The Bamboo Stalk in Around the World in 80 Books

Nov 16, 2022 Bogdan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: orient-express

It is a very interesting novel with a lot of great messages. Especially now around the Qatar World Cup where there is a hype regarding immigration workers treatment in the Gulf countries.

But, the novel has some issues in the form. While the writer attempted and succeeded for the most part to write it at first person, there are occasionally third person narrated scenes which are not integrated very well, since they are visible to the occasional reader. Additionally, it has also a common bad habit ...more

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Mar 02, 2022 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: project-fit, comingofage, translated-fiction, setting-middle-east, setting-asia, novels

Although I grew up in the Arab world, I've never been anywhere near the Gulf, and so that part of the Middle East has always been relatively unknown to me. So I was eager to dive into this prize-winning novel, apparently the first Kuwaiti novel to be translated into English. It's quite ambitious, striving to tackle themes of identity, religion, family, migration, nationality, and love -- all through the story of Jose/Isa, the child of a Kuwaiti man and the Filipinna maid in his mother's house.

T Although I grew up in the Arab world, I've never been anywhere near the Gulf, and so that part of the Middle East has always been relatively unknown to me. So I was eager to dive into this prize-winning novel, apparently the first Kuwaiti novel to be translated into English. It's quite ambitious, striving to tackle themes of identity, religion, family, migration, nationality, and love -- all through the story of Jose/Isa, the child of a Kuwaiti man and the Filipinna maid in his mother's house.

The book opens with the 30-page backstory of Jose/Isa's mother's journey to Kuwait as a servant in the late 1980s, her relationship with Rashid al-Tarouf, and their forbidden secret love that results in a baby boy who is rejected by Rashid's family and sent back to the Philippines with his mother. The next 130 pages all take place in the Philippines, as Jose/Isa grows up on his grandfather's tiny plot of land on the outskirts of Manilla, with other relatives and a witch-like old woman. It's an effective portrait of impoverished life in which the only real money coming in is from his Aunt's prositution and his mother's remittances, while his grandfather drinks and cock-fights away their money, and Jose/Isa longs for his beautiful cousin and dreams of being recalled to Kuwait by his father.

Of course, when he does finally make it to Kuwait, everything is complicated and difficult. One thing that comes across loud and clear in the story is the extent to which family reputation is paramount for many Kuwaitis, and the prospect of a Filipino-faced grandson in the family is simply not to be entertained. The rest of the book traces Jose/Isa's several years as a teenager into a young man in Kuwait, sustained by guilt-ridden allowances from his estranged family, a friendship with his half-sister, and a one-sided email correspondence with his cousin back in Manilla. Along the way, he explores his uncertain faith, the importance of friendships and community (both with Filipino migrant workers and with some young Kuwaiti men who befriend him), and the nature of being partially in several worlds, while not wholly in any.

The writing certainly captures Jose/Isa's frustrations and dilemmas, and doesn't try to take the easy or sentimental way out at any point. But it also goes a little heavy on the internal monologuing and the circling back upon the same themes and points gets rather tedious after a while. The book certainly has value as a window into Kuwaiti culture -- the Iraqi invasion plays a prominent role in the backstory, and there are interesting tidbits throughout, such as the diwaniya informal gathering spaces, or the stateless "bidoons" in Kuwait, which I had never heard of. All in all, not the most engaging of writing, but certainly worth considering by readers with an interest in Kuwait, or in the lives of Filipino migrant workers in the Gulf. ...more

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Mar 25, 2023 Anna Ruth FL rated it liked it

Shelves: kuwait-grc

3.5
Caught between two worlds, but not fully welcomed in either.This book made me so mad! Jose/Isa is treated so poorly by so many in his family, both in the Philippines and Kuwait. The background of the Iraqi invasion and reform in Kuwait was interesting.

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