2022 RofC longlist - Five Days Untold

[Hugh, Active moderator]

Five Days Untold by Badr Ahmed tr. Christiaan James (Dar Arab)

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I think I may as of now be the only person to have reviewed this - definitely on Goodreads although not found any reviews elsewhere

This video will give an intro to the book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eye1b...

[Paul]

This one I had to assemble myself:

Dar Arab was founded in London in 2017 where its publisher Nasser Al-Badri, a poet and television producer, relocated after being arrested and detained in Oman (http://anhri.net/?p=157068&lang=en). It started out publishing Arabic books, and the house has a particular interest in “unexplored topics that will educate, open hard conversations and challenge /change perceptions.” In 2021 it brought out its first translations into English.

[Paul]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I think I may as of now be the only person to have reviewed this - definitely on Goodreads although not found any reviews elsewhere

This video will give an intro to the book

https://www.youtube.c..."

Well you are definitely the first person on Goodreads as I added it so you could review it! I've seen brief Twitter "reviews" on Goodreads e.g. Ronan Hessionof Panenka fame - although "I've already enjoyed the excellent Five Days Untold" isn't quite at your level of erudition.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

Yes I think he completely fluffed his shot their (appropriately).

[Paul]

Incidentally this is the original book خمسة أيام لم يسمع بها أحد

Interesting cover



I am trying to link the two but the different author names (i.e. the anglicised version here) aren't helping

[Paul]

Google translates the original title as "five days no one has heard of" which is a slightly different slant than I'd taken from the title, as the Untold to me had a flavour of unrecounted (the title of course of a Sebald book)

[WndyJW]

I love the Arab cover!

[Paul]

Interesting book in terms of the insight into (a fictionalised version of) the Yemeni civil war, although in literary terms told in relatively simple prose.

I liked the way the Five Days aren't just the time over which the book is set, but also figure in the origin story of the secret policeman character (the baddie) and, with a bit of a stretch, in the origin story of the main character (a goodie but definitely not a hero) and his siblings.

[Paul]

My copy from the publisher's distributor arrived today.

[Paul]

My review of this one included the detail I added below "Dar Arab was founded in London in 2017 where its publisher Nasser Al-Badri, a poet and television producer, relocated after being arrested and detained in Oman"

Just got a DM on Twitter from the publisher saying "Thanks for bringing back some old memories!" (he did add a smiley)

[WndyJW]

It looks like Dar Arab doesn’t yet have a website.

[WndyJW]

I’m worried this will be difficult to get a copy of (grammar mistakes do not count as errors!) I ordered it from Blackwells on Feb 17, got the email that order was received, but I haven’t been billed and it hasn’t shipped. It could be a Blackwells issue so I emailed them.

[Paul]

The English website should go live in next couple of weeks.

[Neil]

I am finding this one difficult to read given the situation in Ukraine. And also because I find the writing style a bit odd and not really to my taste (not sure whether this is the translation or the original). I find myself looking for things to criticise which is not a good sign.

[Neil]

OK - I've finished this one now. I really disliked it. For all kinds of reasons.

[David]

This is the only one I haven't received yet. I do like sour beers so I'm keeping an open mind.

[Paul]

I am surprised you disliked it so much. But I am not convinced by the writing style either. I do think it is worth a place on the longlist as an interesting new press introducing us to literature from a new part of the world (Catalan authors I can name several - but Yemeni?). But I would not expect this to be on the shortlist.

[Neil]

David, he’s doing a different seasonal sour beer each month this year. January was Yuzu and was lovely. I will get a bottle of February’s Valentine-inspired “Chocolate and Rose” on Monday but apparently it has been selling really well in the pubs.

On the book, sometimes a book goes wrong for you in the first few pages. In this one I just didn’t take to the writing style. And then there’s the fact that I simply don’t like war books, so it was never going to recover. As I said In my review, I probably shouldn’t review this one really because it’s just not the kind of book I like.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

The translator is a diplomat and I wonder if that has lead to the translation which does not quite read right in English but I suspect is very close to the original in a word for word sense.

