A bold, razor-sharp novel about a shadowy antihero navigating Montreal’s immigrant underworld.
One of the most highl...
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reviews
Sep 03, 2008
Corey
rated it: 
Seeing as immigration is an integral element of the Canadian landscape, it should come as no surprise that authors might seek to dip into this cultural stew for dramatic purposes. Very few, however, would likely seek to add the phantasmagorical and hallucinatory elements that Rawi Hage’s novel Cockroach brings to the recipe.
The Canadian author arose seemingly from out of nowhere in 2006 when his debut novel De Niro’s Game was rescued from the obscurity of the slush pile at House of A More...
The Canadian author arose seemingly from out of nowhere in 2006 when his debut novel De Niro’s Game was rescued from the obscurity of the slush pile at House of A More...
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Feb 11, 2012
Neva
rated it: 
An Arab immigrant as a Scheherazade to his Canadian therapist, his wild Third world past as 1001 nights to a steril life of taxpaying, TV-watching and self fooling. A compulsively stealing, quite lazy, sexually starving, resentful loner with a suicidal tendency, a special talent for metaphors and ability to turn himself (willingly, unlike Kafka's Samsa) into a cockroach. Witty, passionate prose, great little kamikadze story. Oh, how I enjoyed this one.
A spoilerish P.S. Still, I'd tak More...
A spoilerish P.S. Still, I'd tak More...
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Nov 25, 2008
Steven
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Rawi Hage’s second novel Cockroach takes place during a frigid Montreal winter and details the picaresque adventures of an unnamed protagonist, a recent immigrant from the Middle East and self-professed thief who often envisions himself as a giant cockroach. Hage is the recent winner of English literature’s richest prize, the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, for his debut novel DeNiro’s Game (which I did not read); as such, there has been a considerable degree of anticipation for this new book.
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Mar 10, 2011
Carly
rated it:
Yes, I completed the book yesterday afternoon and attended the discussion at the library last night.
We had a good turnout there, more than expected, the weather being cold and wet.
Feelings on the book were mixed, not so much around the table, but within ourselves as individual members. We all agreed on it being a good book, in that the author's characters, including the protag were exasperating people.
Protag . . . and nobody can figure out what his name is - f More...
We had a good turnout there, more than expected, the weather being cold and wet.
Feelings on the book were mixed, not so much around the table, but within ourselves as individual members. We all agreed on it being a good book, in that the author's characters, including the protag were exasperating people.
Protag . . . and nobody can figure out what his name is - f More...
Nov 07, 2011
Tina
rated it: 
This is a book about justice or perhaps revenge, though you wouldn't think so from the start. At first I wasn't sure what to think about the novel and I didn't like it at first. From the book jacket it sounded like a story about a weird loner, but that isn't what the narrator is at all, well, at least not in the way I was hoping for. The first third of the book was depressing, bleak, and seems to go nowhere, but the author has this way of drawing you into the narrator's life, making you want to
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Nov 07, 2010
Patrick
rated it:
There's a cool interesting story in Rawi Hage's Cockroach. His underlining premise in regards to immigration and the starting over of uprooted displaced people. Of what someone fleeing political persecution, or those that grew up in an urban wartime battlefield bring with them to the new country. How being ill prepared to exist, emotionally damaged, as well as being unwanted in this alien environment could possibly raise comparison to common household bugs that people tend to dislike, yet somewh
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Apr 18, 2009
Kiefer_c
rated it:
To be “part human, part cockroach” seems like a disturbingly profound and wild idea, but in Rawi Hage’s novel, Cockroach , that identity is illuminated within a troubled unnamed character that struggles between his own dark past and the unwelcoming society of poorer Montreal. Without having read Hage’s first novel, DeNiro’s Game , I found this novel to be surprisingly philosophical and insightful about today’s society. For instance, the protagonist made a statement that is still stuck at the bac
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Apr 10, 2010
L
rated it:
First, you will care about Cockroach (in truth, no name is given, but he sometimes envisions himself as a cockroach), despite his B & E, his theft, and his less than attractive habits. This is a story of emigres in Montreal. One of the cover blurbs refers to the tale as a "hypnotic journey, taking us to the dark and mad underside of exile." Another refers to this as a "Dostoevskian fable, which lowers the reader into the sewers of immigrant Montreal to confront an underground worl
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Jan 04, 2012
Dan
rated it:
a really enjoyable, snarky-but-not-misanthropic satire of multiculturalism and poverty in montreal. the rambling narrative follows a troubled, brutally honest, occasionally hilarious arab immigrant who has recently attempted suicide. we watch him as he attends therapy sessions, strong-arms his friends out of money, washes dishes, breaks into multiple apartments and eventually falls in love. for its first two thirds, cockroach maintains two contradictory accomplishments - in one sense, it's an ex
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Aug 09, 2011
Emma
rated it:
It took me a little while to get into this book, it is written in the first person, a series of thoughts as they pass through the main protagonist's head. He is an immigrant living in Montreal, despising the cold winter, attending appointments with a state appointed psychologist after his recent suicide attempt. He sneaks into people's houses and riffles through their personal belongings, taking souvenirs and eating the food from their fridge. However, the narrative draws you in as you start
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Jul 01, 2010
Shane
rated it:
Cockroach is an engaging character: thief, suicidal, obsessed with the underbelly of life, hating his new homeland and the people who live in it (why did he come, I wanted to ask), supposedly illiterate but wonderfully articulate and poetic, especially when he runs off into stream-of-consciousness ramblings on the state of his mind and of the nation.
