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A review by joanna_mward
The Clothesline Swing by Danny Ramadan
3.0
This *is* a lovely book - with a love story at its centre, coloured and complicated by migration and displacement, the oppression of queerness, war, friendships, trauma. It is told mostly from the frame of the central character as an elderly man looking back at his life and talking to his partner (sometimes explicitly, sometimes as if in a letter), and also to the figure of death - which is a nice perspective and means that the picture is gradually built up rather than being a linear narrative, as well as adding in the question of how reliable the narration is re: the narrator's age, memory, evident PTSD.
However unfortunately the book was for me full of clichés .... and when I say FULL - both in terms of the plot (nothing really felt like it ever came as a surprise and every turn was just really predictable?) - and in terms of the use of metaphors and turns of phrase, which just felt really tired and unfortunately really detracted from some other moments where the prose was really beautiful. I also felt like the relationship was central to the narrative to the extent of overshadowing other themes - so the potential power of the story's context (of migrating away from authoritarianism and war in Syria) was kind of diminished given the hackneyed (though still obviously important to remember) stories of the oppression of young gay men. Also it felt like a somewhat sanitised view of gay / queer lives - there was explicit sex right at the start of the book which then went away totally (which felt bizarre), and some limited discussion of their queer community in Damascus / Beirut, but I really felt like the queerness of the relationship wasn't explored in interesting ways and that was a really missed opportunity. And the way that the end of their lives was talked about felt really heteronormative. It's obviously ok for a story about gay men to not be especially queer.com, but it just felt like it wasn't reflected on very well at all.
I just read a review which said it was "a coming-out memoir, a history lesson, a critique of authoritarianism, a narrative about sharing narratives – but above all, it's a requiem for a dying country and people" and I just don't agree - I think it is all those things to some extent, but the potency of the political context / critique is completely overshadowed by it being predominantly a "a coming-out memoir." And I just found that really disappointing - I was really hoping for a more insightful reflection on how war, displacement and migration interact with the queer experience and I really don't think I got that in a meaningful way. One of the most interesting and powerful things about the book was the narrator's relationship with his mother, and her life - which was where some of the nicest prose, most nuanced emotional / interpersonal reflection, and most interesting storytelling came. And whilst I did really value that story, I just didn't think it added very much to the supposed themes of the book.
Reflecting on this now, I'm thinking about Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - which I think actually explores lots of similar themes but just does SUCH a better job. I appreciate that it isn't necessarily appropriate to compare or conflate two different experiences of being a PoC refugee from a post-colonial country, and Syria and Vietnam are obviously COMPLETELY different contexts - but there are actually a lot of parallels between the two books (complex maternal relationship, cultural displacement and erasure, difficult and formative romantic relationships, also non-linear narrative which gradually builds the full picture). And whilst the Vuong is breathtakingly beautiful, original, nuanced, poignant, unpredictable, volatile, powerful ... this just really falls short in comparison unfortunately, in its use of language, structure, perspective, suspense.
I'm still glad I read this book as it was a nice page-turner and a soothingly easy read, even if the clichés sometimes got a bit tiresome. I would still recommend this book if you want an easy read about queer men's lives within a poignant framework of migration and displacement, and I think it would be a GREAT one to give to a young gay man (age 15?) as an intro to queer literature. However if you're looking for powerful reflection on the post-war diasporic experience as intersecting with queer life, it's maybe not quite going to his the mark.
However unfortunately the book was for me full of clichés .... and when I say FULL - both in terms of the plot (nothing really felt like it ever came as a surprise and every turn was just really predictable?) - and in terms of the use of metaphors and turns of phrase, which just felt really tired and unfortunately really detracted from some other moments where the prose was really beautiful. I also felt like the relationship was central to the narrative to the extent of overshadowing other themes - so the potential power of the story's context (of migrating away from authoritarianism and war in Syria) was kind of diminished given the hackneyed (though still obviously important to remember) stories of the oppression of young gay men. Also it felt like a somewhat sanitised view of gay / queer lives - there was explicit sex right at the start of the book which then went away totally (which felt bizarre), and some limited discussion of their queer community in Damascus / Beirut, but I really felt like the queerness of the relationship wasn't explored in interesting ways and that was a really missed opportunity. And the way that the end of their lives was talked about felt really heteronormative. It's obviously ok for a story about gay men to not be especially queer.com, but it just felt like it wasn't reflected on very well at all.
I just read a review which said it was "a coming-out memoir, a history lesson, a critique of authoritarianism, a narrative about sharing narratives – but above all, it's a requiem for a dying country and people" and I just don't agree - I think it is all those things to some extent, but the potency of the political context / critique is completely overshadowed by it being predominantly a "a coming-out memoir." And I just found that really disappointing - I was really hoping for a more insightful reflection on how war, displacement and migration interact with the queer experience and I really don't think I got that in a meaningful way. One of the most interesting and powerful things about the book was the narrator's relationship with his mother, and her life - which was where some of the nicest prose, most nuanced emotional / interpersonal reflection, and most interesting storytelling came. And whilst I did really value that story, I just didn't think it added very much to the supposed themes of the book.
Reflecting on this now, I'm thinking about Ocean Vuong's On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - which I think actually explores lots of similar themes but just does SUCH a better job. I appreciate that it isn't necessarily appropriate to compare or conflate two different experiences of being a PoC refugee from a post-colonial country, and Syria and Vietnam are obviously COMPLETELY different contexts - but there are actually a lot of parallels between the two books (complex maternal relationship, cultural displacement and erasure, difficult and formative romantic relationships, also non-linear narrative which gradually builds the full picture). And whilst the Vuong is breathtakingly beautiful, original, nuanced, poignant, unpredictable, volatile, powerful ... this just really falls short in comparison unfortunately, in its use of language, structure, perspective, suspense.
I'm still glad I read this book as it was a nice page-turner and a soothingly easy read, even if the clichés sometimes got a bit tiresome. I would still recommend this book if you want an easy read about queer men's lives within a poignant framework of migration and displacement, and I think it would be a GREAT one to give to a young gay man (age 15?) as an intro to queer literature. However if you're looking for powerful reflection on the post-war diasporic experience as intersecting with queer life, it's maybe not quite going to his the mark.