Anna van Gelderen
Reader
The first page of this Somali novel made a huge impression on me: such beautiful, mysterious imagery, such rich poetic language! I knew right away that this was the work of a very talented poet. Unfortunately that is also the problem with this book, for Maps after all is not a poem but a 259 page novel. A poem consists of concentrated language, evoking rich images and complex associations. This will work for a couple of pages, but not for a complete novel - at least as far as I am concerned. Farah tries to put far too much into this book, which really could have been a great piece of fiction for Farah has interesting and important things to tell.
Maps is the story of the orphan Askar, whose father was killed in the independence struggle against the Ethiopians in the Ogaden and whose mother died while giving birth to him. Askar is lovingly raised by Misra, a lowly outsider of Ethiopian ethnicity. Their bond is so strong that little Askar sees himself as an extension of Misra's body; he calls Misra his cosmos. But when Askar is 7 the Ogaden War breaks out and he is sent to his aunt and uncle in Mogadishu, modern intellectuals without children who love Askar as though he was their own son. Then, 10 years later Misra unexpectedly turns up in Mogadishu and Askar hears rumours that upset him so severely that he becomes ill. So far the synopsis.
Throughout the book Askar struggles with identity, guilt, ethnicity and loyalty. The maps in this book stand for the conflict over his native Ogaden, which according to the official map is part of Ethiopia, but according to the Somalians part of their country. Askar's strugle is also expressed in the constantly changing narrative perspective. Each chapter switches in its use of the personal pronoun: Askar is variously "you", "he" and "I ". His dreams, which are described extensively and in detail, express the same confusion - at least I strongly suspect that is what they are meant to do, but I am not really sure, for the descriptions are so loaded with imagery and symbolism, that it is hard to tell exactly what the writer wants to convey with each dream.
This story is burdened with too many metaphors and too many heavily symbolic dreams. Moreover, the constant switching from 'you' to 'he' to 'I' and back again when talking of Askar does not really add anything, for it soon becomes merely gimmicky. The extremely frequent use of blood as a symbol comes across as obsessive. There are simply too many mutilating surgeries and loose body parts (also symbolically used), and what really annoyed me was how the writer makes a little boy (who is not even 8 years old) ponder deeply about existential matters such as ethnicity and the link between life and death. Take this conversation between little Askar and Misra for example. Askar says to Misra:
"I will kill you."
She stared at him in silence for a long time. "But why?"
"To live, I will have to kill you."
"Just like you say you killed your mother?"
"Just like I killed my mother -- to live." (p. 59)
I find it impossible to believe that a child of 7 would be able to think such thoughts, let alone articulate them.
The effect of Farah's stylistic overabundance in the end is merely to create a huge distance between the reader on the one hand and the characters and the events in the book on the other. Together with the too emphatic, too pervasive symbolism this turns Maps into such an impenetrable whole that nothing in it really touched me and that finishing the book became - in spite of all its merits - something of a chore.
Maps is the story of the orphan Askar, whose father was killed in the independence struggle against the Ethiopians in the Ogaden and whose mother died while giving birth to him. Askar is lovingly raised by Misra, a lowly outsider of Ethiopian ethnicity. Their bond is so strong that little Askar sees himself as an extension of Misra's body; he calls Misra his cosmos. But when Askar is 7 the Ogaden War breaks out and he is sent to his aunt and uncle in Mogadishu, modern intellectuals without children who love Askar as though he was their own son. Then, 10 years later Misra unexpectedly turns up in Mogadishu and Askar hears rumours that upset him so severely that he becomes ill. So far the synopsis.
Throughout the book Askar struggles with identity, guilt, ethnicity and loyalty. The maps in this book stand for the conflict over his native Ogaden, which according to the official map is part of Ethiopia, but according to the Somalians part of their country. Askar's strugle is also expressed in the constantly changing narrative perspective. Each chapter switches in its use of the personal pronoun: Askar is variously "you", "he" and "I ". His dreams, which are described extensively and in detail, express the same confusion - at least I strongly suspect that is what they are meant to do, but I am not really sure, for the descriptions are so loaded with imagery and symbolism, that it is hard to tell exactly what the writer wants to convey with each dream.
This story is burdened with too many metaphors and too many heavily symbolic dreams. Moreover, the constant switching from 'you' to 'he' to 'I' and back again when talking of Askar does not really add anything, for it soon becomes merely gimmicky. The extremely frequent use of blood as a symbol comes across as obsessive. There are simply too many mutilating surgeries and loose body parts (also symbolically used), and what really annoyed me was how the writer makes a little boy (who is not even 8 years old) ponder deeply about existential matters such as ethnicity and the link between life and death. Take this conversation between little Askar and Misra for example. Askar says to Misra:
"I will kill you."
She stared at him in silence for a long time. "But why?"
"To live, I will have to kill you."
"Just like you say you killed your mother?"
"Just like I killed my mother -- to live." (p. 59)
I find it impossible to believe that a child of 7 would be able to think such thoughts, let alone articulate them.
The effect of Farah's stylistic overabundance in the end is merely to create a huge distance between the reader on the one hand and the characters and the events in the book on the other. Together with the too emphatic, too pervasive symbolism this turns Maps into such an impenetrable whole that nothing in it really touched me and that finishing the book became - in spite of all its merits - something of a chore.