There is also a trend in writing, which I recently tried to address in a blog article, and I call it "let-it-all-hang-out writing," More...
There is also a trend in writing, which I recently tried to address in a blog article, and I call it "let-it-all-hang-out writing," More...
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Jul 26, 2011
Strangely hypnotic first person novel, the story of an immigrant to Canada living in poverty on the margins of society. The protagonist is mentally ill, with drug induced delusions, and has survived a suicide attempt. Long sentences with multiple clauses, fanciful analogies and descriptions, hints of magical realism, flight of ideas, cascading and imaginative phrasing. The cockroach motif pervades the novel - cockroaches inhabit and recur in the narrator's rooms; he imagines himself to be lik
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Oct 14, 2009
Gilly
rated it:
Hage conveys anger, detachment, discomfort and chaos better than just about anyone. He does this through the story itself, with its marginalized immigrants and smug natives, its cruelty and violence. And he does it through the narrator, who is schizophrenic but whose vision of the world is true and right, and who is enormously seductive. He does it, amazingly well, through language. At times he piles on crazy metaphors that reveal parallels I'd never otherwise see. He's amazing at describing how
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Aug 18, 2011
Samar
rated it:
What a fresh approach to dealing with issues of exile. I had begun to despair that Arab writers could do it, could write novels that could be taken seriously aesthetically and also pay homage to the issues-political and social- that must dominate the psyche of all Arabs. What was impressive was how effortlessly the writer moved from West to East, from describing the banal, self-absorbed existence of people in the West to describing the hysterical, emotionally-loaded and usually desperate realiti
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Apr 27, 2010
Dave
rated it:
Rawi Hage’s second novel “Cockroach” is an absorbing story, told through the eyes of Lebanese immigrant living in Montreal. The unnamed narrator (fittingly unnamed as one would not name a cockroach) is the anti-hero of this tale of survival without hope, which takes place during a extremely harsh winter in Montreal, a city known more for beauty than the lowlife activity which occurs in this story. The narrator associates himself with cockroaches, an association that started with an innocent ea
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Sep 22, 2009
Rawi Hage has said that he writes without a plan. He's not one for detailed outlines; instead, he writes himself into a situation and then turns around and writes his way back out of it. And this approach is evident in his novels.
De Niro's Game was a two-part novel in three parts: Hage seemed not to notice that he had already reached a plausible conclusion, and tacked on a contrived plot to bring things to a close. And it felt contrived, improbable, implausible, as we went from being More...
De Niro's Game was a two-part novel in three parts: Hage seemed not to notice that he had already reached a plausible conclusion, and tacked on a contrived plot to bring things to a close. And it felt contrived, improbable, implausible, as we went from being More...
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Feb 01, 2009
Tiffany
rated it:
Although I struggled with it in the beginning, Cockroach proved to be an enjoyable and thoughtful read. I recently developed a slight hate-on for Giller-nominated titles (because of books like The Boys in the Trees and Divisadero), but then I remembered how much I enjoyed Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott and I decided to give this one a fair shot.
And I'm glad I did. With his second novel, Hage chooses to address the issue of "forgotten exiles" from war-torn countries thro More...
And I'm glad I did. With his second novel, Hage chooses to address the issue of "forgotten exiles" from war-torn countries thro More...
Feb 08, 2009
William
rated it:
A very interesting book. Concerns the life in Montreal of a middle Eastern immigrant who suffereed greatly before coming here and doesn't do much better here. The imagery is very rich as is the prose. A great 'book club' book. It takes place against the backdrop of his sessions with a court appointed psychiatrist after a failed sucide attempt. This is how we become aware of his past. HIs present is related in the first person in an almost stream of conciousness way.
