Mohamed Latiff Mohamed

I know that this book is not immediately accessible because its form does not make for easy reading—a considerable amount of the novel is in stream of consciousness mode & also from a third person point of view. But the writing was often so beautiful. The protagonist, Pak Karman, is a former political detainee who mourns his wife to the point of madness, for 7 years. The grief for his wife is so severe that so many natural laws, it seems, are overturned. The flowers begin to converse with him, his wife’s voice comes from beyond the grave, he walks on his hands. The natural world around him debate about his sacrilegious grief that refuses to accept that his wife is no longer of the earth, arguing that their love transcends earthly love: “Droplets of rain were now speaking: ‘Love this pure cannot be separated by nature; there are no two different realms for a love so sacred.’”

He gets lost in internal philosophising about the nature of reality, existence and meaning. The book in fact begins during such a moment: “who is capable of destroying the train of one’s thoughts? I once placed the flesh of my thoughts on the surface of my wife’s lips, and once placed the pulse of my thoughts in the crevice of my wife’s thighs, she who is in the grave pit there, in the darkness, black and thick like ink. Sitting on the cold earth above my wife’s body, I now place my thoughts beside her.”

Often, he sees visions that seem like symbols, birds flying overhead in the direction of Mecca, doves. Or the grave site is suddenly filled with the scent of frangipani. His severe grief is only matched by his intense anger and scorn for the state of his community, as his mental state deteriorates, he intensifies his polemic, decrying their political, religious, and cultural apathy. It is up to you how you interpret what he says or whether you agree with him, but what is more interesting to me is why his grief for his dead wife runs parallel against this polemic. He is widowed of a wife, yes, but is he also widowed of something else? I don’t think his identity as a political detainee can be looked over in the novel at all. So glad this was translated. Please read.… (mehr)