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Disoriental--Whole Book--Spoilers OK
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How it begins, from the Prologue:In Paris, my father, Darius Sadr, never took the escalator. The first time I went down into a metro station with him, on April 21, 1981, I asked him why. His answer was, "Escalators are for them." By "them" he meant you, obviously.
I found this quite extraordinary. It's one of the few times I've read a story where a minority writer throws down this gauntlet from the beginning, with a narrator stating starkly that she lives a separate life from most of her readers, who are European, indigenous French people for the most part. The "you" that is being addressed here in these first sentences is a group the narrator doesn't belong to.
It's not easy for an author/narrator to divide herself from readers so directly in the first sentences, or to remind readers so starkly that they treat people like her as outsiders, but that's exactly what this novel is about.
I would like to thank Lark and the group for introducing me to this novel, because I wouldn't have found it on my own. It has an interesting, quirky narrator/protagonist and a series of themes with a cross-pollinating effect. Expatriation, cultural re-set, sexual ambiguity, new birth/artificial insemination-birth, "disorientation" in every sense. I at first did not like the title, then I liked it; then I thought of it as an adjective, and finally I saw it as a noun. Kimia as the ultimate "Disoriental." (This works in French, too.) And yes, I see what Lark is saying about how the theme of being different comes right at the beginning.
I started reading this book last night. I have heard such positive comments on the book.After I started reading I did pause and think to myself how I would read this book because of the references/places that I am not that familiar with and I need to have a minimal sense of the setting/locations.
I am glad there is a list of characters and their relations to each other.
Lark wrote: "How it begins, from the Prologue:In Paris, my father, Darius Sadr, never took the escalator. The first time I went down into a metro station with him, on April 21, 1981, I asked him why. His ans..."
Well, your comment gave me pause.
While I am not sure if I have read a book before this one that delves immediately into being "them", but I did not give it a second thought and thought it was a normal thought - could be because I heard similar thoughts growing up.
Beverly, I'm still trying to orient myself, so to speak, as well, to the times and places of the novel. I also haven't finished it yet, I'm still in the early pages.Something that appears to be a red herring here in the beginning--at least I can't find references online that tie in with the story--are the weirdly specific dates the author writes.
For instance "April 21, 1981." The Iran hostage crisis was November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981, and nothing much seems to have been happening in France on that specific date. Because I assumed it was something important, date-wise, I stopped reading and tried to research it, but came up blank. Maybe a native French person would just know it wasn't an important date? Or maybe the date will be explained later in the book.
Same with "March 11, 1994." or "January 19 at ten past ten in the morning." All from the prologue and none of these dates turned out to have context that I could find out about online or that I could understand at this point in the novel, when I stopped to look them up.
Here is another question I want to throw out in the beginning in case anyone also is experiencing it. Given that there have been many novels published lately by authors interested in the experiences of first-generation immigrants--and more explicitly, the realities of what it's like for a non-Western woman to relocate to the West...do you find yourself thinking about other recent novels as you read this novel? Is it getting in your way at all in your reading of this novel?I do, and I'm finding I'm making comparisons, and it's intrusive. These novels in my head that I've read recently aren't all that similar but they all are stories about a young, non-Western woman who has been displaced from her homeland and is trying to find her new place in a Western society.
Some of my recent reads that fit this category:
Walking on the Ceiling
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
A Woman Is No Man
Beyond Babylon
The Death of Murat Idrissi
The Atlas of Reds and Blues
America Is Not the Heart
Everything Here Is Beautiful
Refuge
Exit West
Homegoing
Ladivine...
I just started to read this. I like how the author starts the book. She writes with a cynical and cutting style that is impossible to ignore. The passage about being an outsider and comparing her feelings to what it must have felt like for a Vietnam War veteran to come back home was particularly piercing. I tend to enjoy cynical characters so it has me intrigued so far. I also like that the author weaves in and out of the past and the present.
Mod
Personally I felt a "ker-clunk" of a letdown between the electrifying prologue and the first chapter, where the story bogs down in a lot of meandering and (to me) not very interesting family backstory. As I read it I kept thinking "why am I being told this?" and "what happened to the vivid conflict promised in the prologue?" but maybe it's just me and my pesky expectations.Also I don't think it's great and might even be a bit of a debut mistake to have a protag literally waiting in a waiting room as your ch. 1.