I really enjoyed it
I really enjoyed it
Jan 11, 2010
John
rated it:
I was excited at the blurb--a refugee from the Lebanese civil war lurks around Montreal. Evidently, Lebanese-born Rawi Hage has done the same, though it's difficult to tell if he or his anti-protagonist have done much else. Picaresque is the word, with plenty of descriptions of his antagonistic, six-legged alter ego thrown in. I feel as though it would have made a bracing short story or three, but by the three-quarter mark, it seemed to be repeating itself.
Mar 03, 2010
seanat (elka)
rated it:
Identifying himself as part human part cockroach, Hage's Lebanese waiter isn't so much reaching for the sky as looking into the underground.
Almost invisible from society as a immigrant in Montreal,Canada with nothing and no one in his life he will not be ignored ,as he forces himself into peoples lives and homes ..quite literally!
Stark, shocking, surreal and pulling no punches this novel ,like its character, will not be forgotten easily. Recommended.
Almost invisible from society as a immigrant in Montreal,Canada with nothing and no one in his life he will not be ignored ,as he forces himself into peoples lives and homes ..quite literally!
Stark, shocking, surreal and pulling no punches this novel ,like its character, will not be forgotten easily. Recommended.
Apr 11, 2011
Amanda
rated it:
I hated the first 25 pages and said I was going to stop reading it. But I kept going, and I admit that by the middle of the book, I cared about the characters, and by the end of the book, I needed closure. I'm not as existentially inclined as I used to be, but I still wouldn't go so far as to compare him to Camus. By the end, I liked the protagonist and not only did I feel like I was rooting for him, but I also feel like I understood him. I did find that it was too hard to read this book in bits
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Apr 18, 2011
Anne
rated it:
Awesome and haunting, and a spot-on sense of Montreal portraits--the "eccentric" landlady with fading aristocratic colors, the exploitative bosses, the hyper-educated cab drivers. The blur of fantasy-reality across underground/overground story layers really worked for me. Highly recommended. Also, funny as hell.
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Aug 05, 2011
Colin N.
rated it:
A pretty fascinating account full of rage and anger of a possibly mentally-deranged immigrant to Canada who struggles with his past and his present and rails against the society around him. I'm not sure I've read a book quite as furious at the world as this. A blend of Kafka and Notes from the Underground set in the modern world (although it turns a bit thrillerish at the end). Still, really interesting.
Aug 01, 2011
I initially found this one difficult to read because the first 100 pages seemed pretty dense and I didn't like the main character. However, the last 200 pages somehow became more interesting. Although, I still didn't like the main character. However, it is called Cockroach.
Mar 11, 2010
Dean
rated it:
Excellent existential book with each sentence crafted to reveal a character who is at once transparently dark and grungy as a cockroach, but at the same time realistically portrayed as an outcast in society. I highly recommend the novel and applaud it for its exceptional style.
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Aug 07, 2010
Richard
rated it:
Very good read. Again a decent into the evil man is capabale of. I loved the Montreal setting, it added that much more dimension to the story for me. The juxtaposition of sane vs insane was fantastic. When does sanity become insanity, and who is the judge.
Feb 11, 2010
Nicole
rated it:
This was an interesting book - not a fun read (kind of depressing, actually, although there are humorous bits), but one that I found hard to set down. It seemed rushed at the end after the slower pace the first half of the book had set.
Dec 22, 2010
Elizabeth
rated it:
If you live in Canada or any other country welcoming refugees and immigrants this is worth a read. About the nightmare many of those around us have have experienced before they arrived here and the stress of their new lives.
Jun 25, 2011
مهنا
rated it: 
قرأتها وليتني مافعلت ..
رواية خسارة فيها ثواني معدودة ..
نهاية بائسة كأي نهاية لاي فلم مصري ( ينتصر الحق ويموت الخصم ) ..
مليئة بتشبيهات مقيته ..
لغتها ليست بالقدر الراقي .. تقرأها وكأنك تقرأ ترجمة ( قوقل ) في بعض مقاطعها طبعاً ...
أنصح بعدم شراءها وقراءتها ..
تحيتي .
رواية خسارة فيها ثواني معدودة ..
نهاية بائسة كأي نهاية لاي فلم مصري ( ينتصر الحق ويموت الخصم ) ..
مليئة بتشبيهات مقيته ..
لغتها ليست بالقدر الراقي .. تقرأها وكأنك تقرأ ترجمة ( قوقل ) في بعض مقاطعها طبعاً ...
أنصح بعدم شراءها وقراءتها ..
تحيتي .
Aug 08, 2009
Loretta
rated it:
An interesting read. Dark, and "earthy" (by which I mean "kinda gross sometimes" - there are repeating themes around bodily functions and fluids), and at times almost claustrophobic. Hage gives us a fascinating look at one person's view of Montreal, a recent immigrant with baggage and problems. This is not a happy book, and the narrator is not a very likable character, but as the story progresses, he is at least an understandable one. Worth a read.
