracted by a cultural story about diaspora identity and never lets the reader fully appreciate the full implications of her SF premise, which would have actually served her broader themes about culture and exploitation if she had had the confidence to pursue them. The broad strokes of the plot have certainly been done before, probably a Twilight Zone episode, but Siddiqi doesn't especially care for it much beyond metaphor.
The heroine saying out loud that diaspora narratives are cliché isn't quite enough to distract from this turn in focus. The SF twist never truly gets examined as deeply and wholly as I'd like, and the supposedly chronically curious heroine decides not to ask some obvious choice questions after the reveal, nor really challenge what she is told. She's either exquisite in her flawed and realistic human hypocrisy, or this is a plot hole. Unclear and subjective.
I look forward to Siddiqi's follow-up, however, because she's clearly eminently skilled, and she'll hopefully have outgrown a reliance on hedging her bets in terms of unclear outcomes for characters. I'd like to know what actually happened to characters in a story, and not simply be abandoned by the author dumping out a pile of awkward questions and running away. The final scene had the energy of a student undermining an insightful and well-researched presentation by going, "and yeah, that's it."