I found the style pleasant, conversational, consistent in tone. It is not as intense or highly detailed as a Joyce Carol Oates, and unlike Oates, who goes way into the interior of her main characters (who so often appear to be nothing like her), I had the feeling that this narrator was probably pretty close to the implied author, to the extent of the few details I have about her. I'm thinking of the frequent references to movies (there is a reference to a type of camera shot in one scene), to popular culture, certainly to political history, etc. I like the way the narrator is willing to intrude to help us out with keeping track of people and events.
I really enjoyed this novel. I read it awhile ago and do not remember being distracted by comparisons to other books or the dates. And had no problem with the backstory -- I tend to like to know about the life one is living. This book brought back memories of the Iranian hostage crisis -- it is when I learned the words to the Canadian national anthem that KDKA radio played for weeks. My review - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
LindaJ^ wrote: "I really enjoyed this novel. I read it awhile ago and do not remember being distracted by comparisons to other books or the dates. And had no problem with the backstory -- I tend to like to know ab..."Thanks Linda! I just need to dive in and keep reading until I catch the unique rhythm of this novel.
Lark wrote: "Here is another question I want to throw out in the beginning in case anyone also is experiencing it. Given that there have been many novels published lately by authors interested in the experience..."It seems like I have reading a lot of books recently with the same themes as Disoriental (including some listed above).
What this does for me is bring on what I call "reading fatigue" - as it seems that I am reading the same storyline over and over again.
At times this makes it hard for me to appreciate the most recent novel with the same themes for what is it doing - and what it's contribution is the this topic/genre.
Overall this is one my fav topic/genre but sometimes I need to put space between "similar" books to ensure I get the best out of each book.
I am about 40% through this book.It is reading very much like a memoir to me (this is not bad thing) but I need to remember this is fiction.
I am wondering if this is "auto-fiction"?
Yes, a lot of historical information which is fine with me as I like history.
I have found my reading rhythm for this book so hopefully I will make much progress over the next couple of days.
I do find myself more interested in the stories of the generations before Kimia than I am about Kimia's storyline. We will see if this continues.
I read this a while ago too, but I took a few hours tonight and skimmed through again. It's funny -- I didn't feel a lot of that fatigue of reading the same types of stories when I read this the first time, but on skimming (after recently reading a bunch of similarly themed books,) I found myself feeling a bit less enthusiastic (and I even started to reconsider how I actually felt about this one, but then I stopped.) I've read a bunch of the books Lark listed above, and I do find that some books are just able to jump the hurdles of similar themes and really draw me in. Others aren't, and I am distant from them the whole way through. It's not so much sameness that drags them down, it's that I want them to say something new, or barring that I want a great story that sweeps me away from my thinking brain into an immersive experience. I was able to get that from Disoriental the first time I read it, but I don't know that I'd be able to again right now. Sometimes it's just a case of a book + person + timing.
I just finished the book and had held off on joining the discussion since I thought this thread might have spoilers, but now I see everyone’s at different place and I wish I had joined earlier.I have mixed feelings about the book. Opposite of Beverly, the book lost me when it wandered into the ancestral talk but held my attention better when it was just Kimia’s story.
I found the last 100 pages much more powerful than the first 200, but maybe I had to read the first 200 to feel that way.
I am a bit behind the game, but I started this last night. I will try to think of something useful to say at some point.
I'm sorry to be completely sliding off the reading map, here. To be honest it's not the novel's fault. My brain is having a hard time settling down into any book at all just now...I'm too preoccupied with world events and it's spoiling my reading life! I'll try to settle in today.
Lark wrote: "I'm sorry to be completely sliding off the reading map, here. To be honest it's not the novel's fault. My brain is having a hard time settling down into any book at all just now...I'm too preoccupi..."I found it a hard one to get into. I might have given up but I really wanted to participate in the discussion. I'm really glad that I finished since the end brought things together well and I was more engaged.
I know it says "spoilers ok" here, but since a lot of people are still in the early parts, give us a heads up when we're good to discuss the ending.
Mod
Spoilers should be fair game in a spoiler thread. I am not convinced this book has any dramatic late twists anyway...
I have now finished Disoriental.While I liked Side A (a bit of a history geek) but I thought Side B really made this book find its own footprint among immigrant stories.
And I thought the format of the book was a good tie-in to Kimia's love of music. And I remember as a teenager having paying a record and then found Side B to be a surprise treat.
As Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie says beware of the single story.
What I thought this book did well was show that you can experience the same traumatic events but how you react to it as individual can be vastly different from others in your same family.
I just finished. I had a tough time with it. It seemed so scattered. I realize she's writing about scattered and confusing times, but still, personally, I needed more of a reason to want to care about these individual characters as they passed by on the pages. I thought it felt a bit first draft-like. Sentence by sentence it was a little flat to me. I need to read some reviews now and figure out what I've missed.Another thins is that some of the individual lines written here hardened my heart against the narrator, perhaps unfairly. I didn't have a strong feeling of wanting to trust her, or that she cared about the people she was writing about. The number-named uncles felt a little cold to me.
Or this, from p. 35:
"Sarah was my mother. The other one has become Mom."
I just didn't like the idea of this narrator, this daughter, not being able to see that the person with dementia was the same person who had raised her.
I just finished. I had a tough time with it. It seemed so scattered. I realize she's writing about scattered and confusing times, but still, personally, I needed more of a reason to want to care about these individual characters as they passed by on the pages, or through history. I thought it felt a bit first draft-like. Sentence by sentence it fell flat for me. I need to read some reviews now and figure out what I've missed.Another thing is that some of the individual lines written here hardened my heart against the narrator, perhaps unfairly. I didn't have a strong feeling of wanting to trust this narrator. I didn't think she cared much for the people she was writing about. For instance, numbering her uncles--that just felt cold to me.
Or this, from p. 35:
"Sarah was my mother. The other one has become Mom."
I didn't like the idea of the narrator, this daughter, not being able to see that the person with dementia was the same person who had raised her.
This is interesting. I am just coming to the end of Side A. I think I have misread something because I thought the uncle numbering was a family thing not specifically Kimia and I have been reading it as a sign of family intimacy. I’ll go back.I have to admit I found Side A a bit of a struggle, so it is very possible I misunderstood something as I did skim read a few bits.
Neil wrote: "I thought the uncle numbering was a family thing not specifically Kimia and I have been reading it as a sign of family intimacy. ..."You're right Neil, it wasn't just Kimia, and your comment made me realize my criticism was a bit 'meta,' because it was the author's choice of course to make numbering people a thing, and I didn't buy the context, or think that it was actually all that great a sign of family intimacy to call relatives by numbers. So the fictional persona she created for Kimia may have meant to be one way but I read it another way...the language on the page felt cold no matter what the intent.
And now I'm wondering if this bit is autofiction, and if Djavadi's family numbered the uncles and thought it was lovely and loving. Even so "it really happened that way in real life" is a terrible excuse for fiction--not everything real translates into the fictional world.
Neil wrote: "I thought the uncle numbering was a family thing not specifically Kimia and I have been reading it as a sign of family intimacy"If that's the case, it's an interesting dichotomy. Because the family certainly has intimacy but it's also a very distant family.
The father's relationship with his daughters, Kimia's separate-ness/other-ness, the second uncle's unspoken identity, the banished uncle. This kind of family isn't unique to this story or this culture. Families everywhere appear to be close knit from the outside, but from the inside they're filled with secrets and lies they tell themselves to preserve "the family."
I did not find the numbering of the uncles odd or cold.It seems to fit with their culture where the gender and/or the inheritance rules are important and often inflexible.
For the uncles that played a part of their lives, at times the first name was used.
It seems that when a family member was introduced and their history was given - birth order was given. Nour the mother of the uncles was the thirtieth child and a twin. I am sure it was a badge of honor to have given birth to six sons.
Bretnie wrote: "Neil wrote: "I thought the uncle numbering was a family thing not specifically Kimia and I have been reading it as a sign of family intimacy"If that's the case, it's an interesting dichotomy. Bec..."
I agree - the family seemed typical across cultures.
This family also had to contend with their differing political affiliations in the volatile environment.
Beverly wrote: "It seems to fit with their culture where the gender and/or the inheritance rules are important and often inflexible...."Beverly that's a super good point. thanks. I feel the need to cross-examine my emotions one by one when it comes to this novel. Just because it wasn't an easy fit for me (and indeed irked me in some surprising ways) doesn't mean it doesn't have a lot to say to me. Probably the opposite is true.