It is also a very difficult/harrowing book to read.

For me though the Ukraine invasion which has taken place after I read it has added to the value of the book. If I look at the BBC website or a UK paper today they are completely dominated by Ukraine - and yet the Yemeni civil war has had less coverage in aggregate over 8 years despite nearly 400,000 deaths and mass civilian casualties (with pretty clear Western involvement in supplying the arms used). I suspect a vast majority of people in the UK would not even know there is a civil war in Yemen.

[David]

For some languages, a word for word translation can help maintain the rhythm of the original. Sometimes that works, sometimes not. I felt like it didn't work in Planet of Clay, for example, which was originally in Arabic.

I don't suppose there's any chance your son distributes in the U.S., Neil?

[Neil]

David, sorry - no. You'll have to take a holiday in Wiltshire, UK.

The translation of this one felt odd to me. I started to take notice of it when I saw the phrase "aced out". I have never heard that phrase before and when I looked it up the dictionary definition was very different to the context it is used in here. Is it perhaps a US phrase?

[Neil]

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "The translator is a diplomat and I wonder if that has lead to the translation which does not quite read right in English but I suspect is very close to the original in a word for word sense.

It is..."

I can understand all of what you are saying, although I think the Ukraine situation had the opposite effect for me because I struggle to read books about war at the best of times but when the news is also full of a real war it all gets a bit too much for me. That said, the thing I didn't get on with in the book is primarily the language rather than the subject matter: it just didn't work for me.

[David]

I’ve never heard the expression “aced out.” I would guess it means something like “zeroed out.” It almost sounds more British than American to me.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I have heard it used more in the context of acing out of something by avoiding having to do something through luck - I would think of it as an American phrase.

But Dictionary.com has

1 Get the better of, defeat, as in Our team is bound to ace them out, or Those calculus problems aced me out again. [ Slang; mid-1900s] 2. Take advantage of or cheat someone, as in John thought they were trying to ace him out of his promised promotion.

Both of these last two seem to fit the use in the book although it certainly did read a little oddly (not least as I would think of it in the first context I describe).

[Neil]

I stand corrected. I read a couple of definitions that fit your understanding of the phrase but didn’t see the ones that are like dictionary.com.

[Lee]

Must be a phrase that has mostly fallen out of usage, I've never heard it either, but donning my Librarian hat, if I may... According to NTC's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions there's two ways you can use it:

1)To be fortunate or lucky. "I really aced out on that English test."
2)To win out over someone else. "Martha aced out Rebecca to win the race."

[Neil]

I think the “mid-1900s” in GY’s post is the key - it does sound like something someone would say in the 1950s.

And my bad on the definition. At that stage I was looking for reasons to turn against the book because I wasn’t enjoying it! I found a bit of evidence and didn’t follow through on it.

[Lee]

In fairness it does seem a bit odd that he would use an outdated American slang phrase as a translation choice (I say, not having yet received the book).

[Neil]

I will drop out of the conversation for now because I think my reaction is a very personal one and I don’t want to put others off reading the book which is probably very good if you like war stories.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I think your comments on the book are very fair Neil.

[WndyJW]

I’m about half way through this and like it, in spite of just reading what Naji Awad did to his wife!
After this I’m done reading for RofC until In the Dark arrives.

[WndyJW]

That was a tough read. I’m glad I read it, but wow, it was gruesome.
I need some time to write a review. It wasn’t bad until about half way, but then it became brutal.

[LindaJ^]

I've not looked at the shortlist, as I wanted to finish the last two books before doing so. I finished this one before the announcement but not the other, so I don't yet know what happened. As Paul said in his review, the atrocities told about in this book were "oddly numbing." I really disliked it most of the way through, but found the last three chapters somewhat redeeming. And, as GY says, and the nightly news (ok, daily news) supports, it is certainly apropos. My review -- https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...