A review by corar
Naphtalene: A Novel of Baghdad by Peter Theroux, Alia Mamdouh, Hélène Cixous, عالية ممدوح, F.A. Haidar

3.0

Naphtalene is the story of a young girl (at the beginning she is 9 years old, at the end she is about 12) growing up in Baghdad in the 1950s. It is very descriptive and atmospheric. The author does a good job bringing to life the everyday life of women in Iraq during this time period. Unfortunately for me, it was very hard to read. It is written in a stream of consciousness style. The author switches from first person to second person and back to first often, even in the middle of paragraphs. There are flashbacks that you don't realize are flashbacks until it mentions a character who has already gone. The writing style really made it hard for me to follow what was going on in the story. The parts I was able to look past the style and absorb the story were wonderfully evocative of the place and time.