I wonder if I should not have used the word “intimacy”.There is something about this family and I do not know if it is a deliberate reflection of something cultural by the author or if it is specific to this family (which may, as others have suggested, be autobiographical in some way).
There seem to be some strong family bonds where everyone conforms to expectations. Those that don’t conform (e.g. Uncle Number Two and Abbas) are pushed to the outside. Kimia is our narrator and is one of the non-conformers so this gives us a strange perspective on family life.
It feels to me as though there is more loyalty than there is love. But who am I to say that because I come to the book with a very narrow experience of what “family” means? I find the relationship between Darius and Sara fascinating because it feels very different to the other relationships surrounding them.
The family dynamics were hard for me to parse because there are some tonal choices the author makes that for me felt like misdirection, quite apart from any unfamiliarity I have with the culture. We're first introduced to the family in a mythic way, plunged into harems and hidden babies and female jealousies etc. in a hyper-exaggerated, near-comic style that reminded me of the writing in Midnight's Children. Similar to what some critics, I believe, call "hysterical realism." It was entertaining but on the other hand it led me to question how seriously I was meant to take almost every scene about the family that followed.
I thought the narrator's voice was pretty well realized, and that it was intended to be quirky, amusing, different. Her physical image goes along with this. Ultimately, it's a serious story, but that doesn't mean we can't have some fun along the way.
I thought the B side, even though it was still scattered, finally brought the story closer to Kimia. Connecting the doctor appointment segments to how she got there, finally hearing about "the event," getting the story of their leaving Iran. "The event" ended up feeling a little anti-climatic, but it was interesting that it didn't happen until the three sisters were in adulthood and how they all reacted to it.
I have to say, I really did like this book. I took it out last year for I believe a NLF read, but put it off for more "interesting" reads, so I had little hope that I would enjoy it this time. I was delightfully surprised. Some of the problems that others here had were pluses for me. I loved the meandering stories and fleshing out of relationships and history over chapters, and then sides. It did remind me of the difference in the way Persian sentence structure varies from English. I've found that you can recognize a culture from the structure of its writers' sentences. In this case, the beautiful indirection reveals a flowing and more total picture of an event or image than a straight forward direct method. Side A and B worked well for me. It created a fuller scope of the issues presented, and a different perspective on the narrator's struggle. I enjoyed the digressions and the way the whole story unfolded. I thought it was a very immediate way to experience the narrator's culture intimately and the ramifications of "disorienting" from that. It was rich with stories and personality, written in a flowing track that refolds on itself, much like how the Persian language is structured; it was very interesting and beautiful, plus very direct and positive in the final statement.
Marilyn wrote: "I thought it was a very immediate way to experience the narrator's culture intimately and the ramifications of "disorienting" from that."Excellent observation Marilyn!
Thanks Marilyn. I think the timing was off for me. It's on my "I need to read this again" pile.
Marilyn wrote: "I have to say, I really did like this book. I took it out last year for I believe a NLF read, but put it off for more "interesting" reads, so I had little hope that I would enjoy it this time. I wa..."Marilyn -
I enjoyed your comments and like the explanation regarding how telling/writing stories are cultural.
I am always in awe of translators and the job they have to.
As I think about this book and read the comments/reviews, I appreciate more the Side A/Side B approaches to the story.One of the thoughts that keep coming back to me is Kimia and her being able to be herself. I understand about her missing home and the cultural identity to that comes with that. But her family knew she was not going to be happy with fitting in with the expectations that Iranian society to have for her. Her family would love her but living in Iran would have to conform and at least live a secret life.
In France, despite the discrimination she left as an immigrant/refugee, Kimia was able to pursue a lifestyle that she wanted.
Beverly wrote: "As I think about this book and read the comments/reviews, I appreciate more the Side A/Side B approaches to the story.One of the thoughts that keep coming back to me is Kimia and her being able t..."
That's a good point Beverly! What an identity struggle to both understand who you are and find a place where you can be that person.
21st Century Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
Disoriental (other topics)Disoriental (other topics)
Everything Here Is Beautiful (other topics)
America Is Not the Heart (other topics)
Refuge (other topics)
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I'll also make a thread for general non-spoilery general information, in keeping with a fine tradition here in 21st Century Lit.
Question: Who would like threads to read along, with a schedule of chapters to read? I"m happy to set one up. I find this book is confusing, structurally, and it might be well worth our time to break the structure down and read together and see how it works.